Mark Kitta, candidate for the Falmouth seat on the Stafford County School Board, says he was motivated to run for the board after observing some of the major problems in the schools. Among the issues he wishes to address are: the teacher turnover rate, poor budget oversight and planning and most importantly to Kitta – addressing the planning behind the “Stafford County Rebuild Project.”
Kitta is not affiliated with a particular political party. In fact, he believes politics should be taken out of the school board decisions.
“I was approached by a number of political parties and I respectfully declined their endorsement,” he says. “I gave them the same answer; I’m more interested in providing for the citizens of Falmouth and ultimately the citizens of Stafford County then I am a political party of their agenda.”
Kitta says he is passionate about the “Stafford Rebuild Project” because it is dealing with a large amount of money and he says the plans were poorly communicated with the public.
“They’re not actually rebuilding the high school, they’re building a new school behind it and they’re demolishing a $36 million asset,” says Kitta. “That’s 250,000 square feet that they are going to bulldoze into the ground and make it into a parking lot.”
He says he supported the original plan, which was to build a high school on the newly acquired property of Ewalt Farm off of Clift Farm road.
“In refocusing Stafford High School, they were going to build a career and technical education center, which would alleviate a lot of the overcrowding in the high schools,” he says. “It would take the career and technical education out of each high school and around 25,000-30,000 square feet in those high schools would be opened up for more classrooms with the (career and technical center) coming down to Stafford.”
Kitta says the Capital Improvements Plan is misusing the public’s funds by asking for $65 million in 10 years to build a new career and technical education center.
“The initial cost of building the new high school on the Ewalt Property was $83 million. Building the new school behind the existing Stafford High School, they didn’t have to do all the infrastructure improvements and they could use existing fields, which lowered the cost to $67 million,” says Kitta.
“Tomorrow wasn’t thought about in the decisions that were made for today,” he says. “Ultimately, it’s going to cost the citizens almost a $100 million dollars between demolishing that $36 million building and $65 million for a new career and technical education center.”
While Kitta says that he agrees that Stafford needed a new high school, he believes the school board and the board of supervisors should have considered long-term planning.
“If I were on the board, I would push to save the existing Stafford High School and renovate it for the CTE* programs,” Kitta says. “It would cost about $40 million less than what their current proposal is.”
Kitta says that the planning behind the building plan was poorly planned and communicated to the people of Stafford.
“There were only two public town hall meetings and people, to this day, when you tell them that part of the plan is to tear down the existing high school, their eyes get big and they look at me and say ‘What are you talking about?’”
He says that is something he hopes to bring to the board, open communication and a refocus on the problems that affect the public.
Employment
“It is important that the school system and the school board encourage partnering the schools with local businesses,” says Kitta. “In doing that, you promote volunteers from local business coming in and helping the schools, but then you also open up job opportunities for your juniors and seniors and then opportunities for them when they graduate.”
Adopt-a-classroom
Kitta also says he would like to revive the adopt-a-classroom program, if he is elected. With the program, people are invited to sponsor classrooms to support teachers and students. The funds provide financial and moral support to the classrooms.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of teachers here who’s children were able to benefit from these donations (which) can be as little as $10 or $20, but an extra $10 or $20 go to that teacher and they are able to use it for the classroom and it goes a long way,” he says. “I believe that would be a great way for citizens to actually help classrooms, help teachers and help schools.”
*CTE: career and technical education
Vanessa Griffin is an active member of the Aquia community. She currently serves on a variety of different community boards and committees and helped organize and initiate the first North Stafford Farmers Market.
“Our community had a need for the production of local produce so I made it happen. I found the funding; I ran through all the red tape and was able to deliver that to the community,” she says. “Not only have we been able to partner with the local food pantry (S.E.R.V.E.) and provide nearly 500 pounds of produce per week, but are planning to implement the SNAP (food stamps) program next year to further extend our services to the lower income families in Stafford.”
Griffin is running for the Aquia seat on the Stafford County school board because she says she wants to continue to produce results for her community.
“I probably spend just as much time donating to the community as I do at my regular job,” she says. Griffin works for CACI International Inc., a professional services and information technology (IT) company that serves Intelligence, Defense, and Federal Civilian customers. When she isn’t working at her job center, she says she is working with the community as well as nonprofits to discover new ways to help Stafford succeed.
“I’ve had a lot of leadership roles and I’m extremely dedicated,” she says. “Anyone that knows me knows that I’m always in a million different places at once making things happen and that I’m 100 percent committed.”
Griffin is also currently working on the food pantry program offered by S.E.R.V.E, a nonprofit that provides emergency relief to those in need.
“I’m trying to help the food pantry down here boost their program,” she says. “When people talk to you and say ‘Thank you for making this happen,’ it really makes it all worth it. Just to see how many people you’re actually affecting.”
Issues in Education
Griffin says that it is important that Stafford County improve teacher salaries in order to retain current teachers and attract new ones.
“The pay rate around the county has approved, but we are missing opportunities to attract quality teachers with a better salary,” she says. Recently, Governor Bob McDonnell awarded $4.5 million in Strategic Teacher Compensation Grants, which rewarded teachers in 13 school division based on student achievement, professional growth and leadership.
Griffin says that those grants, ranging from about $26,000 to $850,000, could have been an ideal opportunity for Stafford County to provide incentives to attract new teachers.
“If I am elected, I would be on the lookout to make sure we are not missing these opportunities that the other schools may be taking and are passing us by.”
Another issue Griffin says she would look into is a solution to evaluating the performance of Stafford schools, teachers and students.
“The No Child Left Behind Act was a little too extreme with encouraging teachers to just “teach to test,” she says. “This skews how kids are actually doing and how the schools are performing, because you’re not teaching concept as much so as memorization.”
The General Assembly passed legislation last session that assigns a letter-grade rating system to schools based on performance. Griffin says that one blanket solution doesn’t necessarily work for every school.
“We have to be somewhere in between. We need to monitor the progress of the students but also how trusted the teachers actually are,” she says.
Griffin says she would like to see STEM-based educational programs (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) expand in Stafford County.
“One in every five jobs now is STEM related,” she says. “There are grants out there right now that are trying to boost this level of education. Stafford County started and they have a small program that is developing right now but if we seek out the right kind of funding and make the right budgetary decisions, we could really make it into a very strong program.”
Mark Dudenhefer, Republican delegate representing the 2nd Virginia house district in Stafford and Woodbridge, has participated in major legislative changes since he was first elected in 2012. He is being challenged by Michael Futrell (D) for the 2nd district seat, which includes Prince William and Stafford counties.
This past session, he is responsible participating in the passing of legislation that helped give teachers raises, veterans more opportunities, as well as initiated “Gwyneth’s Law,” which was inspired by a woman named Gwyneth Griffin who passed away in July of 2012 after going into cardiac arrest at her middle school.
“One particular piece of legislation that I carried and spent a lot of time getting passed was a requirement for school teachers to receive CPR training and for high school kids to have CPR training as part of their graduation requirement,” says Dudenhefer.
He says, if reelected, he will continue to focus on areas such as transportation, education and the economy.
Transportation
Dudenhefer says there are many improvements that are in progress or on the agenda for the near future that will greatly improve transportation issues in the Northern Virginia region. After losing his daughter Emily in 2004 to a car accident in Stafford, Dudenhefer became determined to advocate for safer transportation in the region.
“One thing I learned early on is that I ran (for delegate) thinking I was going to fix all transportation problems by building more roads and widening the roads we already have,” says Dudenhefer. “You find out very quickly when you’re dealing with those problems that it takes an ‘all of the above’ approach. We need to fix the roads to make them more efficient and help with the flow of traffic but we also need to study and invest in mass transit.”
Dudenhefer refers to two studies that he says will be useful in determining what more needs to be done to fix transportation in Virginia. The Virginia Department of Education is conducting a study of the U.S. Route 1 corridor in Fairfax and Prince William Counties to determine what improvement approach will be most effective. Dudenhefer says he hopes to expand this study to cover more area.
Additionally, Dudenhefer says he supports another study proposed by Gerald Connolly, (D-Fairfax, Prince William) which would explore transportation alternatives.
“I have endorsed Congressman Connolly’s efforts to get a congressional study on the entire Route 1 corridor and that we’ll look at, amongst other things, the metro extension,” he says. “We need to start talking about that. It is many years down the line because it takes many years of planning and negotiating and it will be very expensive, but this is a long-term possible solution.”
Education
Dudenhefer says while Virginia has one of the best rankings in education, there is always ways to make improvements. He says Virginia should invest more in teacher salaries, training and performance in order to ensure they are “the best of the best.”
“I voted for the pay raise that most of the teachers in the Commonwealth received, but I think at the state level there are some areas of Virginia that aren’t as rich as Fairfax County or Prince William or Stafford, so they struggle with funding and bringing in good teachers,” he says.
Dudenhefer supported legislation signed by Governor Bob McDonnell last session that will provide a letter grade based on performance for schools in Virginia.
“(The legislation) is particularly beneficial to parents who want to know whether their school is performing at a high level,” he says. It will add pressure to local school boards to improve those particular schools. You have to build some kind of consensus that what you’re doing is fair otherwise it will fail. You have to listen to the educators; you have to listen to the parents and the school boards.”
Dudenhefer says that Virginia has some of the best schools and universities in the country. As a member of the Higher Education Subcommittee, he says it is important that Virginia strives to get more people college educations.
Further, Dudenhefer says Virginia not only set an example for other areas, but can learn from them. As a native of Louisiana, he says there are quite a few differences in the school systems. While he says Virginia’s schools tend to perform better than those in Louisiana, Louisiana can teach Virginia some things about education as well.
“In some of the areas (of Louisiana) where the public schools have failed miserably for generations, there are now charter schools, and the same kids are excelling,” he says. “We should always be open to looking at what other people do that is successful.”
Obamacare expansion
Dudenhefer says he is not a fan of the Affordable Care Act, which has been fought by Republican legislators and thus has not yet been expanded in Virginia.
“Medicaid by itself needs to be revamped, revised, and updated,” he says. “We would expand Medicaid to 400,000 more people on the fact that the federal government is going to give us almost 100 percent the first year and then 90 percent thereafter, and they’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar they give.”
“We are going to hurt many more people than its going to help. And the people that are paying for it are the ones who are going to be hurt the worst.”
He says that representatives from the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates have created a commission and are observing and working on Medicaid reform before making the decision to expand Medicaid in the state.
Jobs/Economy
Dudenhefer says regardless of what position Virginia holds, they are always in the top tier among the best business states. However, he says, the reason Virginia has not been able to secure the top spot in recent years comes back to transportation issues.
“If you go to any of the chambers of commerce and you ask that they’re business and growth is being inhibited by the traffic problem,” he says. Once transportation issues are addressed, he says, there will be more opportunities for employment.
Additionally he says that Virginia is an ideal area for small business creation, but the level of bureaucracy involvement inhibits Virginia’s creative potential.
“The best incentive we can give a small business is to get government out of the way,” says Dudenhefer. “I think we would see some dramatic improvements.”
Steven Keen, incumbent by special election for the Woodbridge seat on the Prince William County School Board, has been elected to the school board before, serving two terms from 1995 to 2003. He says that this time around his main focus is on the direction of the schools and how the Board of County Supervisors and school board can work together to resolve the issues facing the county.
“I looked and saw that the current economic crisis is as fragile as it was when I was first elected. I thought that my experience would be valuable to the board,” Keen said. “However, the economy is now gotten to a place where it’s time for us to start asking what the implications are for the schools.”
Keen says that the relationship between the school board and Board of County Supervisors needs to revert back to the respectable relationship that it once had. He said one of the main problems was that the board of supervisors made tax cuts that didn’t abide by the conditions outlined in the Revenue Sharing Agreement, a five-year budget plan that was negotiated between the school board and board of supervisors.
“We need to be constantly in touch with them so they know it’s time for us to do things the way we agreed to, and if they feel that needs adjusting, let’s sit down and renegotiate,” says Keen. “Right now were in limbo. It’s back the way it was before the Revenue Sharing Agreement where there were strained relations between the members on the board.”
Educational Issues
Other areas of concern to Keen include classroom sizes and teacher pay and retention.
“We have the highest class sizes in Virginia and we can stay that without statistics because it’s the highest allowed under Virginia law,” he says. “Our teachers, while we have given small raises every year, are falling behind the salaries in other places.”
He says that in any supply and demand market, when countries that have better salary structures are looking for new teachers, those countries are searching for experience.
“If a person with us shows up with a good work ethic and experience, we could lose them. So in those situations you always lose the best teachers first and that’s very damaging to the system.”
Keen says the focus always starts with salary in regards to bringing in the best teachers, but that the county is making effective steps to do so.
“We go well out of our way to attract quality teachers. We have job fairs and we are sending people to major teaching colleges with good teaching programs,” says Keen. “Recruiting, pay and benefits is a huge deal.”
Indoor Pool — Good or Bad for Woodbridge?
Another topic being talked about at the Board of County Supervisors level is the proposal to build an indoor aquatics facility at the 12th high school off Hoadly Road. Prince William County Schools project that the pool’s cost will be $10.5 million to construct and $800,000 per year to operate, in which usage fees will cover about 70-100 percent of the operating fees. PWCS says that it will serve the entire community, providing aquatic instruction, lessons and space for private and high school swim teams.
Keen says there are conditions that would determine if he would support the construction of the pool.
“Four people were in favor and there are three that said they are not. Then there’s me,” he says. “My attitude toward it is that if the proposal the superintendent brought forward and the Revenue Sharing Agreement don’t change, I have to oppose it because my district is the one that suffers the most with budget costs.”
“If the Board of County Supervisors really wants to do something with this, we need to make a plan with them to take the seven years of cuts they’ve given us and slowly integrate that money back in,” he adds.” If they agree to a plan to reinstate those cut funds and abide by the rules, then I would support building the pool because I could see a long range plan.”
Overall, Keen says his experience with the school board and budget planning, as well as 35 years of experience in retail fields makes him a well-rounded and dedicated candidate.
“Now that it appears that the county is under a financial crisis, it’s time for us to ask ourselves, what kind of county do we want for the future?”
Debra Wood, (R) is the current Commissioner of Revenue for Manassas Park City. Her job requires providing taxpayers a variety of services, including: assessing the value of property and taxes, issuing business licenses and processing state income tax returns. She has lived in the city for over 35 years and has spent 22 of those in the Commissioner of Revenue’s office.
This year she is being challenged by Patricia Trimble, an independent nominee. Wood says her experience and workmanship make her a qualified candidate in the November general election.
“My years of experience and knowledge of the duties of commissioner surpass that of any candidate,” she says. “I attend yearly training sessions on income taxes, auditing, personal property assessment, computer training, legislative changes, as well as numerous commissioners association training to ensure that I stay abreast of any changes in the law.”
Accomplishments
Wood has accomplished many things during her tenure as the Commissioner of Revenue for Manassas City. She is proud to say that she was able to help more people qualify for tax relief by seeking City Council’s approval to expand limits on the city’s tax relief program for the elderly.
Further, Wood played an integral part in the transition to the city’s permanent vehicle decal ordinance approved by the Manassas Park City Council for the 2012 budget. According to Wood, this option is an advantage for both the city and the citizens.
“I worked with treasures office and a member of the police department to come up with the permanent decals that we now have in Manassas Park,” she says. The decal remains valid as long as the vehicle is owned by the purchaser. Prior to the permanent label, residents were required to pay $25 a year to obtain new decals each year.”
“It gives us a chance to make sure the vehicles are being taxed as well as gives the taxpayers the relief from having to scrape of the decal every year and replace it with a new one.”
Wood’s role as commissioner affects many areas of the city budget. She says that of all the taxes that are imposed, a good amount of the revenue is used to help fund services that are important to the citizens.
“We make sure we generate the taxes that come into the city. I try very hard to make sure all the vehicles and businesses are taxed in a fair and equitable manner,” she says.
“The city council gives a percentage of the uncommitted revenue to the schools. So, the more that is brought in, the more that is given to the schools and the services that Manassas Park provides.”
Mutual Dependability
In a few instances, Wood says that citizens will come to the office because the Department of Taxation may not have a record of their payment, thus denying an income tax refund. In that situation, Wood says that they always keep a receipt of income tax payments in order to ensure that the citizens and the city government remain accountable and fair with one another.
“If the payments are processed and taken to the treasures office, the tax payer can come back and get a receipt,” she says, “We’ve had that happen four or five times over the past few years, so we have been able to provide that service to our citizens.”
Wood has run both opposed and unopposed since she first took office in 1999. She says the community aspect of her business will be important to voters when they head to the polls in November.
“We’re such a small city that a lot of us know each other by name or by face,” she says.
“I enjoy working with the people here in the office and I enjoy working with the citizens of Manassas Park.”
Nanette Kidby, current Stafford County School Board member representing the Garrisonville district, has served the district since 2007. This year, she is being challenged by R. Pamuela Yeung. Previously, Kidby served as a mathematics high school teacher in Prince William County for 21 years. She says her experience and dedication to education makes her a successful school board member.
“Education isn’t what I do, it’s who I am,” says Kidby. “I can bring experience of working on the board and there’s definitely something to be said for that. With that background coupled with my background in business and accounting, I can not only bring the educational experience, the managerial experience, but also the budgeting experience.”
She is focusing her campaign on areas such as teacher retention and pay, overcrowded class rooms, and maintaining modern learning and technology in the schools.
“The biggest challenge facing education in general is bringing in 21st century learning to the classrooms,” says Kidby. “Education sometimes has the tendency to lag behind what’s really going on in the real world and our kids need to have 21st learning skills, tools and opportunities and to be able to leave Stafford County Public School’s doors and be productive members of society.”
Additionally, Kidby says that teacher development and technology is critical.
“Many times our students will come in and they’ll be more technologically savvy than some of our teachers will be,” she says. “We have to make sure that we are all singing on the same sheet of music and that were all staying on the cutting edge to accomplish the skills that are necessarily to stay competitive in the work force.”
Kidby says it is important to realize that teacher pay, retention and classroom size are all elements that are interactive within the school system.
“You can’t look at one without looking at the other,” Kidby says. “One of the things that we have to keep in mind with our teacher salaries is that they need to be competitive with the other salaries in the areas communities in order to be able to attract the best teachers to Stafford County.”
Kidby says Stafford County has gone above and beyond the state guidelines, in terms of class size. However, she says it is important to continue to monitor the class sizes.
“You have to make sure that you build into your budget if a teacher repositions so that you can respond when you have classrooms that are starting to become overcrowded, particularly in elementary schools.”
Kidby says as economic development grows in Stafford County, so will the schools. She says it’s important that the expansion be managed carefully.
“As a school board member, we need to be very aware of the development that’s going on,” she says. “We like to see development in Stafford County if it’s controlled and the infrastructure, in particular to schools, can meet the needs of the community.”
When asked what attributes are necessary to make a successful school board member, Kidby says that it involves a willingness to serve the community and make related improvements.
“You have to be very aware of the needs of the schools system itself and be able to manage those needs of the community and the system together in order to make an effective school board,” she says.
Kidby says her dedication to the board is portrayed in the board’s involvement in the community. She was recently endorsed by the Stafford Education Association.
“We have a made a board that is extremely active in the community and active in day-to-day operations of the schools,” she says. “I can’t begin to tell you of a time we didn’t go above and beyond.”
Robert Belman, former school board member of eight years, is running for the open Falmouth seat in this November’s General Election. He says his experience serving as a school board member and desire to work for the county independently of a political party will make him a valuable representative of Stafford.
“I wasn’t talked or coerced into running. I’ve always wanted to give back to the community and I think I have the pulse of the people,” says Belman. “People know who I am and I am accessible to people. I’m not representing any political party, I’m representing the people.”
Belman participated in the initiation of the Adopt-A-Classroom program in Stafford County, which is a service that joins donors with teachers to help provide funding for supplies for the classroom.
“The opportunities are unlimited when you create partnerships between your communities in your schools,” says Belman. “When we signed on to that program we had a lot of ties to different businesses in Stafford County. With the schools, you get the people into the schools to see what they need and create opportunities for expansion in the future.”
County Relationships
Another area that Belman says he would like to see improvement in is the relationship between the school board and the board of supervisors.
“The partnership right now between the school board and the board of supervisors is the worst I’ve ever seen and when you have this bad blood between the two boards it doesn’t benefit the residents of Stafford County at all,” he says. According to Belman, the school board and board of supervisors need to learn to respect each other and communicate effectively, especially when it comes to budget planning.
“It’s not the county’s money, it’s not the supervisor’s money, it’s the tax payer’s money. The elected school board members and supervisors have to understand they represent the people,” he says. “My experience on the school board shows that I can bring more to the table than anyone else in the race for the district because of my service on how we need to work with the school board.”
Education
Belman says if he is elected as a supervisor, he will fight for the issues important to the county’s school board as long as the two boards are working together. Belman says the supervisors and school board members need to work together to understand the tax implications behind any budget request.
“The school board seems in the last 4 years to give lip service to teacher pay as a priority. You can’t give lip service to wanting to pay them an increase and not do anything in your power to get that increase,” says Belman.
“If you really want (the board of supervisors) to get serious about how to fund the daily operations of the schools, then the school board has to get serious about how the money will be spent.”
Business Development
“Businesses want to locate in an area that has good schools, affordable housing for its employees and that has other businesses that can draw the employees to shop and work in,” says Belman. He says bringing in more businesses to the southern end of the county will help promote economic growth.
“It seems now that everybody’s working to bringing economic prosperity to the northern end of the county and the southern end of the county gets looked over,” says Belman.
However, he says that this continued development has implications for transportation in the region.
Transportation
“When you bring more people in (the county), you have more people on the road. We should try to locate those business in an area that already has the ratification infrastructures in place,” says Belman.
He refers to the infrastructure of major roads, such as with Butler road, US Route 17 and the I-95 interchange. Additionally, Belman says if he is elected, he plans to work to make improvements to the Falmouth and Chatham bridges.
Valerie Setzer, Democratic candidate for the Falmouth district seat on the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, is running up against Republican Mary “Meg” Bohmke and Independent Robert Belman in the November General Election. She is running for the seat because she says that she believes she would be able to facilitate a more balanced perspective on the board of supervisors.
“I look at things in a more well-rounded perspective,” she says. “When considering developments, I will ensure that the people that are willing to develop new projects in this county take into consideration and compensate the county with the necessary infrastructure needs that accompany those projects. This includes roads, schools, public transportation and accessibility to fire and rescue services (and so on).”
Setzer recently retired as a terminal air space manager at the Federal Aviation Administration. She says her professional skills would be a beneficial aspect for the board.
“I have a lot of the skills that are necessary to make effective decisions and understand the issues, such as managing the budget, managing projects, facilitation and contracting,” she says. “I’ve also dealt a lot with education and human relations skills. I have a caring personality and I want to do the best that I possibly can for the people of this county.”
Setzer says that there has been talk about the poor relationship between members of the board of supervisors when making certain decisions. She hopes to be able to help facilitate these meetings to make sure they stay positive and focused on the objective.
“Smart Growth”
Setzer says one of the biggest challenges for the county has been keeping up with the continuing developments.
“One of the biggest challenges is smart growth. We’re not keeping pace necessarily for county services, schools and infrastructure,” says Setzer. At a recent board of supervisors meeting, Setzer says in light of recent events, one of the topics that were mentioned was the lack of urgent and available medical emergency personnel.
“Through my research I found that the small amount of money that was reduced in taxes in recent years would have made a tremendous difference in being able to more adequately staff [medical and emergency services],” she says. “I think the developers need to pay adequate proffers when they want to put new projects in place because we need these extra services.”
Additionally, Setzer says she will advocate for improvements to transportation, education and employment.
Transportation
Setzer says that traffic congestion is a big issue for the county. She says she would like to see improvements to big roads such as U.S. 1 and 17 and the access to I-95, as well as the smaller roads around the community.
“We need to keep pace with what the needs are in transportation,” she says. “When we establish new homes, we are going to have families that commute and kids will go to new schools, we need to ensure that there is appropriate road improvement to accommodate the additional traffic and congestion on the roads.”
Education
Setzer was recently endorsed by the Stafford Education Association political action committee for her advocacy for education progression. She says she has learned that the school board’s budget has not been adequately funded by the board of supervisors in recent years.
“In order to fund the schools more adequately, I think one of the things that needs to be done is controlling development and making sure it’s done in a smart and proper fashion,” she says. Additionally, Setzer says that overpopulated classrooms and teacher salaries need to be addressed.
“Too many schools are either at or above capacity. School construction needs to be more timely. We have some overcrowding in our schools and they are starting to use trailers,” she says. “I also think the salaries need to be increased. We are overdue more than a lot of other locations for these increases and there’s been discussion about teachers looking for positions with schools that pay more adequate salaries.”
Employment
Setzer says she would also work to promote employment opportunities and economic development within Stafford County.
“We need to ensure that whatever development is being proposed will also be a supplement to help improve the employment sector for the area,” she says. “Some nonprofit organizations have not been funded adequately as they should have in recent years and I think we need to support critical nonprofit organizations, which will increase employment opportunity in the area.”
Voters will head to the polls Nov. 5 for the local election.
Ty Schieber, Republican incumbent for the Garrisonville district on the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, has served on the county’s board since January 2012. This is his first regular election. He was appointed by the Stafford County Board of Supervisors to the Garrisonville seat after Mark Dudenhefer (R-Stafford) was elected to the House of Delegates. Prior to being elected as a supervisor, he was a representative on the Stafford County School Board. His opponent in the November Virginia General Election is Democrat, Laura Sellers.
He says there are three main challenges that come along with the development and growth coming to Stafford County: schools, transportation and safety.
“The more people you have, the more focus you have on the roads, the more kids you have in school and all of that has to be done within the context with a safe and secure environment,” says Schieber. He says there are challenges that come along with those three primary areas have a lot to do with the growing development and the available resources in the county.
Education
When it comes to the school system, Schieber says it is important that the school board and board of supervisors make efficient decisions regarding teacher retention and salaries.
“The salary baseline is always a challenge and in the last budget cycle, teachers did get a raise but we want to make that something that is more competitive, more predictable,” says Schieber. “The conversation that we are embarking on with schools is: ‘what are the ways we can work collectively to do that?’”
Schieber says the core function of public schools is instruction and urges the county to look for opportunities to reduce the cost of non-educational functions so that educational resources can be used in the classrooms.
“We need to continue to challenge ourselves to look at better ways of doing business to reduce the cost of noncore function,” he says. “Making sure our teacher salary baselines are competitive and we’re retaining educators is where the quality of education happens.”
Schieber says there needs to be good communication between the schools and the school board in order to accomplish the goals of Stafford County.
“I’ve been through four budget cycles now, two as a board member and two as a supervisor,” he says. “One of the most challenging aspects of that relationship is maintaining good communication and figuring out how to share information in a way where there’s a common understanding about the relative priorities and the decisions you have to make in terms of where the resources come from.”
Transportation
Schieber says that the county is making great progress in terms of the transportation bill that was passed by the General Assembly last legislative session, but says it will be a challenge to keep up with the new measures.
“When you look at the improvements that are planned or in progress across the district, I think we’re in a good position now that the resources are going be available,” he says. “I think that we’re going to make significant strides over the next two to three years in helping to fix the issues that we currently have.”
Among these projects, Schieber mentioned the Route 630 and I-95 interchange as well as the Garrisonville road widening. He said that these are among other construction projects on the northern and southern boundary of Stafford that will help alleviate the area’s transportation issues.
Jobs
Job creation is an area Schieber says he is very proactive in. Within his career experience, he says he has been successful in adding 250 to 300 jobs to the Stafford area and the Board’s Economic Development 10-Point Plan, geared toward making Stafford County more business-friendly, has progressively met success in promoting job creation. Additionally, Schieber says that the building developers have a large role in providing jobs to the economy.
Another area Schieber hopes to see is the expansion of research and development centers, such as the Stafford Technology and Resource Park at the Quantico Corporate Center.
I think from a long-term perspective, (research and development centers) have a lot of potential to help us develop our own innovation economy,” says Schieber. He says it is important to build opportunities in the economy that are aligned with the market’s growth areas.
“The idea is to draw academic research and development institutions so that we can educate and train our workforce,” he says. “It’s legitimate to consider that education is economic development, so the better job that we can do in terms of linking together the full spectrum of education and training from kindergarten all the way into graduate degrees…the better we can shape our curriculum to make sure our citizens have the tool kit to go out there and succeed.”
Military
Schieber says he believes that Stafford plays a big role into how Virginia continuing to build on the success of being a military job center. He served for the U.S. Marine Corps from 1987 to 2001.
“When you look at the national defense capacity here in the commonwealth and in planning district 16, in which Stafford County is a part of, it’s remarkable,” he says. “Marine Corp Base Quantico in itself has approximately a $3.6 billion annual economic impact on the region. It’s both natural and necessary that we remain fully engaged enough to expand upon that.”
