Staunton City Council sits down tonight to vote on the Staunton 2045 Comprehensive Plan, the document that will steer the city’s zoning and capital spending for the next two decades, and the same meeting brings a first public conversation about reimagining the historic Booker T. Washington Community Center.
Over in Waynesboro, Westwood Hills Elementary sits empty for a second straight week, and Waynesboro Public Schools still won’t say when the building reopens after the September 2 shooting that killed a former student and wounded a staff member. A hoax threat traced to a man in Harrisonburg forced police to spend Labor Day weekend running down a false alarm, and a growing chorus of teachers and parents is now asking whether the district’s leadership can steer the system through what comes next.
A Staunton woman faces multiple charges after a Friday morning crash into power lines on Richmond Avenue, and a new advocacy group has organized to fight Northrop Grumman’s planned Waynesboro plant over the state’s decision to waive independent air and water testing near the city’s main water source.
Lead Stories
Staunton Votes Tonight on Its Next Twenty Years
City Council sits down tonight for a work session and regular meeting that will shape Staunton in ways most residents won’t notice for years, starting with a public hearing and vote on the Staunton 2045 Comprehensive Plan, according to the meeting agenda.
A comprehensive plan sounds like the kind of document only a planner could love, but it functions as the city’s legislative to-do list, guiding land use regulations, capital investments, and programs across the next twenty years.
Staunton’s current plan runs through 2040, and state law requires a review every five years, which is what set this update in motion. The plan touches land use, housing, transportation, environmental quality, economic development, and community facilities, according to the city’s planning page. It sets the rules the city will use to decide what gets built where, and what gets funded first.
The path to tonight’s vote has been quiet, almost strangely so for a document that will shape the city for two decades. The Planning Commission held its public hearing on August 20, and not a single resident showed up to speak, WHSV reported at the time. Long-range planner Meggie Taylor chalked the silence up to a long runway of earlier outreach, surveys, and steering committee work rather than public indifference, and City Council’s own hearing tonight will test whether that read holds. Staunton spent more than two years building this plan, running open houses, an online engagement platform, and a citizen steering committee that sifted through the city’s assets and challenges neighborhood by neighborhood. Whether that groundwork translates into a packed council chamber tonight, or another quiet room, says something about how residents feel about a process that has mostly happened behind the scenes. If Council adopts the plan as expected, Staunton locks in its zoning and spending priorities through 2045, a milestone worth marking, packed chamber or not.
The same evening carries a second story that has nothing to do with zoning maps. During the 5 p.m. work session, Avi Hopkins of The Spark Mill will present a community engagement strategy for reimagining the Booker T. Washington Community Center, the Art Deco building at 1114 West Johnson Street that served as the only high school for Black students in the Staunton area for thirty years, from 1936 to 1966, and as one of the few gathering spaces for Black organizations before public facilities integrated, according to its National Register of Historic Places listing. The building went on to house the Staunton Police Department from 1967 to 1986 before becoming a community center, and it has carried a National Register designation since 2014. An alumni association has pushed its own renovation effort in recent years, seeking grant funding to expand the building’s museum space, build out educational programming, and add paid staff to a site currently run largely by volunteers.
Tonight’s work session doesn’t decide any of that outright. It opens a city-facilitated conversation about how to gather public input on the center’s future, a process that will likely run for months before any renovation plan takes shape.
A comprehensive plan doesn’t rezone a single parcel by itself, but it sets the frame every future zoning decision, capital budget, and grant application gets measured against. It’s the same kind of document that let the city chase the flood preparedness funding tied to last month’s Flood Resilience Plan, and the same kind of long-range thinking behind projects like the Beverley Street and Johnson Street intersection redesign still moving through VDOT review. Adopt the 2045 plan tonight, and Staunton effectively locks in its answer to questions like where new housing gets built, which corridors get walkability investment, and which neighborhoods see infrastructure dollars first, for the next twenty years of city budgets.
Rounding out the night, Council will also consider a resolution setting a 33 percent personal property tax relief rate, a proclamation for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, a public hearing on adding two Middlebrook Avenue parcels to the city’s Agricultural-Forestal District at the request of property owner Thomas W. Bowen, and a closed session for legal advice on stormwater matters, tied loosely to the flood resilience work Council adopted just two weeks ago. None of those items carries the weight of the comprehensive plan vote or the Booker T. Washington conversation, but together they make for one of the fuller council nights Staunton has had in months.
Empty School, Open Question
Westwood Hills Elementary School did not reopen this week, and Waynesboro Public Schools still has not set a date for students and staff to return. The closure traces back to September 2, when 19-year-old former student Anthony Ignatiadis-Isabelle forced his way into the building and shot through a locked classroom door, wounding a staff member before turning the gun on himself. The building has sat empty ever since, and the silence around a reopening date has become its own kind of story this week. The district told families in a Facebook post that it was “not yet ready” to announce a timeline, according to Augusta Free Press. By Wednesday, the closure had stretched into an open-ended one, with the district saying only that officials were consulting local, state, and national partners before bringing students back into the building, per Rocktown Now. Families and staff have been told to watch the school website and check email for updates, and nothing posted this week has moved that guidance forward.
The division held what it called “A Day of Support, Connection, and Care” for staff, pairing employees with licensed mental health professionals from the Valley Community Services Board, Victims Crisis Assistance Response, and a regional crisis network assembled for exactly this kind of week. Parents, meanwhile, have pressed administrators for meetings covering everything from building security upgrades to how the district plans to talk with returning students about what happened. Those conversations are happening in pieces, through emails and small gatherings, rather than through any single public forum, which has left some families feeling like they’re getting information a step behind everyone else.
Then came Labor Day weekend, and with it a second scare.
Waynesboro Police learned overnight Saturday, from a tip that originated out of state, that someone had threatened Westwood Hills for the following Tuesday.
Officers spent the weekend tracing the threat with help from the Harrisonburg Police Department and eventually located its source: a man in Harrisonburg. The department issued a public notification Monday evening as the investigation continued. Investigators determined the threat was false, and the school had already been scheduled to stay closed that Tuesday regardless of what anyone had threatened. Charges are expected against the man who made it.
Augusta Free Press columnist Chris Graham put it plainly in his write-up of the episode: a threat is a threat, whether it’s a hoax or not, and the consequences should follow either way. For a community already on edge, a weekend spent chasing down a false alarm did little to settle anyone’s nerves.
The closure and the false alarm have landed on top of a leadership question the district was already facing before any of this happened. Superintendent Jeffrey Cassell announced his retirement effective December 31, and the early front-runner to replace him is Assistant Superintendent Ryan Barber, a longtime member of the current administration. That prospect has drawn sharp pushback from teachers according to the Augusta Free Press, describing a central office culture built on a “do more with less” mentality, a fear of retaliation for raising concerns, and turnover so steep that the district hired more than 90 new employees this year alone, according to the Free Press' reporting. The numbers back up some of the frustration: two Waynesboro schools carry the state’s “Needs Intensive Support” rating and four more are flagged “Off Track” by the Virginia Department of Education, and that’s happening in a division that spends about 15.6 percent more per student than neighboring Augusta County. One teacher told the outlet that promoting from inside the current administration would trigger a mass exodus of staff, a warning that carries extra weight in a week when the district is already asking everyone, staff included, to hold steady.
New Group Squares Off With Northrop Grumman Over Air Permit
A new advocacy coalition calling itself the Valley Environmental Justice Alliance announced this week that it is organizing to fight Northrop Grumman’s planned $200 million manufacturing facility in Waynesboro, arguing the state has left residents with no way to independently verify what the plant will put into the air and water. The group’s central complaint traces back to August, when the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality denied requests that Northrop Grumman submit to mandatory third-party air and water monitoring as a condition of its permit, citing state regulations that don’t require it, according to Augusta Free Press. For the alliance, that ruling amounted to the state taking the company’s own word for what will come out of its stacks and drains, with no outside check built into the permit itself.
The numbers driving the group’s concern are specific. The facility’s permit application allows for up to 24.9 tons of hazardous air pollutants released annually, and the site sits less than a mile from Coyner Springs, which supplies Waynesboro’s drinking water. The alliance points to a roughly 145-acre dog park and recreation area nearby, along with Shenandoah National Park downwind, as places that stand to absorb whatever the prevailing winds carry off the property. Those winds, the group argues, don’t stop at a property line, and neither should the accountability for what leaves the plant. The organizers haven’t disclosed a full roster of founding members, but their public materials frame the fight as one for the whole valley rather than for Waynesboro alone, a framing meant to pull in Staunton and Augusta County residents who live downwind of the same prevailing weather patterns.
Waynesboro City Council approved the project back in 2023 with an $8.5 million package of tax incentives attached, well before this summer’s permit fight became public and years before this new group had a name. The deal promised jobs and investment in a city that has spent years working to diversify an economy still shaped by its manufacturing past, and nobody involved in the alliance’s organizing has said they want the plant scrapped outright. Their fight is narrower than that: they want the monitoring and accountability measures that they say should have been attached to the deal from the start. A July public hearing on the DEQ permit drew organized opposition, and the department’s August response, rejecting the independent testing requirement, appears to be what pushed a loose network of concerned residents into a formal group with a name and a written set of demands.
Those demands are aimed squarely at Waynesboro’s elected leaders rather than at the state regulator that actually controls the permit. The alliance wants City Council to lay out a concrete environmental protection plan, spell out how it will safeguard community health once the plant is operating, and commit to accountability for soil and waterway conditions that will outlast Northrop Grumman’s 15-year lease on the property.
It’s a demand for the kind of long-term guarantee that tax incentive packages rarely include, and it puts the city in the position of defending a deal it struck three years ago against a coalition that didn’t exist when the ink dried. Neither Northrop Grumman nor City Council had issued a public response to the alliance’s demands as of this week.
Nothing about the DEQ permit’s status changed this week. There’s still no scheduled date for a second public hearing, and the department’s position on independent monitoring hasn’t moved. What has changed is that the opposition now has a name, a specific set of asks, and, judging by the tone of its announcement, no plans to let the issue drop quietly. Whether that pressure translates into a change at the state or city level is the question worth watching heading into fall.
Quick Hits
A Staunton woman faces DUI and related charges after crashing into power lines on the 500 block of Richmond Avenue early Friday morning. Savannah Clifton, 20, was arrested at the scene around 1:15 a.m. and charged with DUI, refusal to submit to testing, driving on a suspended license, operating an uninsured vehicle, and underage possession of marijuana, according to WHSV. No one was hurt. Dominion Energy crews closed Richmond Avenue between Statler Boulevard and Greenville Avenue for repairs and reopened the road by 12:50 p.m.
Environmental Programs Administrator Willow Hughes offered the clearest public explanation yet of why the city’s newly adopted Flood Resilience Plan matters beyond the vote itself, telling the city the framework lets Staunton build proactively rather than simply reacting after the next storm hits the Wharf’s aging drainage system.
Staunton author Anika Horn, formerly of the Shenandoah Community Capital Fund, launches her new book on building local entrepreneurial ecosystems next Tuesday, September 15, at 6:30 p.m. at the Staunton Innovation Hub on North Augusta Street. The event pairs a panel discussion, featuring entrepreneur Aili Huber among others, with food and hands-on activities. Tickets run $5 to $25 through stauntonbooks.com.
Out & About
Thursday, September 10
Fall Homeschool Days. The Frontier Culture Museum runs hands-on historical activities for kids, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Visulite Cinemas. The downtown theater runs its regular film slate through the evening.
Pottery Wheel for Beginners. Staunton Clayground holds a beginner pottery wheel class at 6 p.m.
Thursday Trivia. Baja Staunton hosts its weekly trivia night with Dexter at 7 p.m.
Friday, September 11
Fall Homeschool Days. The Frontier Culture Museum’s homeschool programming wraps up for the week.
Historic and Architectural Tour. The Historic Staunton Foundation runs a downtown walking tour at 11 a.m.
Dahlias and Desserts. Harmony Harvest Farm hosts a pick-your-own flower event at 6 p.m.
Shop and Dine Out. Downtown restaurants and retailers extend their hours to 11 p.m., the first of two nights this week.
Saturday, September 12
Household Hazardous Waste Day. The Waynesboro Facilities Shop takes paint, solvents, and other materials that don’t belong in curbside trash, 8:30 a.m. to noon.
Gypsy Express. Mini-train rides run at Gypsy Hill Park, 1 to 5 p.m.
Free Guided Walking Tour. The Historic Staunton Foundation leads another downtown tour, 10 a.m. to noon.
Shop and Dine Out. Extended downtown hours continue for a second night.
Sunday, September 13
Gypsy Express. Mini-train rides keep running at Gypsy Hill Park, 1 to 5 p.m., closing out a busy weekend downtown before the week resets.
Shop and Dine Out, in brief. The downtown promotion ran extended restaurant and retail hours through 11 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday this week, and organizers expect it to continue through mid-September.
River Watch
The South River near Waynesboro has been running in its typical late-summer range, though USGS flagged scheduled maintenance beginning September 10 that may affect the delivery of the latest readings at Station 01626000. Anyone planning to wade, fish, or float should check the USGS live dashboard the morning of any outing rather than relying on a figure printed here, since levels can shift fast after regional rain and the maintenance window adds an extra reason to double-check before heading out.
The Sneeze Index
Air quality in Staunton read Good on Thursday morning, with an AQI of 38 and PM2.5, at 6.9 micrograms per cubic meter, as the main pollutant, according to IQAir’s live station data. Tree pollen has all but disappeared this week, grass is running Low, but weed pollen is High, so ragweed sufferers should plan accordingly before spending long stretches outdoors at any of this weekend’s events.
The Weekly Pump
Virginia’s average price for regular gas hit $4.10 a gallon this week, according to AAA data, up from $3.81 a month ago and a full dollar higher than the $3.02 average from this time last year. Premium is running $4.96 a gallon statewide, and diesel has climbed to $5.96, both up sharply from a year ago as well. Drivers filling up before this weekend’s events should expect to pay more than they did over the summer.
Real Estate Watch
Staunton’s median home sale price reached $324,837 over the most recent three-month period, up 12 percent from a year earlier, according to Redfin. Homes are spending an average of 9 days on the market, one day longer than the same period last year, but still a pace that favors sellers. Anyone actively buying or selling should talk with a local agent with direct MLS access, since these aggregate figures lag what’s actually happening street to street.
Who’s Hiring
Production Operator, The Hershey Company, Stuarts Draft, starting at $26.88 an hour. Listed on Indeed.
Administrative Assistant, University of Virginia, Staunton, paying $17.65 to $28.40 an hour. Listed on Indeed.
General Warehouse Worker, Best Buy, Staunton, paying $22.50 to $26.85 an hour. Listed on Indeed.
Line Assembler, second shift, Daikin Applied, Staunton, paying $26.24 an hour. Listed on Indeed.
Assistant Transit Operations Manager, Resource Management Systems Inc., Staunton, paying $35.00 to $38.50 an hour. Listed on Indeed.
Salary figures above are listed only when explicitly stated by the employer. Full listings and current openings can be found on Indeed and through the city and schools’ shared jobs portal.
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