4th Democrat joins City Council race

Retired attorney Peter McIntosh announced Wednesday that he will run for the Charlottesville City Council, becoming the fourth Democratic candidate in the race.

McIntosh, 67, spent 13 years with the Legal Aid Justice Center as an administrator and attorney representing low-income clients before moving to the MichieHamlett law firm, where he represented clients in family, criminal, workers’ compensation and general-litigation cases. After 30 years of practicing law, he retired in 2006.

Flanked by about 20 supporters, McIntosh promised a “common-sense approach” focused on workforce housing, economic development, maintaining the city’s AAA bond rating and implementing council decisions on controversial issues such as the 50-year water supply plan, the Meadow Creek Parkway and the construction of a YMCA in McIntire Park.

“These decisions were reached after lengthy periods of consideration, enormous public input and vigorous, often passionate debate,” McIntosh said. “It is now time to implement these decisions. That’s just common sense and I will support these decisions of council.”

McIntosh said it’s time to focus on the benefits of those projects. In McIntire Park, he said, the city now has an opportunity to build a new botanical garden, and one benefit of the water supply plan is that the city won’t have to go through the “agony” of another drought.

Summing up his decision to run, McIntosh said: “I want the city to be looking through the windshield, not the rearview mirror.”

On the water supply plan, McIntosh made a cost-benefit case for why a new dam should be built at Ragged Mountain.

“If the question is between underbuilding or overbuilding, I favor the approach the city used in 1966 when they overbuilt, and that water-supply has lasted us to this day,” McIntosh said in an interview. “And I would rather spend $30 million in 2012 dollars building a dam at Ragged Mountain than that same $30 million to dredge the south fork of the Rivanna with the idea that in five years, 10 years, 15 years, we will spend those dollars, 2030 dollars, for the same dredging or more dollars for the same dam.”

In an announcement made on the mall outside the Downtown Transit Center, McIntosh said the city’s “primary emphasis” in housing should be on expanding opportunities to allow more people who work in the city to live in the city.

“Let’s refocus on workforce housing and target programs toward the firefighters, health care workers, teachers and police officers who work here but are forced to live in Greene, Fluvanna and Waynesboro,” McIntosh said, adding that an infusion of new families would also help the city schools.

McIntosh said he has the support of a number of current and former elected officials, including former City Councilors Kay Slaughter, Blake Caravati, Virginia Daugherty and Julian Taliaferro.

Caravati said McIntosh brings a level of maturity and a forward-looking attitude that sets him apart from other potential candidates.

“A lot of people are going to come out looking to the past, trying to defeat everything that has been done in the past,” Caravati said.

Caravati said McIntosh shares something in common with the council “has-beens” who showed up to support him in that he analyzes issues rather than clinging firmly to a particular position.

“He’s not a true believer. You cannot be a true believer and serve the city of Charlottesville well,” Caravati said. “If you believe that it’s my way or no way then you shouldn’t be running.”

A resident of the Locust Grove neighborhood for more than 36 years, McIntosh has served on 16 boards and task forces over the years, including the Jefferson-Madison Library Board of Trustees, the Legal Aid Justice Center Advisory Board and McIntire Botanical Garden, a nonprofit that advocates for the garden concept.

McIntosh joins incumbent Councilor Satyendra Huja, city School Board member Kathy Galvin and fitness-club owner James Halfaday in seeking one of three Democratic nominations. Three independent candidates — Bob Fenwick, Brandon Collins and Scott Bandy — have also announced campaigns.

Councilors Holly Edwards and David Brown have announced they will not seek re-election this year. Mayor Dave Norris and Councilor Kristin Szakos are not up for re-election until 2013.

The Democratic Party’s “firehouse primary” will be held Aug. 20 from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Jackson P. Burley Middle School.

The general election will be held Nov. 8.