Lowry for Albemarle

Good Morning. I am John Lowry, Candidate for Board of Supervisors from the Samuel Miller District. The election is November 3rd.

Today, we continue with our series of position statements about issues important to the voters of Albemarle County, today I am discussing careful stewardship of Albemarle resources.

Before I begin, however, I’d like to point out that I am the only candidate in this race to do so. While my opponents in this race take cover behind “Consensus Statements”, I beleive that voters want to know where a candidate stands on important issues. While the others may think that taking a stand isn’t important, you can be sure that you’ll be hearing more from me between now and November.

As I stated at my announcement this past April, one of my goals As Supervisor will be to maintain the quality of life we enjoy in Albemarle County, and to even improve it.

To this end, we must find the right balance between the use of our resources, the stewardship of our environment, and economic development. Our community’s goal should be to pass to our heirs an environment that is at least as good as it was when given us.

As part of that, we need to do a better job of creating and using renewable resources to at least offset what we consume. We must work to identify where we can do better, and improve the environment when we can.

Therefore, we will are challenged to protect our resources here in Albemarle. Our county has shown leadership in respecting the envroment. Our County Office Building has been recognized as meeting a high standard of quality by Energy Star. Our county is also in the forefront of pushing for “Leadership in Energy and Enviromental Design”, or LEED standards in all new constuction projects over which we have some say. We want LEED certified buildings in Albemarle County.

So we’ve made a start, but we must do better.

I pledge today that, when the voters Samuel Miller District elect me their Supervisior, I will work to protect the environment in our county three ways:

First, Water Resources.

Albemarle County made an early start in water resource protection. East of Tidewater, we are the only county to voluntarily implement elements of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act.

The Chesapeake Bay states are right now in the process of reviewing stormwater management regulations. The enabling legislation already passed will dramatically change our stormwater runoff standards. While they are still under development, these regulations are expected to be implemented by Oct 2011. Within the next year and a half the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation must finalize these standards.

I pledge today to engage Albemarle County in these discussions to make sure they find the right balance between ideals and practicality, and to be ready on day one of the Supervisor job work with the various affected parties to assure positive action for Albemarle’s Water Resources.
Second, regional public transit.

Our community has grown to the point that we need to develop more and better ways for our citizens to use mass transit. For example, raise your hand if you use or have used a bus to go to work - how many of you can join me in raising your hand? How about the Trolley from Downtown to UVA and back - raise your hand if you have used the Trolley? How about Jaunt? Raise your hand if you have used Jaunt.

My point is we need to increase use of our current transit system and build a better one for the future. I’ll be talking more about transportation policy in the coming weeks, but I pledge today to engage Albemarle County in creating, with our partners in the City, a Regional Transportation Plan that recognizes the importance of all modes, including public transit.
Finally, convenient recycling.

As I have gone door to door calling on voters in Samuel Miller, there is one issue that comes up over and over, throughout diverse neighborhoods: our residents WANT to recycle. People will go to great effort, at their own cost, to recycle.

It is time for Albemarle County to do a better job facilitating recycling.

It is simply common sense to help sustain our Enviroment. Existing requirements on trash haulers are not being enforced to utilize recycling.

I pledge today to require Albemarle County to create better, more convenient, more accessible ways handle what we can sustainably use again. The reason this site was chosen to make these comments today is it demonstrates what our citizens want.

Rather than close on Monday for lack of funding we need to be open for business when people are ready to recycle. We need satellite recycling centers so that the simple task of recycling isn’t an hours long chore for citizens who live far outside of the city of Charlottesville.

Environmental issues are a timely topic. We are at the deadline for Land Use revalidation forms to be submitted to the County Assessor’s office. Land Use is yet another valuable tool to protect out resources.

About two-thirds of Albemarle County is in Land Use. Because it provides those who use the land for agricultural revenue tax breaks, Land Use helps preserve Albemarle County’s rural character. This tax relief is an incentive to rural land owners not to develop rural spaces which protect our green, open space environment. Conservation easements do so, too. They permanently protect our rural landscape from development.
I pledge today to improve the Land Use and Conservation Easement systems, and will work to preserve the character of the County that we all love.

If elected I will listen to and speak the conscience of my constituents. I will work for better management of our Environment. I am asking voters to choose me November 3rd.

Oh, and one more thing:

Apparently, the Rivanna Solid Waste people say they do not have figures of revenues and costs of this center. That’s a big deal to me.

We need more open, transparent accounting for the economics of recycling. But the problem isn’t about recycling — it’s about governance. We need more open, transparent accounting for EVERYTHING that the county government touches: The Recycling Center, the RSWA, County departments, County Schools. It shouldn’t take a Freedom of Information request to find out how we’re spending taxpayer dollars.

The Board of Supervisors is ultimately responsible. I pledge today that when I’m elected to the Board of Supervisors, that creating an open, transparent accounting system will be a priority for me.