Please note this is a change of date to accommodate our exciting guest speaker.
Our next meeting is after Labor Day. Traditionally the real election campaigning begins after the early September holiday. By then identities have been established and money raised. This is the time for the real issues to bubble to the surface. In Albemarle County there are some burning issues. We Republicans have some new faces that are up to the task of taking the issues to the voters and coming away victorious!
Here is a sampler of things the voters should get opposing candidates to debate:
What do you think Albemarle County will look like in 2044?
- Weldon Cooper at UVA estimates the county population will be larger, perhaps to 135,000 by 2044.
- We need new leader’s vision to create job opportunities that will let people live in our county rather than having 65% commute to and back out of Albemarle each work day.
- Right now the County is updating the Comp Plan. Calling it AC44. Albemarle County is a textbook example of a county that addresses governance by trampling all over property rights. Ever since the introduction of Comprehensive Planning by using the Neighborhood Concept, county staff has steadily chipped away at private property rights. Defining an area of less than 5% of the county means all the natural growth for housing, business, shopping and transportation is squashed into 24,000 acres. That leaves 340,000 acres that the County Government slowly steals property owner rights away from the landowners. Just look at who is doing AC44. It would be better to have academics, businessmen, visitor’s bureau, cultural and church representatives, really old people and really young people on the AC44 staff. None are there now. Staff should be thinking creatively to get housing in the rural areas so they are more affordable.
- My vision is county staff at Community Development and Economic Development office should have leadership tackling how to land good jobs, like at Rivanna Futures (defense), but also in medicine, finance and information technology. Too much staff and too much time is now spent by Albemarle employees trying to figure out how to regulate living styles (like taxing plastic bags, denying cell towers w/o accommodating them in creative ways, not solving traffic congestion problems despite simple solutions like turn lanes. This only discourages more building where residents would like to be and overtaxing residents so that large sums of money go to watershed ordinances looking for a problem which fits their solution – appropriating landowner rights – is it really necessary?).
Respectfully Submitted,
John Lowry, Chair