Farm Bureau, allies rally for county property rights

Albemarle County officials are taking away residents’ property rights and money without regard for their constituents’ concerns, attendees at a packed meeting said Thursday night.
About 250 people, according to organizers, filled the Albemarle County Office Building’s Lane Auditorium to lament the state of county politics and take shots at a Board of Supervisors they said is not listening to the demands of the majority.
The meeting ran the gamut of big-ticket issues in Albemarle, from tax bills to property rights to the state of a tax-deferment program for rural land.
Speakers took “liberals,” supervisors and even Charlottesville city councilors to the political whipping post. WINA radio host and former City Councilor Rob Schilling called the current council, made up of Democrats, a “lost cause.”
While many of the issues are perennial topics of debate, some attendees said that they have just recently been jolted into action. Until recently, Albemarle’s Board of Supervisors has been split 3-3 on controversial environmental and property rights issues. That changed when Supervisor Ann Mallek defeated former Supervisor David C. Wyant in November, tilting the balance 4-2. Months later, the board approved controversial rural protection measures that many in the crowd Thursday considered overreaching and invasive of property rights.
“The moment we lost [Wyant’s] seat on the Board of Supervisors, I got scared,” said Hank Martin, who founded Forever Albemarle, a nascent advocacy group that, Martin said, is seeking to stop the county’s assault on property rights.
The majority of supervisors have billed the measures as modest efforts to protect rural land. Mallek could not be reached for comment late Thursday, but Supervisor David L. Slutzky, a Democrat, said the environmental benefits outweighed the property-rights concerns.
“Any form of zoning is an infringement on unbridled use of private property,” he said.
The core of the environmental measures restricts building within 100 feet of streams. Slutzky noted that the regulation was already in place for half the county prior to the board’s recent decision.
“We on the board are obligated to balance competing interests all the time,” he said.
Thursday’s event served as a who’s who of Albemarle political organizations and like-minded residents and officials. Board Chairman Kenneth C. Boyd, a Republican, and Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle, attended. Keith Drake, the chairman of the Albemarle Truth in Taxation Alliance, an anti-tax advocacy group, spoke. They were joined by Forever Albemarle and the Virginia Farm Bureau.
“A lot of these things are a violation of our constitutional rights,” resident Donnie Foster said. When government limits what you can do, he said, “that’s taking money from you and taking land away from you.”
Farm Bureau President Carl Tinder is looking to rally residents around the sanctity of property rights and the utility of the land-use taxation program, which allows many rural area landowners to defer a significant amount of their tax bill. Tinder said the program is essential if the county is to maintain its pristine views and swaths of largely undeveloped land, as well as agricultural activity. Some supervisors have said the program isn’t effective and needs to be changed so that it is not abused by those looking to flip land for a profit. The board is expected to take up the issue later this month.
Residents and organizers said they want a slate of candidates to run in the next board election in November 2009 and, in the meantime, hope to maintain a sizeable presence at county board meetings.
Boyd said the state of county politics is changing because rural residents are being pitted against the growing number of urban residents.
“This is the beginning of this battle,” Boyd said. “I’m on your side.”
Some residents said they had never before been involved in activism or politics, but see things getting worse.
“It’s the arrogant manner of the Board of Supervisors that’s just degrading,” said Albemarle landowner Jim Baber, who explained he had never before been involved in politics. “I don’t know anybody that agrees with [the board]. I really don’t think they’re listening to us.”