Rio candidates focus on jobs, development
In the race for the Rio District seat on the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, candidate Rodney S. Thomas and Supervisor David L. Slutzky both promise to make the county more business friendly.
At a Tuesday candidate forum, the audience challenged the candidates to address how they would handle community growth and the current economic conditions facing the county.
Both candidates emphasized the importance of improving the relationship the county has with its businesses, and neither said they would support a real estate property tax rate increase in next year’s budget.
Slutzky, the incumbent Democrat, spoke of his experience in trying to change the county staff’s attitudes toward economic growth and development.
“We have a serious culture problem in Albemarle County, in the staff … An awful lot of people in the county, particularly in the planning department, are not supporters of business, they’re not committed to economic growth and development,” Slutzky said.
“In the next four years, I’m going to be more assertive with respect to the culture of the county, and I’m hopeful other board members will join me.”
Thomas, the Republican challenger, has emphasized fiscal conservatism throughout his campaign. He referred to his experience as a businessman and the importance of employing a zero-based budget.
“Albemarle County residents cannot afford another tax increase,” Thomas said. “If anything’s not working, take it out. We need to save some money in Albemarle County.”
Candidates also discussed plans for creating and retaining jobs in the county. Slutzky noted the desire to bring “green jobs” and referenced his encouragement of staff to create the winning proposal for a $500,000 energy-retrofit program grant. According to Slutzky, if this program is successful, it has the potential to create as many as 3,000 jobs in the community.
Both candidates discussed the need to increase the commercial tax base to generate new sources of revenue and help fund infrastructure in the community. Thomas emphasized the need to reach out to the business sector and to look beyond the University of Virginia for new jobs.
“I would hope we could advertise Albemarle County as ‘open for business’ rather than trying not to have new businesses come to Charlottesville,” Thomas said. He also spoke of the importance of providing county children with a good education to fill jobs the county has to offer.
“It’s about being mindful of the need to balance the residential growth with commercial growth,” said Slutzky. “We might as well experience [growth] in the most balanced and cost-effective way.”
The candidates also addressed the level of service the county will be able to provide during difficult economic times.
“There has to be ways to cut costs and make Albemarle County government more affordable,” said Thomas. “I would like to keep the taxes low. We will have to come up with some very good ideas to raise the money in order to put [new proposals] in.”
Slutzky warned the audience about the long-term consequences of maintaining the current tax rate in the face of increasing state and federal mandates.
“If we maintain our tax rate for 10 years running … you are going to see continued erosion in services,” said Slutzky. “The reality is we’re not going to be able to increase our tax rate for the foreseeable future, so please be prepared to adjust to some of those reductions in services.”The Earlysville Area Residents’ League hosted the candidate forum, which was attended by about 45 people and moderated by WINA’s Jay James. The election is Nov. 3.
Charlottesville Tomorrow is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization covering land-use and transportation issues in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
Reader Reactions
I am glad to see that these candidates got beyond Thomas’ penchant for name-calling. Usually, when one uses the word “arrogant”, it is not with either respect ofr humility.
For my two cents—and I am not in the Rio District—Thomas needs to go beyond the “zero-based” ‘low-tax’ rhetoric and describe, for example, where he sees opportunities for mainting or lowering the tax rate—and, given that needs will likely outstrip available resources—how he will set priorities. For example, we know that there will be pressure applied to the school budget, often the target of the low tax advocates. Does that mean that needed expansion of pre-school programs, which serve a dual purpose of leveling the achievement gap of at-risk students earlier rather than later and decreasing the probability (and associated costs) of failure, will be “lost” because we cannot “afford” it?
You want cost savings with no loss of value? Get rid of the Planning group. The County’s regulated growth is hardly saving the public from the unwanted—the damage being done adjacent to Carrsbrook with yet another scraping of the ground and subsequent runoff is reprehensible. Hurt and Woods get a pass. The rest of local business gets niggled to death. All the while, the staff consumes millions of dallars in needless studies—insofar as information is only valuable if you use it.
Albemarle County is not a competitive site for business growth because it lacks appropriate housing, services, and infrastructure—as a businessman, who works with businessmen, I can tell you, its a nasty place to do small business—precisely the kind that grows good jobs.
There is still a “plantation” mentality here—and UVA, and the County, and a few big deal developers, are the Massuhs.
I’m not sure Thomas ‘gets’ it.
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