OC Candidate Showcase Draws a Crowd

The Orange County High School auditorium was filled to the brim with engaged citizens during a candidate forum sponsored by the county’s Chamber of Commerce, NAACP and Farm Bureau on Wednesday, Aug. 23. During the event, Orange County candidates running for local offices had the opportunity to differentiate themselves from their opponents and outline their priorities if elected November 7.

With a total of 28 local candidates on the ballot this fall, the evening moved along at a rapid pace. The forum began with introductions from the candidates running unopposed in their respective offices, including: Nick Paxton, for Gordonsville Town Council; Melissa Morris, for Orange County Clerk of the Court; and Robert Bradford, one of two incumbents hoping to retain their spots as Orange County directors of the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District.

Afterward, attention turned to the Orange County School Board candidates in Districts 2, 3 and 5. (Visit the Orange County website here to see which district you live in.) While school board meetings in recent years have often become heated over topics like gender identity and racial equity, the answers given by most of the candidates sounded surprisingly alike.

On the issue of how history should be taught in schools, virtually all candidates agreed that “real” and “complete” history needed to be taught, but diverged when it came to defining what those buzzwords meant.

“I'm concerned about agendas, things becoming agenda driven,” said District 2 candidate Darlene Dawson. “I'm a white girl obviously, so we call white people oppressors or racist or whatever and tell our students of color that they cannot achieve as high as someone else without an extra leg up. And I reject that philosophy, whole cloth.”

Ryan Markey, a school board candidate in District 3, stated, “I believe that we can learn these things with mutual respect to each other, with admiration for each other, with malice towards none. I believe that hate is learned, that it is not inherited, and I believe that ultimately love can break down hate.”

Meanwhile, Jack Rickett, another District 3 candidate, argued that controversial topics weren’t at the core of the concerns most constituents have expressed to him.

“As I'm speaking to a lot of you, I'm not hearing this question,” Rickett said. “I'm hearing questions about teachers. How are we supporting teachers? How are we retaining teachers? How are we recruiting teachers? What are we doing to support our young people in making sure that they are prepared for the future?”

After an intermission near the two-hour mark, audience members heard from candidates from the remaining offices: board of supervisors, commonwealth’s attorney and sheriff. Following the sudden resignation of former District 4 Supervisor Jim Crozier in late June, supervisor seats in four out of five districts are up for grabs.

Unsurprisingly, a few of the hot-button issues brought up at the forum included career technical education (CTE), agriculture and growth, along with the 2,600-acre Wilderness Crossing development rezoning that was approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in April.

Each of the candidates agreed to “full transparency” if elected, with District 5 candidate and current planning commissioner Bryan Nicol elaborating on the ways in which an alleged lack of transparency by the existing board hindered the ability of the Orange County Planning Commission and members of the public to make informed judgments during the approval process for Wilderness Crossing.

“On the planning commission during the Wilderness Crossing work sessions and hearings, I made specific requests for materials that were withheld from the planning commission,” Nicol stated. “It hurt our ability to make proper decisions on your behalf. We work for you when we're in office, plain and simple.”

Support was also strong among all candidates for the continuation of land use assessments, with several candidates, including Ellen Pitera and Keith Marshall of District 3 and Crystal Hale of District 4, citing their own personal experiences as farmers.

“If we give up those land use assessments and those tax breaks to our forestry and agriculture folks, we won't have that land anymore,” said Hale. “This is a problem in other localities who do not think it's important to have that tax structure in place. And I'm here to tell you as a farmer's daughter and as a woman who lives on a farm now with her dairy goat herd, we need those tax structures in place to keep us there.”

The concept of protecting the county’s agricultural heritage came up again when the candidates were asked how they envision the county in 10 years. A majority of candidates responded with answers that balanced economic growth with preservation of the county’s rural character.

District 2 candidate Ed Van Hoven’s vision for the county featured “managed growth to tie into CTE programs that work to keep our younger folks here for generations for jobs that are here in Orange County” and a “very acceptable tax base to all of our citizens.”

District 3 candidate and incumbent Keith Marshall leaned more toward the strictly preservationist side than most other candidates, saying, “I truly see Orange County much as it is today. We've done a lot to ensure the safeguards so that what we know to be, is going to be continued.”

For his opponent, Ellen Pitera, the focus was on well-planned growth and turning the community’s ongoing conversations about the need for a high school CTE building into a reality.

“It will happen, and we will have it before 10 years is up,” Pitera promised.

Tensions rose slightly during comments by the candidates for commonwealth’s attorney and sheriff. The two candidates for Orange County Commonwealth’s Attorney, incumbent Diana Wheeler O’Connell and Page Higginbotham, previously faced off against one another in a narrow 2019 race, with O’Connell ultimately besting her challenger by less than 30 votes. Similar to then, discussion on Wednesday focused heavily on clashing perceptions of the current office’s relationship with local law enforcement.

“We need to get the officers back in communication on a day-to-day basis with the commonwealth’s attorney's office,” Higginbotham said. “When they have a case, they need to know that if they call that someone will answer. They need to know that they will hear about a plea agreement before it's done.”

“My office has always maintained an open-door policy to law enforcement,” O’Connell responded. “Law enforcement have all of the contact numbers of every attorney in my office. We answer calls 24 hours a day, essentially at night. We go out to crime scenes when we're asked, and we certainly partner with every agency.”

During the question-and-answer period for sheriff candidates, Stephen LaLuna described himself as a “constitutional conservative” while Smith focused on his years of administrative experience in the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

The two disagreed on the importance of accreditation, with LaLuna stating that obtaining department accreditation is a way of increasing accountability and would be of first importance if elected. In contrast, Smith stated that while he is not opposed to accreditation, he would want to get community input first due to the increased tax burden to residents that would come with accreditation, including a 10 percent raise for the sheriff position.

Smith and LaLuna also differed in their views on officer recruitment.

“I want to reach out of Orange County also and try to recruit candidates from other areas, better skill levels, higher skill levels than what we may have just right here,” LaLuna said.

“My response to that is we have a great sheriff's office. We have great people that currently work at our sheriff's office,” Smith replied, citing improvements that have been made during his tenure including new equipment, better narcotics detection and increased community programming.

To watch the entire 2023 Orange County candidate forum, visit the Orange County Chamber of Commerce YouTube page here. Written responses from each of the candidates can also be viewed on the chamber website at www.orangevachamber.com/candidate-showcase.

For general information on elections in Orange County, visit www.orangecountyva.gov/663/Election-Information.

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