Some 50-plus citizens–including Wintergreen Resort General Manager Jay Gamble and Nelson County Supervisor Ernie Reed–were in the audience at the town hall meeting held by Wintergreen's public safety chiefs on September 8 at Tuckahoe Clubhouse.
Wintergreen's public safety services are "incredibly expensive but they are a big part of what makes Wintergreen extraordinary," Wintergreen Property Owner Association Executive Director Jay Roberts told the audience.
In announcing the meeting Police Chief Dennis Russell and Fire & Rescue Chief Curtis Sheets had asked for questions from residents. The two men spent most of the 90-minute meeting responding to the questions. The result was a candid presentation on a wide range of topics, including:
• Happens when someone at Wintergreen calls 911 in an emergency? It depends, but the system works well. Cellphones are different than standard landlines, plus both the counties and Wintergreen take emergency 911, depending on a variety of factors. Two tips when making a 911 call work better were to always say "I'm at Wintergreen" on the call and also always provide your exact location, especially if your cellphone holds a non-Wintergreen address as the "home" location. It was stressed that Nelson County's 911 call center can and does dispatch both Fire & Rescue as well as Wintergreen Police.
• Over 500 Knox Boxes are in place at Wintergreen. The Knox Box system, which allows easier emergency access to homes, is sophisticated. Wintergreen's computer-aided response system informs first responders if the home has a Knox Box when the call is dispatched. There is an elaborate system that always tracks when and exactly who is accessing the Knox Box.
• There are now two openings within the police department. Russell said the level of professionalism had never been higher in the department thanks to Wintergreen being able to hire highly experienced recently retired officers.
• Wintergreen Fire & Rescue operations cover much more than Wintergreen with complicated management agreements that involve most of Nelson County's fire and rescue services as well. "State and federal grants give Wintergreen a lot of equipment we wouldn't have otherwise. We're able to qualify for those grants because of our relationships with Nelson County," Sheets noted.
• Fire and Rescue has had about 600 calls so far in Wintergreen, with the mountain and valley each having about half. About 35 percent of the calls fire and rescue makes are providing services elsewhere in the county.
• The Wintergreen Fire Department provides plenty of mutual aid backup but also depends on area fire departments to back them up as well. "It's equally beneficial. We cannot handle all the fire calls at Wintergreen alone," Sheets noted.
• The police track the number and kind of services they provide. So far this year the police managed a total of 114 "incidents" in the valley and 338 on the mountain. Why so many on the mountain? "Bears," explained Russell. The mountain gets about 150,000 visitors each winter. In the past, the police handled hundreds of reports of snowboard thefts every season. That number has dropped a great deal since the resort has added more video cameras. "And we're catching people," he noted.
• Phone scams are a concern for Russell, who said that one Wintergreen resident recently fell victim to a phone scam that cost them thousands of dollars. "If you get a call from some asking for money, hang up. It's a scam," the police chief said.
• There was a discussion about crosswalks and golf carts. The police chief noted that there are stop signs for the golf carts on the paths that cross the road.
• Volunteers at fire & rescue save property owners about $150,000 a year, said Sheets. "By the way, when you see fire and rescue at special events outside of Wintergreen, that's being paid for by the event promoter," he noted.
• Asked how the proposed Renaissance Ridge development might impact public safety, both Sheets and Russell thought it would be manageable, but "It's very hard to say," Russell explained. "It might increase call volume a bit." Both chiefs added that if the development provided the hoped-for affordable housing, it could be a positive in terms of attracting staff. Roberts noted that each unit in Renaissance Ridge, large and small, will be paying the same annual assessment.
• The fire department will visit a property on request to assess the landscaping in terms of mitigating the threat from wildfires. Sheets offered some tips, such as, "If you have a place where leaves and sticks are always gathering up, that is likely where the fire is going to be hitting your house first." He advised keeping evergreens away from the house as they are typically very flammable.
• There are some 3,300 participants in the Alert Wintergreen system now. Roberts noted that the system that can send text, email, and phone alerts is used for vital alerts, while WPOA's irregular email newsletters provide information on everything else the association needs to communicate to property owners.
• The police's five "smart" speed limit signs stationed throughout Wintergreen are smarter than many may realize. Russell outlined how the department uses the data from the signs that flash their miles per hour to drivers as they go by to enforce the posted speed limit. For example, while the equipment does not capture information on the vehicles it records, it does record the exact time, date, and speed. And not only does do they record the oncoming speed, but the speed of the vehicle as it moves away from the sign is also on record. Compiling this data can determine when and where the police can show up to meet chronic offenders face-to-face. "All of our officers are radar-certified," the police chief noted.
• One of the questions emailed in before the meeting asked for an update on the issue with 18-wheelers being stuck at the Reed Gap crossing of the Blue Ridge Parkway. While this is outside the jurisdiction of Wintergreen's public safety department, they offered up some good news, saying the number of 18-wheelers illegally using the road had dropped. While signage has been improved warning truckers away, the speakers at the meeting speculated that the primary reason for the reduced traffic from the big trucks was because the police had started writing summons to offenders.
• WPOA has offered the cell phone companies free real estate to build more towers to improve coverage, but had seen no interest. There are 13 towers within Wintergreen now.
• Roberts and Sheets said they believe that the mountain's 400-foot long, 12-foot wide emergency exit to the Blue Ridge Parkway would someday happen. A second exit off the mountain for emergencies has been sought for decades. Considerable progress had been made, but a green light from the federal government is still likely a year or more away.
