City hopeful Szakos aims to get residents involved

Kristin Szakos has plenty of wishes for Charlottesville should she be elected to the City Council, but she has one that is a bit unconventional for an election campaign.

“I hope people will call me if they think I’m messing up,” she said.

Szakos, 50, helped get Barack Obama elected to the presidency, first as the local co-coordinator for his campaign in the Virginia primary and then as regional volunteer coordinator for last year’s election. Szakos said she and others were committed to bringing ordinary people into the “process of change.”

“A lot of people really got excited about it,” she said.

Szakos said it is even truer at the local level that residents can instigate change and that civic involvement is important.

“And I thought, why not me?”

Inspired by her Obama campaign experience, Szakos decided to seek one of the council’s two open seats and has vowed to make government more inclusive, especially in areas where residents often do not voice concerns to elected officials.

Szakos said she thinks meetings and work sessions should be held out in neighborhoods, not just in the City Hall chambers, “so people don’t have to come downtown to have their voices heard.” Amenities such as food and childcare could be provided for families, she added.

“People will understand, I think, that we’re doing that because we care what they think,” Szakos said.

Szakos came to Charlottesville 16 years ago. She spent much of her childhood bouncing from state to state because of her parents’ professor occupations. She has been a foster mom for three children, and she says her liberal arts education and her past profession as a journalist — first for the Associated Press and then for a small-town newspaper in Kentucky — makes her well suited to be a councilor because she can examine all sides of an issue. She has also written two books on community organizing with her husband, Joe, executive director of the Virginia Organizing Project.

Szakos said she doesn’t think she needs to be an expert on everything, but she has spent time reading the city code and identifying information sources. But there are specific items she has been championing on the campaign trail — including getting the city to seek out residents’ opinions more aggressively, such as by using e-mail in advance of decision-making.

“You spend a lot less time dealing with the anger,” she said. “I would much rather spend time on the front end getting things done right.”

Like her campaign cohort Dave Norris, the current mayor, addressing inequality is an important issue for the freelance writer and editor who has also worked for area nonprofits. Szakos thinks there should be a dedicated fund for affordable housing projects in the city budget and that Charlottesville could be “a real leader” in creating “green” jobs.

There are things the city does well, Szakos said, but there are many residents who don’t benefit from them. To pull people out of poverty, Szakos said, the city must have the economic base for “living wage” jobs. While tourism and other such economic development sectors help the city, Szakos said many of the jobs pay low wages and don’t offer families financial stability.

“It’s not economically something we can lean on,” she said.

To address the city schools’ dropout rate, workforce development and adult education must also receive adequate resources, Szakos said.

“We need to do things differently,” she said.