After a somewhat dormant summer, candidates for City Council are gearing up for the last two months of campaigning before the November 3 elections.
As is customary with each local and statewide election, the Piedmont Sierra Club—whose city membership nears 400—handed each of the four City Council candidates a survey on the city’s well-being.
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Independent candidate for City Council Bob Fenwick is the founder of savemcitire.com and vocal opponent of the YMCA in McIntire Park. “McIntire Park is not the place to build [the YMCA],” he says. “Open space parks of substantial size have an innate value to the community.” |
The seven questions spanned from the Meadowcreek Parkway (MCP), to limits on population growth—which all candidates oppose—to alternative transportation, to local food. The most controversial question concerned the YMCA and McIntire Park. Although the location of the YMCA within McIntire Park has been the subject of extensive debates, council meetings and press conferences, it still sparks passionate responses.
In December 2007, the City Council granted the ground lease for the YMCA to build its facility on the east end of the park. Under the agreement, the YMCA would lease the land for $1 a year for the next 40 years.
Independent candidate Bob Fenwick maintains that the position of each candidate on the location of the YMCA could be a deal breaker for voters. “It could also be a deal helper,” he told C-VILLE. Fenwick, founder of savemcintire.com and vocal opponent of the YMCA in McIntire Park, says that the location that was chosen in the park was “a political move.”
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Fellow Independent candidate Paul Long, a native of Philadelphia, is also opposed to the construction of the YMCA in McIntire Park. He says that the park should be left to the enjoyment of the community and he has offered two alternate locations: somewhere Downtown or in the Garrett Street warehouse. |
“I am still appalled that’s in the park,” he says. In his answer, Fenwick writes that the YMCA is a worthwhile organization, but “McIntire Park is not the place to build it. It’s like tearing down a library to build a bookstore. Open space parks of substantial size have an innate value to the community.”
Fellow Independent candidate Paul Long also opposes the construction of the YMCA in McIntire Park. “I think that the park should be left for the purpose of people enjoying it,” he says. “I think once you start making exceptions and start building in the park, it’s just going to set a precedent down the line for further exceptions to be made, and I am against that.” Long says he would like to see the organization either Downtown or in the Garrett Street warehouse.
For Democratic nominee Kristin Szakos the location of the YMCA should not be a make-or-break for voters. “I can’t imagine that anyone would be a single-issue voter on the YMCA,” she says. Since the YMCA is an organization that provides recreation activities to kids of all walks of life, “I think that’s exactly what a park like McIntire is for,” says Szakos. At the center of the controversy, she says, is a conflicting philosophy about public parks: Parks and places like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone should be untouched green spaces. “But for urban parks, I think that what it’s for is to give people access to green space, rather than just keep the green space like a museum,” she says.
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Democratic nominee Kristin Szakos says that at the center of the controversy is a different philosophy about public parks. Urban parks, she says, are meant “to give people access to green space, rather than just keep the green space like a museum.” |
Misinformation about the YMCA and McIntire Park abound, says Mayor and Democratic nominee Dave Norris. “If I believed all the things that were being said on the YMCA, I would oppose it too,” he says. “There is no truth to the idea that the YMCA is going to destroy the softball fields, McIntire fireworks, the Dogwood Carnival.”
Norris supports the building of the Y in McIntire Park because a public park needs to be open to the community, but also because it will be “an invaluable resource” for Charlottesville High School students.
In some ways, says Szakos, the YMCA may be caught in the middle of a bigger controversy: the Meadowcreek Parkway. All four candidates oppose the construction of the MCP through McIntire Park and would vote against it if they were elected to City Council. Norris has voted to not continue funding for the city portions of the MCP, McIntire Road Extended and the Route 250 Bypass Interchange at McIntire Road.
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Mayor and Democratic nominee Dave Norris says that there is a lot of misinformation about the YMCA in McIntire Park. “There is no truth to the idea that the YMCA is going to destroy the softball fields, McIntire fireworks, the Dogwood Carnival.” he says. He supports the YMCA in McIntire Park because a public park needs to be open to the community. |
Closely connected to the idea of not supporting the MCP is the vision of a more pedestrian and bike-friendly transportation system for the city that would sustain a growing population. All four candidates would like to improve the current system: Szakos would like to see buses running on major arteries every 10 to 15 minutes and smaller buses picking up residents in their neighborhoods to bring them to the major arteries. Fenwick says he believes in the current comprehensive plan, but would like to see more ridership. Norris says he believes in investing in more pedestrian and bicycle friendly amenities. Long, on the other hand, would like to have a 365-day-a-year transportation system, including holidays. Currently, buses run Monday through Friday until close to midnight and a shorter Sunday service.
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