Candidate Profile: Susanna Finn
Big challenges call for big planning -- and that's right down the new Ward 3 council member's alley. It also defines her campaign this fall.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Susanna Finn came to City Council by appointment in February as the replacement for Tim Duffy in Ward 3. She was immediately thrown into the fire, casting one of her first votes in favor of bringing data centers into the city.
But her arrival in the city was more intentional, as is her and her family’s decision to make their life here.
“It’s very difficult to live in this city,” she told the Advance over coffee in the lobby of the Marriott hotel downtown. “A quality life feels prohibitive. Expensive.”
She describes herself as “fortunate” to have bought both her starter home and the home in which she and her husband are now raising their two daughters here in Fredericksburg.
“People who live in the city do so quite consciously,” she said. “It’s the responsibility of the Council to do what they can to make sure that families have the flexibility that they need. And that the city is economically stable.”
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Originally from northeast Pennsylvania, Finn came to Fredericksburg to attend the University of Mary Washington and study historic preservation. Following graduation in 2013, she went to Virginia Commonwealth University to take a master’s degree in urban planning.
Following a five-year stint in the city’s planning department, Finn now works doing long-range and strategic planning for the Department of Defense.
That blend of experience with preservation and with long-range defense planning has given Finn a distinctive take on how the city can balance its historic character and the pressing needs of a growing, urban community.
“Planning is about more than the buildings,” Finn said. “It’s the people within them.” And that means creating the economic conditions so that good planning can progress.
There is little doubt that in the near-term the economic challenges facing the city are significant. First-responder needs include a new fire station, the waste-water treatment plant is in need of upgrades, the school system is stretched to near-maximum capacity, and issues of poverty continue to plague a significant percentage of the city’s population. All of this is happening against the backdrop of exploding home prices, still-too-high interest rates, and an increasingly tight housing market.
And that’s before the election of Donald Trump. Since January 20, federal employees have faced job losses, some educational funds have been cut from surrounding counties, and Title I funding may well face reductions.
All of this will have profound impacts on families in Fredericksburg — those who continue to struggle, and those who may soon be struggling owing to changes in federal policies.
Data centers, which Finn supported in her first City Council meeting, are the long-term answer to many of these problems. But revenues from those facilities are years in the future. And Finn’s not sitting around waiting for that money to arrive.
“The group that I can represent is the younger families,” Finn told the Advance. “I feel like that segment of the population doesn’t really have a presence in the city.”
To help with housing, she says her priority would be the reuse and redevelopment of vacant properties. “This is a missed revenue opportunity,” she tells the Advance. “We need to have the codes in place that allow for that transformation.”
Shopping center redevelopment is key, she believes. In particular she thinks of what could be done along Route 3 with the Greenbriar Shopping Center.
Another concern is childcare. The Advance has reported on the difficulties facing families finding childcare in the region. One solution, Finn says, is to remove the Special Use Permit requirement for in-home daycare.
Removing that requirement would streamline the process people would need to follow to launch an in-home daycare center and create openings that are desperately needed. It also creates a source of revenue for citizens in the city.
Employment is another challenge.
“Fredericksburg has a tremendous resource in the hospital and the university,” she said. “Both make us a regional hub in education and healthcare.” Finding ways to leverage that to create better paying jobs for citizens would also be a priority.
Finally, she wants to make progress on the lack of primary care physicians in the area.
“My mom was a family practice physician,” she said. “I appreciate the continuity of care.”
That can happen, she believes, by “fostering the partnerships between Germanna and the residency program and the hospital.”
To be successful, that will mean convincing the interns who come here for their training to stay here after they finish their work.
The challenges Finn outlines and the problems ahead are certainly real. So, too, is Finn’s commitment to addressing them.
“Fredericksburg is my chosen home,” she said, “and I’m committed to this city.”
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