Ahead of Virginia’s off-year elections, 10 local candidates running for a variety of offices met at a forum to discuss their plans for the Lexington and Rockbridge area. Topics ranged from fiscal responsibility and economic growth to rural healthcare and mental health services.
Virginia House of Delegates
Rockbridge County is split into two House of Delegates districts, the 36th and 37th. The Virginia Public Access Project rates both of these seats as strong Republican districts, with incumbent Republicans Ellen Campbell and Terry Austin both running for reelection.
Democrats Makayla Venable and Andrew Hartless are campaigning for the 36th and 37th districts, respectively.
Q: How will you support policies that make our area an attractive place for businesses to invest and grow while ensuring a productive and empowered workforce?
What role should employers, unions and the state play in fostering the labor environment that encourages innovation, job creation and individual choice?
Delegate Campbell highlighted Rockbridge County’s career and technical education programs as a growing force for local businesses. She then mentioned how a lack of childcare services can limit businesses’ investment opportunities.
“Our youngest learners are our most important ones, but when we have parents that can’t find a place to put their children, they can’t be in our workforce,” Campbell said. “When businesses want to come to Rockbridge County, the first thing they ask us is, ‘Do you have childcare?’”
Venable emphasized the need for reliable infrastructure, workforce training programs and fair wages for workers in making Rockbridge an attractive area for businesses.
“I believe employers, unions and the state all have a role, and that role is for employers to invest in their people, unions to advocate for fairness and the state to set standards that protect workers while fostering innovation,” Venable said.
In the race for the 37th District, Delegate Austin stressed that Rockbridge has the potential to capitalize on industries that no other county has access to. “We are unique, I know of no other county that has the opportunity for tourism that Rockbridge has,” Austin said.
Hartless explained that his personal experience in the community college system led him to believe that further investments in community college would be the best way to prepare students for the workforce.
“I will support community colleges further, giving them more tools to give back to our local community,” Hartless said. We have so many small towns that aren’t able to fill so many little niches that expanding the community college system would help fill, as well as support so many people that aren’t doing well financially.”
Q: With the recent closings of three local clinics, what strategies would you advocate for to strengthen rural healthcare access and infrastructure, including mental health preventative care and provider recruitment in underserved areas like ours?
Hartless answered the question first and brought up how, as a child, he grew up in Rockbridge County and was diagnosed with a chronic and deadly liver disease. “Growing up in Rockbridge, my parents had to take many days off of work, my grandmother had to help me and without those resources, I don’t think I would have made it,” Hartless said.
Hartless said heart disease, diabetes and cancer prevention “can be treated or minimized if you catch it early. Part of catching it early is education. My father lost his life to diabetes and if we had better education in rural communities which you could get by staffing hospitals better, we could save lives.”
Delegate Austin spoke to the inefficiencies of the clinics that closed, saying, “The three facilities that closed had facilities within 10 miles. It was not effective to have parallel facilities 10 miles away.”
“Rural healthcare is extremely important,” Austin said. “The Medicaid programs we’ve expanded and continued to build on will be phenomenal, but there’s $50 billion set aside for rural hospitals.”
As for the candidates running in the 36th District, Venable highlighted her experience as a healthcare worker in assisted living. “I’ve seen clinics close. We need to think about rural health as a full system, and not just emergency cases,” Venable said.
Venable also emphasized the need to restore Medicaid funding so that “vulnerable neighbors aren’t left behind.”
Delegate Campbell took a different approach and highlighted the effectiveness of mobile clinics that operate in the community.
“This has been an extraordinarily effective thing. They go out into schools in underserved areas. Initially, the constituents were a little bit off-putted by it … but they now have people that drive on a tractor to get there, or a lawn mower or bicycle,” Campbell said. “That’s reaching out to your community and I think we can expand on those programs.”
Sheriff of Lexington and Rockbridge County
Three candidates are in the running to be the next Sheriff: incumbent Sheriff Tony McFadden, Chris Norris and Fred Smith.
Q: What changes have you observed in the mental health needs of our community, and how are these impacting law enforcement? Are there specific ways business owners and local organizations can support the Sheriff’s efforts in responding to these challenges?
Sheriff McFadden said, “When someone is in crisis, and because we don’t have a local treatment center, we have to sit with the individual at the hospital while waiting for a placement at an out-of-town facility. This process takes hours and sometimes it takes days.”
“This certainly creates a significant strain on our staffing, our resources and our budget,” McFadden said. “[Local business owners] can help us by learning more about the mental health system and how it works … and become strong advocates for change.”
Norris said that he is the only candidate who has spent a lot of time in the city with those experiencing a mental health crisis. “As a hospital police officer, I’ve observed that many of the emergency room mental health complaints are actually side effects of illegal drug use,” Norris said.
Norris then said that these individuals often only have the choice between jail and the hospital, but this forces hospitals to manage individuals under the influence, posing a safety risk and shifting the burden onto the healthcare system.
Smith spoke last on the topic and emphasized how the mental health crisis is getting worse, and that the state has closed a lot of mental facilities, which has shifted the burden onto law enforcement and hospitals.
“We need more mental health workers, more beds, better pay for the mental health workers and better awareness in the community,” Smith said. “We need to talk to our senators and representatives to get more mental health places better located.”
Q: What specific steps will you take to strengthen relationships between law enforcement and the community? How do you plan to increase public awareness of the Sheriff’s role as a public servant and build long-term trust with residents?
Smith highlighted that in moments of mental health crises, the community needs to be able to understand what the person is going through and needs better training for how to respond to these scenarios.
Norris diverged from this point, saying that he would increase his visibility by responding to calls alongside deputies to provide “firsthand leadership and support.”
“I will maintain an open line of communication with the public by holding regular office hours,” Norris said. “This direct access will allow constituents to personally contact me, fostering trust and ensuring the Sheriff’s office remains transparent and responsive to the needs of the community.”
Sheriff McFadden concluded the question by emphasizing that the current relationship is strong and that meetings with constituents in high-crime areas would further improve it. “I think that our office has a strong relationship with our community and I think we’ve earned their trust.”
“But, I agree that we can always do better,” McFadden said. “We need to be fair, we need to be honest, we need to be transparent and we need to be committed to open communication and public engagement.”
Rockbridge Board of Supervisors
Two districts in Rockbridge have elections for their Supervisor, Kerrs Creek and Walker’s Creek. Kerrs Creek has two candidates, Boyd Brown and Steven Hart. Walker’s Creek has three: Toria Brown, Albert Lewis and Steven Reese. However, of the three, only Toria Brown was in attendance.
Q: How would you ensure fiscal responsibility while preparing for necessary borrowing? What principles or policies would guide your approach to long-term financial planning?
Boyd Brown highlighted that Rockbridge County needs to continue its current practices, like its transparency, and that debt elimination was a “lofty goal” and unrealistic.
“If taxpayers want to build an addition to the school, they want to see that school in a relatively short period of time,” Boyd Brown said. “They don’t want to pay 20 years for a school that may or may not be built as priorities change.”
Hart had a different approach to long-term planning, emphasizing the importance of paying off debt now. “You’re going to have to look at people and say you can’t have that … yet!”
“Borrowing is only necessary because we have a perpetual culture of debt,” Hart said. “Let’s change the culture.”
Toria Brown also disagreed on the nature of the debt. “In today’s world, I think it is nearly impossible to operate any business or any government without having some debt.”
“The debt needs to be done in a proactive and not a reactive way,” said Toria Brown. She highlighted the need to identify any potential needs early on so that nothing became an issue later in the process.
Q: With the rise of solar energy projects, how should the county balance landowners’ rights with government oversight? What regulatory plans or zoning updates would you advocate for to ensure transparency, fairness and community input in solar farm development?
Hart spoke first and said that if it were only two solar fields, then there wouldn’t be a problem, but that the issue has recurred eight to ten times using a special exception permit. “If you do it that many times, it is not a special exception permit.”
“The one thing we haven’t done is the thing we should do,” Hart said. “We as a community need to have a conversation, because to achieve the goals of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, it is going to take a massive amount of land.”
Hart said that the conversation needs to decide how much agricultural land would be used for solar production, what the impact on land values would be and how tourism would be affected.
Toria Brown emphasized that she was “100% in favor” of property owners maintaining all their rights. “They paid for the land, they paid their taxes, they should have a right to choose what to do with their land.”
Toria Brown said she does not agree with the special exception permits. And, in her conversations with the community, Rockbridge doesn’t seem to want solar farms.
Boyd Brown said that it was a straightforward question with straightforward answers. “We need to use the zoning process that we have to establish guidelines about what type of solar fields can be built, where they can be built and everybody needs to understand what the rules are.”
“Any solar field that is larger than required ought to be located along the development corridor along [Route] 11 or 81,” Boyd Brown said.
Early voting began on Sept. 19, and Election Day is on Nov. 4.
