Mallek’s approach becomes clearer

Albemarle County supervisors were faced with a difficult dilemma as they sat in the midst of a tax-rate stalemate earlier this month, waiting on one another to budge.
It was the first chance for residents to see how Supervisor Ann Mallek would react to the annually tense budget negotiations. Mallek was elected last November over then-Supervisor David C. Wyant. Her campaign focused on environmental and growth issues, about which she made her positions abundantly clear.
On the budget and the real-estate tax rate, though, Mallek’s position was less clear. Now, residents know a little more about her approach.
As the county adopted its $334.7 million budget recently, Mallek didn’t give in when supervisors were faced with a stalemate. Mallek, along with Supervisors David L. Slutzky and Sally H. Thomas, supported a 71-cent real-estate tax rate, while Supervisors Kenneth C. Boyd, Lindsay G. Dorrier Jr. and Dennis S. Rooker supported a 70-cent rate. The board eventually went with the 71-cent rate after Slutzky offered to keep one penny of it in a “lockbox,” only to be used if the economy and revenues decline more than expected. With that olive branch, Rooker gave the 71-cent crowd a fourth vote and approved the 3-cent tax rate increase.
“It would have certainly been much easier to not hold on for the extra penny,” Mallek said recently. She determined, however, that that was the most responsible thing to do. “It’s more than just the rate — it’s how we can survive as a community and do the things we need to be doing.”
Mary Rice, a Crozet resident who supported Mallek in the election, believes her representative did what she thought best even though Mallek likely knew there would be grumbling about a tax-rate increase. Rice said that Mallek is looking to pay for the necessary infrastructure that comes with a growing county.
“We’re paying, right now, for the past,” Rice said. She said she hopes Mallek properly scrutinizes developments and that the board continues to look for tax relief options.
Mallek says she’s not sure if she would have changed her position if Rooker hadn’t broken the board’s stalemate.
“I’m so inexperienced during these long staring sessions,” she said. “I can’t predict ahead of time how things will go. It certainly makes it interesting.”
Mallek says she wants an outside consultant to look at the county’s operations “to win back the confidence of the citizens.”
Wyant, the supervisor Mallek defeated, said recently that he didn’t get involved much in the budget process because he didn’t want it to look like “sour grapes.” But he followed it and was disappointed in the supervisors’ decision.
“That’s just nothing but a surplus,” Wyant said of the extra 1 cent on the rate. “People out in the country, they didn’t like that at all.”
Jim Stork, another Mallek supporter during the election, said the supervisors’ decision surprised him.
“I view it as sort of a slap in the face to all the people who supported her that felt that she would help them,” said Stork, who said people are already struggling with increasing prices in everything from gasoline to food.
Mallek called the process “painful.” She said not having more money in county coffers to deal with decreasing revenue as a result of gloomy revenue forecasts would have been irresponsible.
“There’s a wide range of different investments the county makes because we have a big diversity of needs,” Mallek said. “It’s more responsible for [the extra penny on the tax rate] to be there.”