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Locality
Christiansburg, VA
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Harry Collins
It is of utmost importance to maintain and improve the Town's infrastructure like water, sewer and keep it up to date. To do so, you must set aside funds to make sure you have that ability. Having previously served on Town Council gives me a heads up on this important topic. Last week I set an appointment with the Town's Director of Finance to go over these numbers to see where we stand. Meeting the budget is the top job for a Town Council, so you do not need to raise taxes. Also keeping the Town of Christiansburg beautiful by all means is important. Christiansburg does a great job in this aspect and I continue to support these efforts.
This is a good problem to have. People and companies want to come to Christiansburg. Blacksburg has repeatably said they do not want the big box stores and we, Christiansburg, want them all. It's good tax money and very smart to include them. We get sales tax, real estate tax, food tax and the like. It's a win win situation. I was on Town Council when the developer came to Christiansburg and wanted to take over the Mall area. After many negotiations, he did so and some great commercial properties have come from that. Better yet, they're not through. We will turn no business down who wants to come to Christiansburg.
Another factor here is as far as commercial property goes, I strongly believe we need a parking garage in the downtown area. If we have that, businesses will come back to Main Street and thrive.
Common sense comes into play here. You must have money to maintain everyone's quality of life, but you have to plan ahead to do it. We proved this when I was on Town Council and everyone said the new Huckleberry Park would be a waste of money and taxes would go up. Well, this completed park is a multiple winner of awards and taxes have not been raised to pay for it. The park is half way paid for as well. To prove this, following are some of the things we achieved while I was on Town Council: Started the Council prayer which is called “Moment of Reflection”
Started “Why I Love My Hometown”
Initiated the idea for the “Demolition Program”
Wrote the nomination for Billy Hanks to become “Fire Chief of the Year” in VA
My biggest accomplishment was with the other council members, one of the first towns to support the “ACCE Program”
With the other council members, we approved new signage for the town entrances.
Initiated the idea to put Christmas Lights in Cambria so they feel included
I served on the Planning Commission for 12 years. I understand zoning and was a key figure when writing our Comprehensive Plan. Christiansburg is a wonderful Town to live in. However, there is a great need for affordable housing. There are many great neighborhoods in the larger price ranges, but not much available in the lower price ranges. I plan to start a committee to work on this problem. The committee would include contractors, several Planning Committee members and several retirees. We can work together to try to come up with something for all.
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I want to promote respectful conversations and encourage more citizens to participate in local government. A value deeply ingrained in me growing up in the culture of Southwest Virginia is that keeping your word was of utmost importance. We respected people who kept their word. We were also expected to give to the community without expecting any reward. Honesty in our conversations and having respect for others with different opinions without maligning them was important. And the most important was to be humble and to laugh at ourselves as we move through life. With this in mind I have encouraged and will continue to encourage others to participate in our community and the local goverments. While knocking on doors in Christiansburg and hearing people say their vote does not matter, I can see the need to work together; after all that is what good government is. Mostly, like me, people love living in Christiansburg.
It is vital to our well being that we have green spaces and gathering places such as plazas and seating areas where people can interact. Urban areas with gardens and green spaces have less crime. A well planned community has walking/biking paths that flow from one area to another. Past council members have been addressing these issues. We need to keep expanding these connections and develop play areas and gathering areas in apartment complexes. As I have canvassed, I have noticed that in the neighborhoods with sidewalks, green spaces, and ample parking, people are walking and waving to each other. In some neighborhoods without sidewalks or play areas, people are not as friendly. This lack of trust leads to isolation. Good design of commercial and residential areas encourages human interactions, builds trust and makes the quality of life better.
Several citizens I have talked to have expressed concerns about double taxation. They receive services from town taxes such as recreation, town roads, water and sewage connections, town staff, police, fire and rescue. The county taxes pay for similar services but most of the county budget pays for the school system. As federal funding is cut we are loosing a source of funding used by the town to make improvements. I am on the Sustainable Committee and because of the efforts of our town engineers and Tim Wilson applying for grants we have solar panels on the Aquatic Center and the Christiansburg Recreational Center. Plans for putting electrical chargers at several places in town have lost the funding to proceed. We will need to have a lot of citizen participation and education to reach an understanding of how to proceed with reduced funding and higher costs.
In March of 1986 my husband and I bought a house in Christiansburg that needed a lot of work. We were renting in Blacksburg and could not afford to buy a house in Blacksburg. Many people choose to live in Christiansburg because the housing is more affordable. I think housing is a major problem in our community. Equity groups buying up housing to rent, football houses, and B and B"s do not build community as well as homeowners. We have a number of homeless people sleeping in the wild areas around town. If there are cuts that make it harder to get federal assistance for housing, the problem of affordable housing will get worse. I would like to get local government, nonprofit groups, churches, service organizations, public school representatives, contractors, realtors and others to work together to come up with solutions. We need a plan.
My number one priority is keeping Christiansburg affordable. My goal will be to try and avoid raising taxes and fees on citizens while in office.
One of the number one concerns I have heard from citizens is that they feel that our roads need to be upgraded. Before we add some of the larger developments being proposed we need to ensure our new citizens will have the same access to emergency services or public utilities that our present citizens have without overloading the present smaller communities with traffic. We have spent a good amount of money on recreational wants with two large projects in the last two decades( the Aquatic center and the Huckleberry Park), I’d like to see us focus on infrastructure needs like our roads for a few years while we rebuild our unassigned funds balance some.
The budget is always a balancing act. We have a really conservative fund balance policy that has afforded us really good terms when we have needed to borrow. I would like us to continue to follow that policy which states that we try and keep our unassigned fund balance between 35 to 40 percent. If we fall below 30 percent it means we, as a body would need to address raising taxes or cutting services. If we get to 45 percent then we get to discuss what we would like to add in terms of public services or capital projects.
The town shares a pool of money to address housing affordabilty through the New River HOME Consortium and Christiansburg funding allocation is slated for 2027. I believe the town also is putting money away in their budget with the intentions of pairing it with the HOME award. I am unsure where we are in terms of usage of the Community Developement Block grant for sidewalks but it is my understanding that those funds can also be utilized to address affordable housing. Additionally, my focus will be one keeping taxes and fees minimal so people can live here.
