Shared Views in Leesburg Contest

9 Candidates Seek 3 Council Seats

With just one incumbent and a handful of newcomers to Loudoun County, Leesburg voters face a particular challenge this year in distinguishing among nine candidates vying for three Town Council seats on May 2.

Judging from the candidates' pledges, the issues in Leesburg mirror those facing local governments throughout Northern Virginia. Candidates say they must control growth and alleviate traffic problems while keeping property taxes in check at a time when runaway assessments make that difficult.

"Getting in and out of town and in and out of the county is a serious concern," said Mayor Kristen C. Umstattd, who is running unopposed for a third two-year term. "We handle over 60,000 cars every day coming from Maryland and from Winchester and West Virginia. So that puts us in a more challenging position perhaps even than places like Ashburn and Sterling."

The council candidates suggest similar means of managing growth. All say road improvements must be a part of developer proposals to build new houses. All say the town's tax rate must be kept low. All say commercial development must be encouraged, to bring more revenue into town coffers to offset the increased cost of services caused by residential growth.

Todd J. Severance, a military contractor who moved to Leesburg in 2004, believes more compromise with residential developers would induce them to pay for such improvements as roads.

"You've got to entice them to do the infrastructure," Severance said. "They need to build that infrastructure first, before they put up one rooftop."

But that would require developers to compromise, too, and they haven't always done so, said council member Fernando J. "Marty" Martinez, the lone incumbent on the ballot. In the case of Meadowbrook, a failed proposal to build more than 1,000 homes on a 300-plus-acre parcel in southern Leesburg, Martinez and several other candidates say the developer, Centex Homes, offered too little in the way of infrastructure. Centex offered a scaled-down version of its Meadowbrook proposal, but it was rejected earlier this year. The developer is suing the town.

Tom C. Marshall, a real estate agent and retired educator who has lived in Leesburg for 15 years (and ran unsuccessfully for the Loudoun County School Board three years ago), believes the town must hold the line on residential density on properties such as Meadowbrook, where current zoning allows one house per acre.

Their positions earned Marshall and Martinez the endorsement of Keep South Leesburg Beautiful, a loose organization of town residents formed originally to fight the Meadowbrook proposal.

Kevin D. Wright, a longtime Leesburg resident and chairman of the town Planning Commission, also received the group's endorsement.

"I'm not against development," Marshall said. "I'm against helter-skelter development."

Steve M. Skirkanich, an appraiser of residential real estate who moved to Leesburg in 2002, cites on his Web page a need for more open government.

Kenneth D. Reid, an outspoken advocate in the past for highway improvements (and an opponent of toll increases on the Dulles Greenway), opposes Dominion Virginia Power Co.'s proposal to run overhead power lines along the Washington & Old Dominion trail.

Martinez said in an interview that the similarity of the candidates' positions is a sign that the current Town Council is managing growth and traffic in a manner that Leesburg voters support. The fact that Umstattd, the mayor, is running unopposed also indicates support for the current council, he said.

Those who oppose the council's current members are likely to be those willing to give developers more concessions rather than fewer, he said.

"What I want to keep doing is to make sure that, with any growth we have, that our road infrastructure is taken care of," Martinez said. "Instead of adding to the gridlock, we need to at least maintain, or better, the level of service."