Sierra Club endorses anti-dam City Council candidates

The Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club endorsed two candidates for Charlottesville City Council Thursday, setting itself apart from other local environmental groups by endorsing candidates opposed to the plan to build a new earthen dam at Ragged Mountain Reservoir.

Tom Olivier, the group’s chairman, announced the endorsements of Democrats Dede Smith and Colette Blount at a news conference outside City Hall.

Smith, a former city School Board chair and co-founder of pro-dredging group Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, and Blount, a teacher and current School Board member, are both opposed to the dam and the Meadow Creek Parkway.

Five other local groups including the Nature Conservancy in Virginia, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Rivanna Conservation Society, the League of Women Voters and the Piedmont Environmental Council have advocated for the dam-and-pipeline plan.

Asked to explain the split in the local environmental community over the water plan, Olivier suggested that the other groups are simply mistaken.

“To a degree, we think that our groups so often are allies over things like the fight over the bypass,” said Olivier. “We think they’re just wrong on this. We think a key problem is that, early in the development of the water supply plan, there was some faulty information provided, for example on the cost of dredging. And I think a lot of people developed vested interests in the adopted plan.”

Bill Kittrell, director of conservation programs for the Nature Conservancy and a member of the Albemarle County Service Authority Board of Directors, said this is the only local issue he knows of that has split the environmental community. He insisted that the water plan’s current form is still the best way forward.

“The five environmental groups that have banded together support the approved city-county plan because it’s best for the environment and does not require us to sacrifice the environment in order to meet the needs of humans,” Kittrell said.

The Sierra Club’s endorsement decisions are based largely on questionnaires the group sent out to each candidate. When asked which responses prompted the group to endorse Smith and Blount, Olivier pointed to perhaps the two most controversial issues the city has faced in recent years.

“There are lots of issues such as the Meadow Creek Parkway. Things like the water plan. Things like city-county cooperation,” Olivier said. “We certainly did see differences in positions there. I think some individuals who responded were basically much more supportive of the general idea that we need to promote the development of infrastructure and things like that, as opposed to the candidates we support that recognize that while things like infrastructure are necessary, they always come with costs.”

The task for elected officials, Olivier said, is to balance the infrastructure needs with ecosystem protection.

“We think Dede and Colette, they understand the need to deal with both of these kinds of issues at the same time and that’s why we chose to endorse them for City Council,” Olivier said.

Smith said she was honored by the endorsement.

“I particularly appreciate the understanding by the Sierra Club, as is mine, of the connection between environmental protection and justice and social justice,” Smith said. “That the preservation of our natural spaces has a direct implication for not only quality of life but for the ability of our community to thrive.”

Blount pointed to her background as a teacher as she spoke about the need to preserve and respect the natural environment.

“One of those primary ways is through education. And as an educator for the last 17 years, I have seen the impact that our young people can have on the environment,” Blount said. “And that is through strong educational programs that have our children engaging with the environment, learning about their relationship with the environment and creating that symbiotic connection.”

Both candidates were asked to respond to comments made this week by fellow Democratic candidate Kathy Galvin, an architect and School Board member, who said that local politics have reached a “low point” due to continued focus on a few controversial issues. Blount took issue with the remarks of her School Board colleague and council opponent, saying that there ought to be balance between long-range visions and “day-to-day” issues such as jobs and housing.

“To say that we need to relinquish our discussion about our natural environment, it minimizes it, it degrades the role that our environment plays in our overall way of life in Charlottesville,” Blount said.

Olivier said he wouldn’t comment on the specific positions of candidates his group did not endorse. Some have pointed to Smith, Blount and University of Virginia media-relations writer Brevy Cannon as allies in the field of seven Democratic candidates. Cannon also opposes the plan for an earthen dam, but unlike Smith and Blount, he supports the completion of the Meadow Creek Parkway after lawsuits have run their course.

Incumbent Satyendra Huja, fitness-club owner James Halfaday and developer Paul Beyer round out the Democratic field.

Five independents — Bob Fenwick, Scott Bandy, Brandon Collins, Andrew Williams and Paul Long — are also running.

The Democratic Party’s “firehouse primary” will be held from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 20 at Burley Middle School. Voters who will be out of town on that date can participate in absentee balloting from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 9 and 18 at the Independence Resource Center on Cherry Avenue.

The general election is Nov. 8.