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FAUQUIER COUNTY, Va. - A Virginia middle school fundraiser ended early after parents said Make America Great Again hats led to a disruption. It happened earlier this week during hat day at Marshall Middle School in Fauquier County, when students were allowed to pay $1 for the right to wear a hat to school, parents said. According to a district spokesperson, “tensions between students caused the fundraiser to end early.” She wouldn’t confirm what caused the tension but did say all students were asked to remove their hats and no one was disciplined. Nevertheless, the issue exploded on Facebook, leading...

No historical evidence locates Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson on what is now Liberty Farm in Fauquier County, Virginia, on the evening of July 18, 1861, three days before the First Battle of Bull Run. So why would a prestigious state preservation group represent that as a fact? The current owner of the farm, Martha Boneta, has sued the Piedmont Environmental Council, a nonprofit land trust, accusing the organization of knowingly making a false historical claim when selling her the property. The environmental council, Boneta claims in the lawsuit, told her the celebrated Civil War general bivouacked on the open...

This is Part I of a three-part series about the past, on property rights in Virginia, centering around the Boneta Bill and abuses by localities of their zoning powers. A Gradation of Authorities Virginia counties and localities are political subdivisions of the state subject to the Dillon Rule, meaning their powers are derived from the state legislature. Article VII of the Virginia Constitution reads: “The General Assembly may provide by general law or special act that any county, city, town, or other unit of government may exercise any of its powers or perform any of its functions . . ....

Conservative critics of government are “freaks,” are “in for a pretty rough ride,” and “will need their Kevlar,” i.e., bullet-proof vests. These statements didn’t come from the Obama administration or some radical leftwing organization. They are Facebook posts of a Republican elected official in Virginia’s Fauquier County. Fauquier drew national attention in 2012 for charging farmer Martha Boneta with violating the law by having a birthday party for eight little girls without a permit and zoning site plan. The highly charged posts of county supervisor Holder Trumbo came shortly after two recent events, and are emblematic of the civil war...

Fauquier County is only about an hour from the nation’s capital but it feels like a different world— rolling hills dotted with vineyards, idyllic horse farms, and stifling regulations and ridiculous penalties meted out by capricious bureaucrats. Wait, what? Well, I guess it’s not that easy to get away from it all. Martha Boneta, who owns a small local farm, found that out the hard way when she was threatened with $5,000 in fines for not getting the proper permit to sell produce and host 10-year-old’s birthday party on her property. "Boneta already had a business license the county issued...

Why Is Fauquier County, Virginia, Waging War Against Small Farmers? Posted on | July 29, 2012 | 23 Comments and 24 Reactions Zoning is the closest thing to fascism most Americans will ever know, and it’s remarkable how local governments use zoning laws to limit the rights of the little guy while rewarding the wealthy and well-connected. Big developers who know how to work the system can almost always get whatever they want from zoning boards, while the small property owner is at the mercy of politicians and bureaucrats. Property rights of small farmers are under assault in Fauquier County,...

Fauquier County is working to get funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The latest information says that they're seeking a grant of $2 million with which to purchase foreclosed homes. They also acknowledge that they're more likely to get only $1 million. There are certainly still a fair number of foreclosed homes around. Out of the 75 homes sold in Fauquier last month, 28 of them were foreclosures. Out of those 28, 15 would fall into the price range (130K to 250K) that the county is looking at. But the number of foreclosures in the lower price ranges is shrinking...

Fauquier County supervisor Harry Atherton (I) had to be pressed hard to tell a few tales about his prep school days with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Kerry was a year ahead of Atherton at the tony St. Paul's School, in Concord, N.H. "He and I were not close," Atherton said yesterday, explaining that being a class apart was like being an ocean apart. Atherton remembers Kerry as being "a good athlete, a good student." He was "very transparently ambitious." Atherton said competition and ambition were not things you wore on your sleeve at a New England prep school in...

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