FROM THE EDITOR - Election Stakes Are Clear
Economic development, shifting demographics, housing prices, and entrenched leadership will be factors in local elections. The question? How eager are voters to embrace or jettison the status quo.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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With Election Day just over a month away, the stakes and issues in local races are very much in focus. Three races will test how much change citizens are willing to embrace.
Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors
In Spotsylvania County, just three Board of Supervisor seats are up — Battlefield, Berkeley, and Lees Hill. At stake is whether Spotsylvania continues to build on its successes in attracting business or reverts to a more-cautious approach to growth.
Over the past half decade, Spotsylvania County has realized roughly $8 billion in business development. Kalahari Resorts and the data centers approved by the county represent the lion’s share of that development.
At a time when the Trump administration’s assault on the federal workforce is taking a toll on many economies in Northern Virginia, these investments position Spotsylvania to weather the economic storm that Washington has unleashed on the Virginia economy.
More important, these investments position Spotsylvania to continue to build upon its stable finances and address critical needs in the county. Among them is to continue closing its long-standing shortfall in education funding, upgrade road conditions in the southern part of the county, and start taking seriously the affordable housing crisis that the county has too often turned a blind eye to.
Change in a county that has deep roots in agriculture, however, has its detractors. In two of the three district elections — Berkeley and Lees Hill — how residents feel about data centers has become contentious. In particular the development of data centers by-right, meaning approval from the Board of Supervisors isn’t required, in industrial zoned areas.
Some members of the board have tried to push for Special Use Permits on by-right properties, without success to this point. Now there are calls to require 1,000-foot or more setbacks. Defenders of such ideas claim these actions aren’t anti-data center but rather are required to protect homeowners. Detractors counter that such restrictions could potentially short-circuit development.
It’s unlikely that this election will stall the growth that is sure to flow to the county. The area around Kalahari will attract new businesses and residents. And nothing will stop the 12-million-plus square feet of data centers that are already approved.
This election may determine, however, how much the county is willing to embrace the next wave of growth. And how willing it is to address the growing concerns of younger families about the cost of housing in the area.
Spotsylvania County School Board
In the Spotsylvania County School Board races, the issue to watch will be whether the board can continue to move forward.
During two years under the leadership of Kirk Twigg and Lisa Phelps, the board was often chaotic, with calls for book bans, the firing of a well-liked superintendent and the hiring of a superintendent with no previous K-12 education background, and turnover in the central office that resulted in decades of collective institutional knowledge leaving for more-stable and often better-paying pastures.
When the balance of power changed nearly two years ago, the board under the leadership of Lorita Daniels and currently Megan Jackson has settled down and generally gotten on with the work of what school boards should do. They’ve hired a highly qualified superintendent, secured a significant boast in funds for the school division with plans to do more in the coming two years, revamped the district’s hiring processes, and cleaned up the district’s policies.
Most important, the chaos that defined the Twigg-Phelps board has mostly dissipated.
The four returning board members — Carol Medawar, Belen Rodas, Megan Jackson, and Lorita Daniels — though pro-public schools in their orientation, do not present a unified ideological front.
This is a good thing. With a shared goal of focusing on strengthening public schools and delivering quality education, these four will disagree on tactics and policies but in a way that they can generally find a consensus on a way forward.
What they don’t do is to devolve into the public theatrics that define the Youngkin-favored culture wars that prioritize larger national political debates over the day-to-day business of ensuring the district gets on track to deliver a model public education system.
Of the eight people running for school board, however, none of them has previously served in any elected capacity. For this reason, how the three winners might interact with the four existing members in January creates an air of uncertainty.
Will the winners prove to be pro-public schools — willing to disagree on approaches but willing to work toward a consensus that moves the district forward — or will they bring national politics back to the Board and disrupt the fragile stability Jackson in particular has been able to establish?
That depends, of course, of who is election. It also depends on who serves as the next Board chair, and how successfully Superintendent Clint Mitchell can work with the new Board members to create a group that keeps the focus on delivering education, and avoids the distractions created by culture wars.
Fredericksburg School Board
In Fredericksburg, the School Board race has moved from being an after-thought to one that suddenly is drawing more attention.
The candidates in Wards 1 and 3 generally agree on two key issues:
Leadership
Budget
Leadership, both in the central office and on the School Board, have become issues that will play an important role in this election.
The inability of the current administration to gain any traction on elevating SOL scores, and the troubles at the start of the school year with transportation, have frustrated residents and moved the two candidates in Ward 3 to speak openly of needing to take at school leadership.
On top of this, the stories that the Advance broke this summer about the School Board’s budget-busting travel and their use of the superintendent’s credit card while on business has elevated the question of Board behavior and priorities in this election.
In the wake of those stories, Ward 4 incumbent Malvena Kay finds herself with a write-in opponent — Stan Jones.
Write-in campaigns are a significant uphill climb and very hard to win. But in a school system that has faced a series of missteps in recent years, voter frustration can elevate enough to at least make the race interesting.
If Jones is able to beat the odds and defeat the incumbent, the city school system could be poised for a major shake-up next year.
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