Since President Joe Biden announced that he will no longer be seeking a second presidential term on Sunday (July 21) and Vice President Kamala Harris’ announced she’s running for president, elected officials across Northern Virginia have made statements and shared their thoughts on social media.
Prince William Board of County Supervisor Kenny Boddye (Occoquan)
Prince William County Schools is expanding the Community Eligibility Provision from 44 schools to 68 for the 2024-2025 school year.
The CEP program is a meal service option for schools and districts in low-income areas and offers free breakfast and lunch. The program also does not require a household application from a parent or guardian to enroll in the program; instead, schools are reimbursed.
Prince William County sold out the first event of their Fatherhood Initiative relaunch this weekend following a pause from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Prince William County Department of Social Services aims to relaunch this initiative to “help fathers more effectively engage with their children.”
The Board of County Supervisors awarded a contract to Verizon to expand high-speed internet access throughout the county in an effort to reduce the percentage of county residents without it. According to a county press release, the goal is to reduce the number of residents without access to less than 1.5%.
A National Institute of Health study shows that between 2018 and 2022, 96% of Prince William County residents had high-speed access; in comparison to counties in the Northern Virginia region, Prince William ranks among Fairfax City and Fairfax County (96%), Falls Church City (97%), Loudon County (96%) and Manassas City (96%).
“Guests will take part in a mock trial where we take court cases from the 1800s and we give everyone different roles,” Paige Gibbons Backus, historic site manager at Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre & Lucasville School, said in a press release. “They go through the court case, hear the evidence and then decide if someone is innocent or guilty and we tell them if they changed history or not.”
The jail was built in tandem with the Brentsville Courthouse in the 1820s and served as the “center of law and order” for the county until 1893, the release stated. The county seat moved to Manassas, so the jail transitioned to a women’s dorm for the teacher’s college in the defunct courthouse. It was then renovated to become a private residence then the county park authority’s jail space.
Prince William County was named one of the top digital counties in the nation by the Center for Digital Government and the National Association of Counties.
The county received third place in the annual Digital Counties Survey in the 250,000-499,999 population category. This is the fourth consecutive year the county has placed in the top 10 in this category. Prince William was beaten out by Chesterfield County, Va., in first place and Cumberland County, N.C., in second. In 2023, Prince William won first place in this category.
Happy Monday, Prince William County!
Welcome to my series of Board of County Supervisors previews, where I preview each Prince William County Board of Supervisors meeting so you know what’s going on, what to listen for, and how to talk about it later.
