Dumler back in action

Supervisor Christopher Dumler attended his first Albemarle Board of Supervisors meeting since his October 18 arrest for forcible sodomy. The accused 27-year-old attorney sipped coffee November 7 as citizens spoke out on the Keene shooting range, the western 29 Bypass, and the leash law that had ensnared hunting dogs during hunting season.

Much later in the meeting, the Supes voted 5-0 to approve the approximately $1.3-million police facility at the site of a former landfill in Keene. Dumler, who lives about nine miles away, abstained from the vote– though it wasn't immediately clear whether he viewed his potential conflict as one stemming from jurisdiction or from the fact that Albemarle police have charged him with forcible sodomy.

A special prosecutor has been named to pursue the charge levied under an investigation headed by Albemarle officer T.L. Walls. Arrested October 18 for an incident that allegedly occurred on October 4, Dumler is free on $50,000 bail.

Perhaps the biggest news of the day was a financial report that the county showed a larger-than-budgeted bottom line for the 2012 fiscal year: $7,793,026, which was 3.6 percent of the whole budget. Although she didn't use the word "profit" (perhaps because the money will get directed to capital expenditures like the aforementioned shooting range), county spokesperson Lee Catlin noted in a release that this "excess" is the result of "aggressive" delinquent tax collections that increased county revenue beyond budget expectations, coupled with savings stemming largely from unfilled positions.

–story updated with budget surplus at 4:03pm