Maurer steps down: Saving Lake Arrowhead dams, winning new road funding highlights of her term

Rock Hill Supervisor Wendy Maurer will end her term with the Stafford County Board of Supervisors on December 31. She was first elected in 2015.

Maurer stepping away from politics and didn’t seek reelection to the Board for a second term because of her health. For the last 12 years, Maurer has been seeking treatment for a form of Leukemia called Myelofibrosis.

Maurer will be replaced as Crystal Vaunch, who was Maurer’s appointment to the county çounty’s Planning Commission. Vanuch and will step down from that position at the end of the year to take on her new role, and has already been sworn in as Rock Hill District Supervisor effective Jan. 1, 2020.

“It’s been truly an honor and an eye-opening experience serving the constituents of the Rock Hill District,” Maurer told Potomac Local. “I’m fully grateful for the opportunity to represent them and I look forward to Crystal [Vanunch] taking the reigns and continuing a posture of dogged preparedness and she’s wicked smart and she’s going to do a great job.”

On her successes during her time as supervisor, Maurer said, “I would say finding a solution for the Lake Arrowhead Dams, when I came into this the state was literally ready to go in and dismantle the dams leaving that community in, quite frankly, devastation.”

The subdivision in the northwestern section of the county had a homeowners association that dissolved in 2004. The dams fell out of compliance with state code and were showing signs of stress that could have caused at least one of the two dams that hold back the lakes in the neighborhood to fail.

“And so I was able to go ‘wait a minute, new supervisor, give me a few moments’ and we found some solutions in order to preserve the dams and preserve the lakes without costing everyone in Stafford County. They pay for their own dam maintenance similar to what we’re doing in Hidden Lake, so that’s one of them.

She also focused on finding funds for road improvements.

“I’m very proud of the money I got for Smart Scale for the Mountain View intersection, that one has been incredibly dangerous for years and just the way we’re doing our finances, we’re doing a five-year financial plan so money and accounting are what I’ve always been passionate about. It’s not one of the sexy topics but it’s one that’s going to preserve and protect this county for generations to come,” said Maurer.

On any regrets:

“The one regret that I have is that I didn’t do this job in retirement and so I had to bifurcate my time between this particular job and my full-time job as Chief Operating Officer for a defense contracting company and that presented its own level of challenges.

On life after being on the board:

“I’m going to continue supporting G Cubed Enterprises [in Stafford County] which is where I’m serving as CFO, and through G Cubed we have a non-profit arm in which I’ll remain engaged within the community. We currently provide mentorship programs in ten of our elementary schools in Stafford County, we’re very much focused on cyber-education and ensuring that kids are prepared for the dearth of cyber-educated and trained, and certified, certification is important, people we’re going to need in the future and that is where I’m going to focus a lot of my energy and attention because I truly believe in preserving and protecting and defending this nation.

Final Words:

“I want to thank everybody, I want to thank my board members, my constituents, I want to thank my family because this has truly been a labor of love and my family has been truly supportive of my service to Stafford County.”