Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I would like to publicly acknowledge and thank all who supported the effort to retain Gloucester’s countywide Resource Management Area (RMA) during the last year.

In particular, I would like to thank Messrs. Hutson and James and Dr. Orth for their votes to support the retention of the current countywide RMA as well as the citizens in their jurisdictions that voiced their preferences and encouraged them to vote as they did.  

I also wish to thank Director John Wells and Dr. Luckenbach from the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS) who took valuable time to attend the Oct. 4 board of supervisors’ meeting and speak during the citizens comment period supporting the retention of the countywide RMA. VIMS is a world-renowned research facility and I personally appreciated their informed comments on this issue.

Lastly, I wish to thank the citizens who spoke at the various BOS meetings when this topic was discussed, those who wrote letters pub...