Town Crier Articles

It’s time to run and walk in New Town in October!  

 

On Saturday, October 4, New Town hosts the Run for the Hills, sponsored by 501(c)(3) nonprofit Here for the Girls and the Colonial Road Runners. This event features a 1-mile route and a 5k route. Walkers and runners of all skill levels are welcome on both courses! Here's a link to the website  with full details. 

 

Volunteers will be pinking up New Town in support of this event! If you have pink ribbons or other decorations, please show your support by decorating your porches, yards and mailboxes. Volunteers will be decorating the two long fences in Charlotte Park and various other points to help mark the routes. If you would like to help decorate the neighborhood on October 3, please send an email to sommer3553@gmail.com.

 

         

 

Next, on Saturday, October 25, New Town embraces purple as it hosts the Walk to End Alzheimer’s, sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association and many local businesses. See the flyer below for registration details. Volunteers are also needed for this event! Please visit https://signup.com/go/dAgehoV to sign up to volunteer!

 

If you have purple ribbons or flowers from previous events, please show your support for the participants by decorating your porches, yards and mailboxes! Volunteers will again be decorating the long fences in Charlotte Park and other points along the way. If you would like to help decorate the neighborhood on October 24, please send an email to sommer3553@gmail.com.

 

Show your pink and purple colors to support these events!

The James City County Board of Supervisors is holding its public hearing to decide on the rezoning of Parcel C of the Eastern State Hospital surplus land on Tuesday, October 14, 2025 at 5:00 PM. Residents are invited to attend and speak on the development or to submit written comments (by mail, fax or email). The hearing will be in the Government Center Board Room, 101 Mounts Bay Road, Building F.

 

The meeting agenda will be available on the JCC website next week.

 

Prior to this hearing, Jamestown District Supervisor Jim Icenhour is holding an informational meeting about the Westwood Park project tomorrow evening, October 2nd at 7PM at Legacy Hall, 4301 New Town Avenue.

 

Background: Westwood Park is the 79.56 acres development by ABVA adjoining Charlotte Park in New Town and is proposed to build 172 units (82 single family and 90 multifamily homes) with its own parks, pool and amenities, and homeowners association. An additional 24,000 square feet of commercial space will be provided. Access to the new community would be via Discovery Park Boulevard. As currently depicted, Westwood Park will have no association with New Town. The impacts of the development on stormwater protection resources and traffic have been continuing concerns, and led the James City County Planning Commission to not recommend its rezoning approval in its April 2025 meeting. Since then the applicant, ABVA, has modified its plan to mitigate some of these issues. JCC Staff will report its evaluation of these additional changes to the Board of Supervisors. (See August Town Crier article.)

 

The Board of Supervisors must now decide whether or not to approve the rezoning of public use land to multi-use for this development.

 

 

 

It's just about time for New Town’s old-fashioned fun-filled, FREE Fall Festival in the Village Walk neighborhood on the corner of Casey and Settlers Market Boulevard.  

 

Fun for all ages - we promise. Invite your family and friends to join in. Who can resist some cider, popcorn and other goodies? As an added treat, there will be drawings for a large pumpkin and for gift certificates donated by the New Town Commercial Association.

 

Children’s activities, including shark toss and mummy wrapping, races, pie face showdown, a kid’s obstacle course and best of all, all participants win prizes. Adults can join the kids in pumpkin painting, playing croquet, cornhole and in the cake walk, of which there are four rounds, and the winners take home a large cookie cake.  

 

Remember, the Festival begins with a children’s Halloween “egg” hunt at 2:15 across the street from the main venue. So get there early!!

 

Come to participate or just share the good time, the kids’ joy and the music.

 

For those of us in Charlotte Park and Shirley Park with individual irrigation systems, I came across an interesting recommendation from the James City Service Authority (JCSA).

 

For whatever reason during July when we endured over 100 degrees for weeks, I did not adjust my irrigation, and the water bill hadn't increased. 

However, when I received the August bill, quite a bit more water was used, because the irrigation wasn't running properly following a power outage, despite the 9 Volt battery in our system to save settings. That's a lot of responsibility for a little 9 Volt battery. Another good reason to check your control panel for a low battery indicator, or to check your run schedules occasionally.

 

Anyway, battery and settings restored I did increase the run times a bit, hence more water.

 

Ok, here’s what JCSA recommended. When you submit your irrigation meter reading to HRUBS (which goes towards adjusting your sewer bill), jot down or note how many gallons used from month to month, this way, lest you forgot you adjusted your irrigation, you can determine whether there is a leak in your underground irrigation, or even with the home.

 

A bit late in the season now for sharing this tip, but starting next year, you might consider JCSA’s recommendation to perhaps catch a problem before it develops.

 

At any rate with aeration and overseeding now in progress, irrigation is key to the health of your lawn.

With slides and recorded bird calls, Paul Griswold succeeded in taking a rapt audience of New Town residents on a virtual walk through the Greensprings Interpretive Trail at the September 16 noontime talk.  

 

Upon retiring from Connecticut to New Town, Paul found a new passion, becoming a self-taught photographer and naturalist. Having grown up in an urban setting for most of his life if you said birds, he would say pigeons. His journey into the diversity of wildlife started in Williamsburg, where he began taking pictures of the birds and animals in New Town.  

 

Then he discovered the Greensprings, a landscape of wetlands, beaver ponds and forests. Often accompanied by his wife Lynn, he began walking the trails and boardwalks virtually every day, documenting what he saw and what he was learning about nature with his camera. Through observation and through research, Paul gained an intimate knowledge of the Trail’s wildlife and their habitats which he shared with his audience.

 

Paul began his talk by describing the preserve and discussing the history of Green Springs.  It is the site of an 1781 Revolutionary War battle as well as the site of Mainland Farm, which was founded in 1609 by the Royal Governor Sir William Berkeley and is the oldest continuously cultivated farm in America. Paul showed photos of a trampled circle in the farm’s wheat field, probably created by a group of sleeping deer, and of deer with their heads poking out of the wheat.

 

With fall nearly here, we see crews in the neighborhood aerating and overseeding. We all know about aeration right, opening up the soil with tiny openings to decrease compaction, reduce thatch in the lawn, and allow oxygen and nutrients into the lawn.

 

Wait. Thatch? Thatch is a build-up of living and dead grass and other organic material in the lawn. This can cause a variety of issues with seed germination and a healthy lawn in general, so sometimes you have to dethatch. Remove material. This often involves gentle raking and removal of excess material. You want to go lightly here, or you’ll create a whole other project.

 

Bottom line - if your lawn's failure to thrive is due to soil compaction, you will want to aerate it. If thick thatch is the problem, you will instead need to dethatch your lawn. Done together, you will want to dethatch first and then aerate.

October is a scary time of the year especially around Halloween, which is associated with black cats, vampires, flying witches and bats.  To many people bats have a bad reputation, evoking images of dark, scary caves and rabid blood-sucking creatures who spread rabies and other diseases. But is this really the case?

 

New Town resident and NTRA President Jack Espinal has long been intrigued by bats and has gained a deep understanding of one of the world’s most misunderstood creatures. Join us on Thursday, October 16 at the NTRA Meeting Room as he shares his expertise about the only flying mammal, which is critical to our environment and protects us from those pesky mosquitoes. And, please don’t worry; the talk will not be too scary. 

 

Place:  NTRA Meeting Room, 5118 Center St

 

Time:   Thursday Oct.16 at 12:00

At our August Noon time talk, residents met Scott Stevens who is the County Administrator for James City County. Many in the audience were already familiar with Scott not only because of his official position but because he and his wife, Monique, love sitting on their Center Street front porch chatting with neighbors and friends and warmly greeting dog walkers and others strolling past their home.  

Scott, who has been in his position for almost seven years, oversees the county's daily operations and departments while implementing, with the assistance of his staff, the policies and laws passed by the members of the Board of Supervisors, who are elected by county citizens.  

Friendly, modest but clearly well versed in all the intricacies of local government, Scott hails from North Carolina, where he studied civil engineering.   He then moved into public service and gained expertise in areas that might seem mundane but are critical to the success of every municipality including developing budgets, dealing with waste, stormwater, and public utilities and improving citizens’ lives through robust parks and recreation programs and effective transportation systems and much more.

 

Scott plays an important role in new development projects and described to attendees the status of the proposed JCC Government Center complex, which will consolidate all county offices, as well as the new Greater Williamsburg Sports and Event Center project, which is scheduled to open in July 2026. It will provide a massive indoor setting with a rolling turf system that will host sports tournaments and trade shows and is already booking events. Scott noted that the sports center is being funded through hotel taxes.  Residents were pleased to hear that it will include a large indoor playground and will be open to JCC residents.

 

 

New Towners were also keenly interested in Scott discussion of the two proposed new housing developments to be located on the Eastern Hospital grounds, which still need the Board of Supervisors approval. Westwood Park, the smaller one with 172 units, would be accessed through Discovery Park Boulevard. Scott observed that the county cannot absolutely stop future development but can try to mold it so that it is most beneficial to the community. He also noted that the Board of Supervisors will likely be discussing the Eastern State Hospital project at a public hearing on October 14 and encouraged New Towners to attend. For more information on the status of the developments see the August Town Crier article.

 

Scott fielded questions from the audience about these projects and other issues such as those associated with traffic in New Town. Multiple times he expressed his willingness to talk with residents about their concerns and shared his phone number, 757-253-6600. After the talk ended, several residents were already taking him up on his offer.

 

Our next  New Town Talk is Tuesday, September 16 at 12:00 at the NTRA Meeting Room when Paul Griswold will take us on a Walk Through Greensprings Nature Trail.

 

 

 

James City County has many wonderful parks and trails, but for those who love to get close to wildlife the hidden gem of these is the Greensprings Nature Trail.  This three-and-a-half-mile trail offers a landscape of wetlands that you can cross on wooden boardwalks, beaver ponds and forests. Amid this natural wonderland, you can easily hear the calls of birds and see turtles and deer.  Interpretative signs help you understand a bit about area’s flora and fauna and history. But there is so much more to see that most of us miss as we bike or stroll down the trail. 

 

Photographer and self-taught naturalist Paul Griswold, a New Town resident, walks the trail almost every day, often joined by his wife Lynn, as he immerses himself in the Greensprings environment, documenting what he sees and what he has learned about nature with his camera.

 

Please join us on Tuesday, September 16 at 12:00 at the NTRA Meeting Room where we can all virtually walk through Greensprings with Paul as he shares his amazing photographs and stories about life in the wetland and forest of our region.    

 

Feel free to bring a bag lunch and we will provide water and cookies.