Rodney Thomas and Duane Snow officially became new members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors last Wednesday, signaling a possible shift in direction for the county. Dennis Rooker, who ran as an incumbent and unopposed, was also sworn in for another term to present the Jack Jouett District.
Republican Thomas, who defeated Democrat David Slutzky, board Chairman, for the Rio District, won the race with almost 53 percent of the votes. Fellow Republican Snow, owner of Snow’s Garden Center, replaced longtime Supervisor Sally Thomas for the Samuel Miller District, besting Democrat Madison Cummings and Independent John Lowry.
“Let everyone who wants to move their business here read the sign: ‘Open for Business,’ because we never had that before,” Thomas told C-VILLE. “And I don’t mean pave the whole county over, I mean, companies to come with jobs so that our kids don’t have to go to Colorado, where one of mine is, or move away from here.”
Regarding the budget, “our plans are to go with a zero-based budget and it’s going to be a task,” says Thomas. “I think we can do it. It’s just going to take a lot of work and I’d like to dig under every rock and find every extra thing we don’t need before we start going into other avenues.” Snow agrees.
“I feel very strongly that we need to have a zero budget and even if some people can afford higher taxes, there are a lot of people who cannot afford higher taxes,” he told C-VILLE. “I really want to make sure that we don’t raise taxes right now.”
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