Republicans selected Bob Weir as their candidate for a Special Election in Prince William County’s Gainesville District.

Weir will face Democrat Kerensa Sumers in a February 21 match-up, where voters will decide who will serve the remainder of former Gainesville District Supervisor Peter Candland’s term that ends December 31, 2023.

Candland resigned a month following the approval of the Prince William Digital Gateway, a tract of land larger than 800 acres next to the Manassas National Battlefield Park, now cleared for data center development.

Candland owns a home on the land and stands to make millions by selling his property to data center developers. Candland had abstained from making land-use votes on the Digital Gateway the year leading up to the project’s approval and subsequent resignation.

The GOP selected Weir at a mass meeting at Park Valley Church near Haymarket today, Monday, January 2, 2023. He won more than 50% of the vote in the first round, beating former county school board member Alyson Satterwhite and Ray Mizener, who chairs the Prince William Committee of 100.

The nominating process began at 7 p.m. with speeches by the candidates. The GOP required participants to pledge allegiance to the party and renounce any prior political party affiliations before they were allowed to cast a ballot. The GOP declared Weir, the winner at 9 p.m.

A total of 372 people registered to vote at the mass meeting to decide the nomination. The voting was done by secret ballot.

Weir could not be reached for comment on this story.

Several Democrats, like Bill Wright and Marilyn Karp, outspoken opponents of the Prince William Digital Gateway, attended the meeting. According to Karp, she cast a ballot for Weir. They campaigned for Weir, who joined them last year in opposing the massive data center project next to the site of one of the first major battles of the Civil War.

Wright, who Prince William County Democrats ousted from their organization last year after he called for Board of County Supervisors Chair Ann Wheeler’s resignation, says he plans to oppose his party’s nominee in a larger effort to oppose the majority of Democrats who sit on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

“Kerensa Sumers sounds like a decent person, I’ve read her position statements, but as long as Ann Wheeler is in charge of the Board of County Supervisors, I’m not going put another vote in her bucket,” said Wright.

Wright and others who opposed the Digital Gateway and a host of data center projects on coming to the area say Supervisors are more concerned about trading the county’s remaining rural landscape for data centers, felling trees, and paving over surfaces which will lead to more stormwater runoff and sediment in area reservoirs.

Voters chose Wheeler and four other Democrats to sit on the board in 2019. When they took office in January 2020, the Board of Supervisors flipped from Republican control for the first time this century.

The two remaining Republicans on the board, Yesli Vega and Jeanine Lawson, also spoke during Monday’s mass meeting.

Weir sits on the Haymarket Town Council, where he’s served off and on again since 2004. Voters most recently re-elected him to the town council in November 2022.

Satterwhite has declared her candidacy for the Gainesville District Supervisors seat for the November 2023 General Election but also tossed her name into the ring for the February Special Election after Candland’s resignation.

Satterwhite spent eight years on the county School Board representing the Gainesville District. She ran against Dr. Babur Lateef twice for the School Board Chairman At-large seat and lost during a Special Election in 2018 and the General Election in 2019.

Correction: Marilyn Karp, a self-proclaimed Democrat, cast a ballot for Weir during a mass meeting on Monday, January 2, 2023.

Republicans moved the date of a mass meeting to choose their next Gainesville District Supervisor candidate.

A Prince William County Republican Party mass meeting will occur at 7 p.m. on Monday, January 2, at Park Valley Church, 44500 Waverly Drive in Haymarket.

Two candidates — former county school board member Alyson Satterwhite and Haymarket Town Council member Bob Weir — are seeking the party’s nomination.

Democrats say Kerensa Sumers is their candidate. Voters will decide in a Special Election who will replace former supervisor Peter Candland who resigned this month after supervisors approved the Prince William Digital Gateway for new data centers next to Manassas National Battlefield Park.

Candland stands to make millions of dollars from the sale of his home and property near the park for new data center complexes. Candland resigned after Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashworth advised him not to take any future votes on land-use cases during 2023, which would have been the final year of Candland’s third term.

The GOP’s mass meeting had been planned for Wednesday, January 4, at Battlefield High School near Haymarket. According to a Republican party spokesman, the date change came after a judge, on December 27, 2022, ordered the February 21 election date and gave the parties up to five days to choose their nominees.

The mass meeting is open to all legal voters who live in the Gainesville Magisterial District (click this link to see the boundaries of Gainesville District, along with the county’s other six magisterial districts) “who are in accord with the principles of the Republican Party, and who sign a written promise to support the Republican nominee, may participate in the meeting,” states a press release.

Voters can pre-register online until 5 p.m. Friday, December 30.  Voters can also register at the meeting by presenting a legal ID.

There are no fees to attend the meeting, but donations to defray costs are welcome states a press release.

Voting on the nominee will be by secret ballot, with candidates listed on the ballot in an order determined by drawing lots. Today is the last day for prospective candidates to file with the respective political parties.

Paul Milde, a Republican running for the newly-drawn House District 64 seat in Stafford County, says GOP voters may decide in June what candidate they want to run in the November General Election.

However, the announcement comes as Milde is, so far, the only Republican to announce a run for the district, which contains central Stafford County, with areas south of Garrisonville Road, south to Route 17, and east to the Potomac River.

“We expect we’ll have a candidate,” Milde told PLN. Milde said a Primary Election will be held on June 20, 2023, should another Republican candidate emerge.

Stafford County Board Chairman Crystal Vanuch, fresh off a Spring 2022 Primary Election for the U.S. House District 7 seat won in November by Abigail Spanberger, is rumored to be considering a run. Vanuch has not responded to questions about her interest in the seat.

Leonard Lacy, a chaplain at the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office and former Virginia State Trooper, also announced his campaign and will run as a Democrat.

“We can’t afford to let far-left Democrats continue blocking the agenda Virginians elected Governor Youngkin and Republican legislators to deliver. I am committed to delivering conservative results for Stafford County,” Milde penned in a press release today.

District 64 is new to Stafford County in 2024, following the Virginia State Supreme Court’s political redistricting process of 2021. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, about 62,000 people live in the district, and nearly 60% are white.

The district has no incumbent.

(Prince William Times — metred paywall) Kerensa Sumers, 39, of Manassas, has announced her bid to represent the Gainesville District on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors in the wake of former supervisor Pete Candland’s resignation. She is the first and only Democrat so far to officially throw her hat in the ring.

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Prince William County Republicans will hold a mass meeting on January 4, 2023, to select its nominee for the Special Election to fill the Gainesville District Supervisor seat.

The mass meeting is planned to be held at Battlefield High School. It will be open to any registered voter residing in the Gainesville district who promises to support the election of the candidate nominated, states a press release.

Peter Candland resigned from the Gainesville seat on Friday, December 16, triggering the need for a special election in February. Haymarket Town Councilman Bob Weir and former Prince William County School Board member Alyson Satterwhite will seek the party’s nomination.

So far, we’ve not heard from Democrats who might seek the seat. We’ve asked the Prince William County Democratic Committee for updated information and will post it as soon as possible.

Candland was elected to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors in 2011. His resignation follows the approval of the Prince William Digital Gateway, which will allow data centers to be built on 800 acres of land next to the Manassas National Battlefield Park.

Candland owns a home on land earmarked for data centers and stands to make millions of dollars on the sale of his property to data center developers.

Candland talked to us about his resignation in this exclusive report.

Laura Rudy looks forward to what's next for her and their family after 15 years as Stafford County Treasurer.

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The politics in the Potomac District are heating up as two Democrats vie for their party’s nomination for the Prince William Board of County Supervisors seat.

Incumbent Andrea Bailey, in office since January 202o, announced her bid for re-election in 2023. She was part of the class that flipped control of the board from Republicans to Democrats for the first time in county history and replaced the long-serving Maureen Caddigan, who retired in 2019.

Bailey is campaigning on a new agreement between Quantico Marine Corps Base and the county that will allow Prince Willam public works staff to perform more basic maintenance and construction tasks aboard the Marine Corps base, allowing the base to complete projects sooner than it otherwise could, if it had to wade through the traditional Federal Government procurement process.

Bailey also touts the formation of a new crisis receiving center located in an old Gander Mountain store next to Potomac Mills mall. When open next year, the facility, now slated to cost $12 million, will provide police a place to take people suffering from temporary mental illness, allowing cops to return to the streets sooner vs. what they have been doing, babysitting mental illness cases for hours on end, during multiple shifts due to a lack of patient beds at hospitals.

County taxpayers will fund the first-year start-up costs while bureaucrats work with state leaders to find ongoing funding.

If elected to a new term, Bailey said she’ll be able to “finish the work of the people for Potomac [District] and the county.”

Bailey’s term on the board has been marked with controversy. Last year, Bailey’s husband, Prince William County NAACP Chairman Cozy Bailey, asked county police chief Peter Newsham to send a copy to the Dumfries home of a constituent who spoke during multiple public meetings in 2021, each time critical Bailey and three other Democrats on the Board of County Supervisors.

While Bailey declined to speak to PLN, her husband told WTTG-TV that his position on the police department’s Citizen’s Advisory Board gives him unique access to the police department’s top brass, unlike other county residents, and that he asked the chief to send the officer out of an abundance of caution for his wife.

Bailey also has supported bringing developing land next to two National Parks for new data centers — Manassas Battlefield and Prince William Forest. It’s unpopular with environmentalists who want to preserve open space and protect the county’s water reservoirs. Others say data centers will bring more money for police, fire and rescue, and public schools.

Kim Short is challenging Bailey for the seat in Primary Election. It’s unclear what nominating contest Democrats will hold to determine their candidate.

Short is a retired Lt. Colonel who spent 25 years in the Army and worked as a health officer combating viruses like swine flu, Zika, and Ebola, and sits on the OmniRide Board of Commissioners with Bailey as an alternate.

If elected, Short said she’ll push for more government accountability at the local government, more public safety spending, using her military health background to build a stronger, healthier community, and championing community issues that bring Democrats and Republicans to the table. Short told PLN she’s ready for a political fight.

“I’m a leader. I am a professional soldier who fought battles and opponents. I don’t fear what appears in front of me,” Short told PLN in an August 2022 interview.

Caddigan held the Potomac District seat (formerly Dumfries District) for nearly 20 years. A past school board member, Caddigan was a well-known political figure while the county experienced its building boom in the 1980s and 1990s.

With the country’s population topping 700,000, Democrats have a solid hold on the Potomac District. In 2019, Bailey defeated her Republican opponent Doug Taggart in a landside 28-point victory.

Republicans won two of the 15 precincts in the Potomac District in 2019.

The Potomac District includes Dumfries and Quantico towns, Potomac Shores, and a portion of Montclair.

Delegate Elizabeth Guzman announced her candidacy for State Senate in the new Senate District 29, which contains all of the Prince William County precincts she currently represents in the House of Delegates.

District 29 also now contains a portion of northern Stafford County. Jeremy McPike has held the seat since 2016.

“I worked three jobs when I came to this country as a single mother with $300 and a little girl, so no one had to tell me about the struggle; I lived it,” said Delegate Guzman in a press release. “That’s why representation matters and why I led the fights for paid sick leave and workers’ rights.

Voters first sent Guzman to the House of Delegates in a blue-wave election in 2017. This year, Guzman received national attention after WJLA-TV aired an interview saying she wanted to have parents criminally charged for not affirming their children’s sexual identity.

Guzman has endorsements from the pro-abortion group Virignia NOW, Dumfries Town Council members, and labor unions.

“Elizabeth Guzman was a single mom who worked three jobs to support her child and has dedicated her career to helping others as a social worker, so she understands the challenges that countless Virginia women face in today’s society,” said Lisa Sales, president of Virginia NOW and chair of the Virginia NOW PAC.

“Every worker should have the freedom to join a union and bargain collectively, and our sister Elizabeth Guzman passed a historic law to give Virginia’s teachers, firefighters, and public service workers a seat at the table,” said Robert Hollingsworth, executive director of AFSCME District Council 20. “Elizabeth is standing up with public service workers across Virginia while we are getting organized. We can count on her to fight for us in the Senate because she is one of us and has taken on the toughest fights to get things done. Workers need her voice in the Virginia Senate because she’s fought for them to have a voice on the job. AFSCME District Council 20 is proud to endorse her campaign in the new District 29.”

The Democrats will hold a nominating convention next year. The General Election is Tuesday, November 7, 2023.

Gainesville District Supervisor Peter Candland announced an abrupt end to his third term on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

Candland will resign on Friday, December 16, 2022 (not 2023), after spending nearly 10 years and three terms in office representing western Prince William County. The senior member of the Board of County Supervisors, his decision comes after supervisors approved the controversial Prince William Digital Gateway development, which cleared the way for data centers to be built on more than 800 acres next to Manassas National Battlefield Park.

Candland abstained from the vote and stands to make millions of dollars from selling his home on land now earmarked for data centers. Over the summer, he became the target of a recall petition when opponents of the Prince William Digital Gateway asked him to resign.

Last month, Candland sent a letter to the county Commonwealth Attorney Amy Ashworth asking her legal opinion on whether or not he would be able to vote on future land-use cases or on whether or not he could approve new data centers that may want to locate outside of the Prince William Digital Gateway area.

Her resounding answer was “no.”

Here’s Candland’s press release announcing his resignation, and Ashworth’s response to Candland.

Candland was first elected to the Prince William County Board of Supervisors in 2011. Members can read more about his resignation when someone will replace him, what it means for the Board of County Supervisors and the 2023 General Election, and the effects the recall and subsequent lawsuit filed in 2022 had on his family in this exclusive report.