LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Candidates Matt Kelly and Anne Little respond to op-ed by sitting City Council member.
Losing on the Issues? Accuse Your Opponent of Dirty Politics
If you can’t win on the issues, you accuse your opponent of dirty politics. That’s what City Councilman Jon Gerlach did in The Advance last Monday.
Gerlach accused me of attacking Susanna Finn, my opponent in the Ward 3 City Council race. I never have. I’ve pointed out our differences on commercial development in College Heights and transparency in decisions on data centers in Fredericksburg. Nothing more.
Claim #1: “Matt Kelly accused his Ward 3 opponent – Susanna Finn – of advocating for convenience stores in College Heights’s Small Area planning. In truth, she engaged with residents about their concerns and successfully led the City Council to remove the commercial component on College Avenue, thus preventing convenience stores.”
Response: At a College Heights Civic Association spring meeting, which I attended, Ms. Finn advocated for small grocery stores and office buildings along College Avenue. Councilor Gerlach was not there.
Residents asked why she would promote something that would harm their neighborhood.
Councilor Gerlach is disingenuous in saying she somehow killed the idea. At a recent College Heights forum, Ms. Finn stated that while the proposal was removed from the Small Area implementation plan, the goal remains in the Small Area Plan.
Claim #2: “Mr. Kelly claimed that Susanna Finn received $1,000 in data center funds while on the Planning Commission, implying that it influenced her later City Council vote on the TOD data center rezoning. This accusation is baseless – and legally dangerous.”
Response: I never said Finn took money from a data center company or that she took money while serving on the Planning Commission. The accusation is ridiculous. What reason would any Planning Commissioner have for taking a campaign contribution? They don’t run for public office. They’re appointed by City Council.
This is what I said in my campaign flyer circulated through Ward 3: “Finn took a $1,000 donation from the attorney for the data center developer shortly after voting for it as a Planning Commissioner. After she announced her Council candidacy, City Council delayed a decision on a second data center near Great Oaks subdivision until after this fall’s Council election.”
Note, the flyer said AFTER she voted for it. It was also AFTER she was appointed to City Council, and AFTER she announced her candidacy to run for Council on her own.
Claim #3: He says I made personal attacks on my opponent.
Response: Over a thousand words long piece and Councilor Gerlach did not provide any specific examples of “personal attacks.”, just the accusation. The only thing I’ve done is point to her statements as a public official, her public positions, and her public votes on issues. Even he says that’s fair game.
Read the documents, watch the council meetings, and talk to those who attended neighborhood meetings, which confirms these facts. Gerlach is trying to turn this campaign into a race about personal attacks because he knows the candidates he supports cannot win on the issues. Councilor Gerlach looks to be guilty of what he regaled against in his OpEd.
Matt Kelly is a candidate for City Council in Ward 3.
Gerlach’s Attacks Are Inaccurate
Last Monday, I awoke to find an op-ed in The Advance written City Councilman .Jon Gerlach attacking me and promoting fabrications. I must respond.
Mr. Gerlach said someone campaigning for me accused my Ward 2 Council opponent, Joy Crump, of neglecting her rental properties. First, no one speaks for me except me. Second, I have no opinion about Ms. Crump’s handling of her rental properties, nor would I even care or comment about something so trivial.
Mr. Gerlach is guilty of exactly what he’s accusing his anonymous source of doing — spreading unsubstantiated rumors.
Mr. Gerlach also said, “At a recent candidate forum, Ms. Little claimed that City Council members – including candidates Susanna Finn (Ward 3) and Chuck Frye (Ward 4) – allowed data centers to pull water from the river and use our drinking water. During Planning Commission and City Council discussions this winter, however, both possibilities were explicitly banned in the ordinance based on common sense and public input.”
Not so. Here are the exact words for the Technical Overlay District ordinance Mr. Gerlach and City Council approved: “Temporary potable water for industrial cooling may be provided through a Water Services Agreement (WSA) approved by the City Council to bridge initial water requirements while an industrial reuse water cooling system is constructed to serve development or redevelopment in the TOD.”
So yes, drinking water will be used to cool the data centers and likely for several years. An agreement on this issue has yet to be negotiated. How many years will the developer need to use drinking water for its cooling system before it completes a water recycling line from our waste treatment plant on the Rappahannock River to the data center site in Celebrate Virginia near River Road? That’s the unanswered question not even Mr. Gerlach knows the answer to.
The contractor will have to purchase rights-of-ways from private property owners all over the city or dig up city streets to lay the water line literally from one end of the city to the other. Because of its nature, the line cannot be connected to existing water lines, making the project even more complex and expensive. It will be a massive construction project that will likely take years to plan and build, all the while using city drinking water to cool the data center.
Finally, I agree with Mr. Gerlach when he began his op-ed saying, “The troubling trend of ruthlessness we see nationally has now spilled over into our city’s campaign season.”
Fredericksburg’s elections are nonpartisan for a reason. They’re supposed to be about fixing local problems, not pushing national party agendas. But our city elections have turned partisan because the local Democratic Committee endorsed local candidates. I asked to speak to both local political parties to express my views on the issues, but since I declined to be endorsed by either, Democrats refused to let me speak. Fredericksburg voters don’t need party bosses telling them how to vote. Voters can decide for themselves who will put our community first.
Anne Little is a candidate for City Council in Ward 2
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