Town Hall Meeting With Pat Turner

Pat Turner had some things to get off his chest during the town hall meeting held Wednesday night at the Manakin Fire Station. "I'm sick and tired of of people talking about builders and developers as being thieves," said the challenger in the hotly contested 5th District Supervisor race. "I'm proud of my profession. It's an honorable profession." But the man who has spent his entire professional career as a real estate appraiser in both public and private practice emphatically stated that "I do not work for developers - let's get that real good and straight."

Turner repeated many of the same themes he offered during last week's forum on growth, but during the question and answer session, he made the boldest statement that any candidate has offered so far by saying that if he is elected he will vote against commercial rezoning requests that don't have sufficient infrastructure in place to sustain it. When pressed to say whether that included addressing traffic safety issues such as a light at the intersection of Broad Street and Manakin Road, he said yes.

The difference in Turner's response is that he is the first candidate to actually say that he would vote against a rezoning request, as opposed to just saying he supports having infrastructure in place before new commercial development. This is a subtle but huge difference. Of course this has major implications for the proposed development at Broad Street and Manakin Road, behind Satterwhites Restaurant. The Board of Supervisors will likely vote on the request to rezone that property in early 2008, which would pave the way for a new strip shopping center.

According to District 4 Supervisor Rudy Butler, the Virginia Department of Transportation says road improvements and a traffic light are not planned for that intersection until 2009. If Mr. Turner is elected, one of his first major decisions will be to follow through on his commitment to say no to developers until VDOT has done its job. The safety of thousands of Goochland residents is too important to allow an already dangerous intersection to get any worse.

Overall, this was another strong showing by Mr. Turner, who appears to be relishing the challenge of trying to dethrone four-term incumbent Jim Eads. At times he's too buttoned down with the talking points, and his list of priorities needs tweaking. It seemed to catch his audience off-guard when he pointed to the need for a sheriff substation as being his top priority, arousing absolutely no interest. Surely this is a worthy goal, but his number one priority?

Virtually every comment and question from those in attendance focused on growth, and that's where Turner let loose, firing off one soundbite after another. He said his appointees overseeing growth would "be knowledgeable....and have a backbone." One couldn't help but wonder if he thinks that current political appointees are spineless? As far as Centerville is concerned, it will take "vision, courage and determination" to make it economically viable and "aesthetically pleasing and safe."


Turner has lined up impressive support from renegade Republicans who've abandoned Jim Eads and many were in attendance. Indeed, I've spoken to a good many old timers who think he's going to pull it off in November. He'll need the "'growth" vote to do it, and it appears he's making headway as the one month countdown approaches.

(posted by Jim Hale)