EDINBURG NEWSLETTER      

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Plus a little year-end wrap up for 2024.

If you are like me, you hate to see the Christmas Lights go away each year. You might have noticed that some of the other towns are now wrapping light poles with lights; it looks like we started something. There isn’t anything like driving into our town from any one of the three main entrances at Christmas time.  And once again The Town Maintenance Department is to be applauded for their hard work with our holiday lights, veterans’ banners and other decorations. We also owe a special thank you to Dominion Energy for their help with the large Christmas Tree. We rely on them for any work on the big tree because of the high voltage lines that run along in front of the tree; only they are permitted to use a bucket truck near these wires.

It was a cold and windy night for our Parade, Tree Lighting and Children’s Christmas Party this year. We truly appreciated everyone that braved the weather and attended. Steve Wood and his helpers did their normal great job organizing the Parade again. It was disappointing that the High School Band wasn’t on hand for Christmas Carols at the Tree Lighting; although, it did allow me to make it short and sweet so that folks could head to the Fire Hall for the Children’s Party and to warm up. The Fire Hall was full and everyone appeared to have a great time.

We also had one of our other Christmas traditions with the Mt. Jackson/Edinburg Rotary helping us with the Outdoor Christmas Decoration judging again this year. Every year it appears that more residents decorate and it was great to see so many homes and businesses shining brightly for the holidays. You probably have already heard this year’s winners, but just in case, the winners were: Traditional Residential, 1^st place, Chris and Kym Chapman, 212 Princess Caroline Ct. 2^nd place Wilma Windle, 220 S. Main St. Award for Contemporary Residential- Donnell Smith, 202 Princess Caroline Ct.  Business winners were: Edinburg Insurance, 127 S. Main St. and second place went to the VFW Post 2447, 100 Veterans Way.  The “Griswold Award” went to Pamela Anderson, 111 S. Whissen St.

We started something new this year with Gift Certificates being given to all of the winners. These can be redeemed at the Museum/Visitor Center Gift Shop located in the Edinburg Mill. If you have been to the shop, you know it isn’t your typical museum gift shop. If you haven’t stopped in; please do, we think you will be pleasantly surprised.

There were so many other wonderfully decorated homes and businesses throughout the Town this year that I know the Judges struggled when making their choices. Hopefully you got to ride around and enjoy them all.

As you already know, 2024 was the first year that Edinburg’s Cedarwood Cemetery took part in Wreaths across America program. I’m happy to report that everything went smoothly with an incredible amount of people coming out to assist with the placement of the 270 plus wreaths on December 14th. We had scheduled from Noon until 3:45 for putting out the wreaths and ended up being finished around 1:00. Thank you to everyone that came out to assist with this, it was truly appreciated. We hope to see you all again next December to honor our veterans during the 2025 holiday season.

Please take note: VEHICLE STICKERS GO ON SALE FEBRUARY 1^ST AND THE NEW STICKER MUST BE DISPLAYED BY MARCH 1^ST.  These can be purchased at the Town Office Monday through Friday from 8:00 am – Noon and 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm.

You can call 984-8521 and purchase your Vehicle Sticker with a credit or debit card, the town accepts Visa, MasterCard and Discover, and it will be mailed to you. The office will need the year, make and model of your vehicle. Please remember that Personal Property Taxes must be current through 2024 before sticker can be purchased. Personal Property Taxes may be brought up to date at the same time as the purchase of your vehicle sticker. 

You may also mail or drop a check in the Town Office night drop along with your vehicle information and a sticker will be mailed to you. Please include the cost of postage at $0.73.

Vehicles-$25, Motorcycles-$18, Trailers-$25; the stickers are Yellow in color this year with the same distinctive Edinburg Logo in the center. We are still using the smaller size sticker that should be placed to the immediate right of the State Inspection.

Every year there are people, that for whatever reason, feel that they don’t need to purchase a vehicle sticker; and I can tell you that the other residents of Edinburg do notice it and do not appreciate it. Because of the need to mail some stickers back, we are giving folks a week past the March 1 deadline to have their new stickers in place as long as they have been purchased before the March 1 deadline. Stickers purchased after the March 1^st deadline will cost an additional $10; and after 30 days there is the possibility of a $25 ticket to those that have not purchased a sticker. Having a sticker on your vehicle is the Law and you can save yourself any additional fees by buying your sticker before the March 1^st deadline.  As some residents are already aware, the Town Treasurer is now using the DMV Stop program to collect for Vehicle Stickers and past due Personal Property Taxes.

Now that I’ve told you everything about this year’s vehicle stickers, let’s discuss next year. We are one of the few localities that still issue a yearly sticker. Others have gone to including the fee on the first half Personal Property Tax bill. Council previously discussed this and decided at the time to keep the sticker. Like everything else, the cost of the actual stickers keeps going up each year; the cost for this year was $1,064. Add to that the office time spent each year processing the sale of the vehicle stickers and the fact that the Town Treasurer and Town Clerk would like to see them go away. So, I’m asking what you all think. Should the Town Council consider doing away with the vehicle stickers for 2026 and add the fee to the Personal Property Tax bills?  I brought this up at the January Town Council meeting and it will really help to hear from our residents on how to handle this going forward. If we are going to take this step it will need to be decided before the 2025-2026 Budget is finalized.

Another thing that I mentioned to the Town Council at the January meeting was the increasing cost of Credit and Debit Card Fees going forward. I believe we are the only local government that accepts credit/debit cards and does not pass the cost of processing payments on to the customers. We are all used to paying a service or convenience fee when we do something like have our car repaired and pay with a credit or debit card. These fees cover the extra cost to the merchant for accepting the payment by credit or debit card. This cost to the Town will be around $6,500 for the current 12-month period. As of January 1^st, the bank has also added an additional 10 cent charge per payment when it is made by phone and we do not have the actual card on hand to process the payment. Obviously, we all enjoy the convenience of using our credit and/or debit cards, and the Town feels it is good business to continue accepting them for payments. My question is: do you think we should pass the fees attached for doing this on to the customer. A 2% fee will cover the costs associated with our acceptance of credit and debit cards. Based on the Minimum Monthly water, sewer and trash in town bill of $88 this would be an additional $1.76 if paid with a credit or debit card. Please let the Town Office know your thoughts on this as well as the vehicle stickers as soon as possible. There are changes we will need to make to the Town Code if we move forward with either of these items to include them in next year’s Budget.

I mentioned back at Budget time last year that the Town was looking at purchasing a new dump truck. At that time our intent was to fund a monthly loan payment of around $1,800 using a portion of the new T-Mobile antenna rent income. The payment would have been for a $90,000 loan for a 5-year period. We did purchase a new truck, but we decided not to do the loan. The decision was made to pay cash and reimburse our savings each month with the T-Mobile money rather than pay the interest to a bank.

An important goal of purchasing the new truck was to eliminate the need for Commercial Driver Licenses (CDLs) for our employees. Our larger dump trucks have always required a CDL which limits who can drive the truck. It is getting increasingly more difficult to hire CDL drivers and it has become more difficult for employees who don’t have a CDL to get one. By special ordering a new truck we are able to have a truck that meets our needs and does not require a CDL because of its gross vehicle weight. The new truck is a 2025 International, Model MV607 and it cost $97,013.26. After we purchased it in December, we took it to Shade Equipment to have a stainless-steel dump bed and additional safety lighting installed for around $30,000 in additional equipment. We were able to have $17,715 of these additional expenses reimbursed by grant funds from USDA. We will also be selling our Volvo dump truck once the new one is in service which should cover most of the remaining portion of those additional equipment costs. The new truck will also handle our VDOT snowplow work on Route 11 and Stony Creek Blvd. This purchase represents a substantial investment for our little town. But it is one that will last the town for next 15-20 years. And when you add the fact that it eliminates the requirement for CDL drivers; I hope that you will agree that it was a smart move by the Town Council to take this step.

We have also made some progress since the last time I reported on the Tennis Courts. All of the cracked areas have been repaired and a new asphalt playing surface was installed on both courts this past fall. We will be looking for a company to repaint and line the two courts in the spring. The repairs and paving were paid for with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant funds. We also have had a number of individuals who have shown interest in doing fund raising to assist with the completion of the repainting and lining of the courts.

That’s it for now, and I wish you all the best in 2025.
Your Mayor, Dan Harshman