Know Your Candidate: Brit Lewis, OC Board of Supervisors District 4

Brit Lewis, candidate for Orange County Board of Supervisors District 4. (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Brit Lewis)

This interview is part of a series intended to give readers an overview of local political candidates and what they believe. Check in throughout the upcoming week to read responses from the other candidates for Orange County Board of Supervisors District 4.

(Note: Responses may be edited for length or clarity.)

Can you tell us about your background?

I'm a Christian, a wife, a mom of five and a grandmother to two. I'm a U.S. Army veteran of the Military Intelligence Corps. I'm a registered nurse. I'm currently a hospice nurse and I work from home in Locust Grove.

I'm originally a native New Yorker. I came to Virginia in 2007 and to Orange County in 2011. I live with my husband, and his family has been here in this area of Orange County for over 200 years. We're one of the original families on this side after the Germanna settlements.

Do you have any previous political experience?

I am not a politician by trade, but I am very active in politics. I volunteer with different PACs. I work behind the scenes on a lot of different projects in three different counties, but I haven’t run for office before. This is a new and exciting adventure.

Any community involvement outside of politics?

I have over 30 years of experience of volunteerism, mostly in EMS and food banks. I volunteer my services to families who have special needs children by helping them to navigate through the 504 and IEP processes, both in Spotsylvania and in Orange. Advocates are expensive, so I don't charge for that. I also have 12 years’ experience on the executive boards of two separate 501(c)(3) organizations. I'm currently on an executive board as the parliamentarian of a firehouse in Louisa.

What motivated you to run for a position on the Orange County Board of Supervisors?

This was a planned endeavor for when Mr. Crozier’s term was due to expire. My family had been talking about this back and forth, and we're not happy with some of the decisions and the way decision-making is occurring. We're watching a lot of favoritism, and now of course we're seeing all of these “no comments” on NDAs.

Listen, I am honest. I have integrity. I have accountability. I can't stand backroom deals. Every citizen, when they elect somebody, should continue to have a voice with the person they elected, whether they voted for that person or not. It should not be, I'm coming to you to elect me and then I'll see you in four more years when I need you to put my signs in your yard. And that's the type of behavior, especially at the local level, we need to get away from.

We need to change this county in many ways, and one of those ways is making our local government accessible to everybody by allowing them to have local roundtable discussions with their supervisor or their school board member. We also need to be more accessible on the ASL side. It drives me insane that we're now in 2023, running these meetings and we have videos and we can go into people's homes, but we're not being accessible with the hearing impaired.

So, it's all of that put together. We're sick and tired of the same old grind. We need fresh blood, fresh thoughts, nonpolitical friendships to come in and actually represent what people want and need.

What is your understanding of the role of a county supervisor?

First and foremost, the board of supervisors is a protective barrier for the citizens of the county from overreach from state and federal governments. If you look at Nevada for example, right now the board of supervisors is that first wall of protection where we can uphold our Constitution, ordinances and laws as they already exist to protect our citizens. And it's very important that we have strong people that are willing to say, that's overreach. This county is not going to settle for it.

Beyond that, local government is responsible for all the little ticks in the boxes that you already know. We need to balance the budget. We need to make sure the sheriff's office is equipped. We have to ensure that our waterways are protected, that our drinking water is safe.

And it's very important that we continue to grow responsibly without taxing people out of their homes, which is in danger with unmitigated growth, or no growth. There’s danger on both of those sides.

At the recent Chamber of Commerce candidate showcase, virtually all of the candidates stated their desire to preserve the county’s rural character. What sets you apart in that regard?

I was very dismayed during a [separate] recent candidate event at Guacamole to hear another candidate stand up and say, you're not going to like what I have to say, but we have to go forward with the Wilderness plan.

As it stands right now, it is absolutely reckless. We have over 100,000 acres of this county zoned agricultural. If we turn around and we try to look like Reston, we’re going to inundate our citizens with taxes. We need to keep the county rural with amenities speckled in, instead of being one big pocket of high-density housing next to three data centers, next to two industrial sites, next to 20 commercial sites. That is going to put an unrelenting burden on the roads in terms of congestion and accidents. If we're looking at growth to protect our rural area, we can look at some of the buildings that have been abandoned, and we work with the owners of those properties.

We have to build on our agriculture and support it. I have farms up here in District 4 that are traveling down to the Orange Farmers Market. This is an agricultural community, and we have a newer farmers market. That's ridiculous. We need to build one up this way. We have to find small ways that can actually make a big economic difference to these farmers.

We also have to look into providing incentives for them to not lease out their land recklessly — and I mean recklessly, I don't mean not at all — to solar farms. I would love to see us come up with an ordinance similar to Madison County's ordinance. In order to build a solar farm in Madison County, it has to be on land zoned for manufacturing, which is great. We need to zone an area M-1 that's away from roads, away from farms, away from runoff, not going to hurt schools, and so forth. They also have an ordinance that states how much of that energy must be returned to citizens in Madison County. Looking at Spotsylvania County to our east, 90% of their solar farm energy goes up north, so they're not using it wisely.

In the most recent fiscal year, Orange County Public Schools experienced a $1.2 million shortfall in funding from the Board of Supervisors, forcing the school district to make cuts on facilities improvements and hiring for new positions. What are your views on increasing school funding in the county budget?

First of all, I think we have to be pragmatic and understand that this is not just a local issue. Looking at state funding, we have approximately 5,000 students in Orange County. The state has their own formula and based on that, they will do SOQ funding, which is 59% of the salary of 600 teachers, and we have more than obviously 600 teachers. The rest of that 41 percent, Orange County has to pay for. Any teacher above that SOQ, so 601 and up, we must pay 100 percent out of our pockets. Now, the state has agreed to add 15 more teachers to that pot because they're moving forward with a quality of learning fund that will hopefully help catch up students through tutoring and flexible spending from the state, not our pot.

That's first and foremost. We need to hire a forensic accountant. The next budget session, that forensic accountant will be able to nitpick and pull away lost and buried funds. It sounds weird, but $5 for a box of pens here, $10 there adds up. When you go through forensic accounting, you are likely to pull out about $750,000 to $1.1 million, looking at other smaller counties in Virginia that have done the same. If we're able to do that, obviously that's the first way that we could start supporting the schools.

We do also have this funding problem in that we need another school, and we need to figure that out creatively so that we're not pulling away from teacher salaries. Sure, if we want to put in Wilderness Crossing, we're going to have all that tax revenue, but you have to have a balance. Are we going to build Wilderness Crossing the way it is —decimate battlefields, decimate the water supply, flood out and destroy two Spotsylvania family farms, one that's been in his family for hundreds of years, with no recourse whatsoever? Or do we need to take this and still work on tax revenue, while moving forward slowly with something measured?

Now, we have to get more businesses in here so that we can collect more taxes. We have to become inventive in each separate district, and it might sound weird to separate it, but each district is vastly different. We have to become creative in each district so that we can find these tax incentives and breaks for companies, and then wind up with more tax revenue so that we can apply it effectively.

What does transparency look like in practice for you?

My life. It's on my webpage: transparency, integrity, accountability. That's not something I made up to run for an office. I hold myself accountable for everything at every level. My integrity is just as important to me as God and family because if I don't have integrity, then I have to look at my religion and say, what am I doing? And I have to answer to my family.

Transparency is being able to hold yourself accountable, making decisions based on the information provided, the research that you have done, the bridges that you have fostered. It’s being able to stand up and say, I messed up, or we need further information.

You can ask me anything, and I'm going to be forthright about it. I will also never be caught signing an NDA. If it's offered to me, I'm the person that's going to tell everyone it was offered to me versus just not signing it.

The social media page for your campaign states that you ‘intend to listen to those I represent, putting my own personal views on the back burner,” but you’ve also been endorsed by the director of the Virginia Gun Rights Task Force for being willing to stand up to leftists. What is your plan for working with constituents whose views differ from yours?

We have to take that endorsement for that topic and on that topic, I am not ashamed to say I'm 100 percent pro-Constitution. If there was a Constitutionalist party, that would be the party I'd be part of. My family fought and died for the Constitution. Two family members helped frame it. I absolutely stand up for it at all costs. I would, at 52 years old, go to war over that, and I'm talking about the Constitution in general.

So, just like you are exercising your right of freedom of press right now, we have that right. I stand 100 percent behind the Second Amendment. Like I said, I'm an Army vet. My husband's a deputy in Spotsylvania County. We have responsible gun ownership in our family. We need to ensure that we are not criminalizing good, responsible, law-abiding citizens.

And it's not just 2A. Criminals don't follow the law. If they did, they wouldn't be criminals. There wouldn't be murders, there wouldn't be rapes. There wouldn't be child pornography. We need to hold our sheriff's offices and our individual counties accountable to make sure that we're going after the people who shouldn't be having the weapons — who have lost their right to weapons.

But as far as joining people together, my friend base comes from all walks of life. I have friends of every ethnic group, religious group, sexual orientation. Not every topic is going to be decided by my opinion. There's going to be something that 75 percent of the 8,000 people that are in District 4 are going to be behind. I might not be behind it, but if it's a good, positive change, I’ll back that because that's what they want. That's the entire design of a democracy, is that your voice is heard. I truly want to be the voice of my constituents and I have, like I said, friends and people who are supporting me who are on the opposite side of the spectrum of my political beliefs.

Let’s wrap this up with a few apolitical get-to-know-you questions. Favorite sweet treat?

My favorite candy — probably only the old timers will remember this — is Charleston Chew, and I also love some good old pecan pie or apple cobbler.

Musical artist or band?

Billy Joel has been my ride-or-die since I was a little girl. I actually know Billy personally and didn't realize it then. I just thought he was a really cool guy that came around my parents' house and would play on the piano.

Hobby or way to relax? 

I love to read. Because of my driving, I do a lot of books on tape now in Audible.

To learn more about Brit Lewis, visit www.vote4brit.com or her Facebook page here. For more information on Orange County elections, visit www.orangecountyva.gov/354/Voter-Registration-Elections or call the Orange County Office of Voter Registration and Elections at (540) 672-5262.