Plan for High School Highlights Concerns

Candidates Focus on Traffic, Utilities

With two mayoral candidates and five aspirants vying for three seats on the Town Council, Hamilton voters will face a longer-than-usual ballot when deciding who will best manage growth and ensure adequate sewer and water systems for the town.

In recent months, Hamilton residents have been energized by the prospect of a new high school on the outskirts of the town (population 565), bringing 3,200 students to a three-school campus.

All the candidates say they support the Town Council's decision to withhold utilities from the high school should the School Board decide to pursue building there. Their approaches to handling the town's growing pains -- with or without a school -- are what distinguish them from each other.

"If we can maintain this small, quaint, little neighborhood town, that would be wonderful," said H. Ray Whitbey, a Town Council member who is giving up his seat to run for mayor. Keith Reasoner is stepping down after four terms as mayor.

Whitbey, 61, moved to Hamilton three years ago and runs his own accounting business. He said his management experience would help him solve local problems. "I hope to bring a business sense to the town," he said.

One of the tasks, he said, would be to resolve a two-year impasse with the Hamilton Acres homeowners association over the town's plan to expand a water treatment plant.

Whitbey also wants to engage the Virginia Department of Transportation in a discussion of traffic-calming measures.

"What I don't want to do is come out like a maverick and say I'm going to change everything," Whitbey said, emphasizing what he said is his desire to be a "team player."

His opponent is David R. Simpson, who lives two doors away and has worked in law enforcement in Loudoun for 35 years. Simpson, 55, was the police chief in Purcellville for three years (until retiring Dec. 31) and in Middleburg for eight years.

In the early 1980s, he served on the Purcellville Town Council for one term before moving to Hamilton in 1986.

Simpson suggested that Hamilton explore new ideas for planning, such as talking to officials in Purcellville and Round Hill about forming a cooperative for utilities.

"We need to keep looking down the road, because Loudoun County hasn't even come close to reaching capacity" for development, he said.

To address the town's traffic concerns, Simpson said he would press the Virginia State Police and the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office to help watch for speeders along Colonial Highway.

In the Town Council race, Michael E. Snyder, a lawyer who was first elected to the council in 1988, is the only incumbent.

Snyder said he would continue working to ensure that Hamilton had adequate water resources and a sewage treatment plant that would meet tightening standards imposed by the Chesapeake Bay water quality agreement.

Joylyn Hannahs, 34, a part-time English teacher at Harmony Intermediate School, said she was particularly concerned with finding ways to slow traffic on Main Street.

Ralph A. Baxter, a 35-year-old technology consultant, said he would bring a fresh outlook and work to create a long-term strategy for supplying water to the town.

Jeremy A. Hunley, a 27-year-old former librarian at Patrick Henry College who left his job last year over differences in Christian beliefs, said he thought the town should consider drilling new wells.

Brent A. Campbell, a 22-year-old commercial real estate agent who grew up in Reston, said he could use his professional experience to help in the making of decisions about land-use and planning issues.