Pr. William Growth Irks Candidate

Commute Sparked Chairman Campaign

Few candidates can resist walking in a high school homecoming parade, but Friday afternoon in Dale City, Corey A. Stewart was struggling to keep up with one. Wearing a heavy blue peacoat and a "Corey Stewart for Chairman" sticker on his chest, he jogged at a brisk clip along Lindendale Road, weaving among the rifle-twirling marchers of the Hylton High School color guard to shake the hand of every possible eligible voter along the parade route.

"Wow, that's never happened to me before," Stewart said, having edged a little too close to the color guard rifles. "I just got hit."

It was just a glancing blow, and Stewart never broke stride, trotting after the red convertible that carried his Swedish-born wife, Maria, and their two sons, Isaac, 6, and Luke, 5, who were tossing candy from the back seat. Since he set his eyes on the chairmanship of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors last year, Stewart has been running at the same fervent pace, propelled by his single-minded fixation to curb residential development.

"Smart growth is a loaded term," he said, explaining his slogan, "Controlled Growth for a Change," above the din of the marching band. "That's why I went with 'Controlled Growth.' "

Stewart, 38, the Republican candidate for chairman, wants the Nov. 7 special election to be a referendum on development. More specifically, he wants to capitalize on voter frustration with it: the long commutes, the constant churn of construction, the crowded schools.

Stewart has a folksy, down-home manner that makes him seem like a local, but as his critics like to point out, he is not. He has lived in Prince William for five years and has served on its board as the Occoquan district supervisor for three.

But like most crusading candidates, Stewart is banking on a backlash. In fast-growing, traffic-crazed Prince William, he presents himself as a regular guy who reached his boiling point and decided to do something about it.

"I was frustrated with the long commute to Washington, D.C.," said Stewart, an international trade lawyer for the K Street firm Foley & Lardner. "It would take an hour or an hour-and-a-half every day to get into Washington and back. And at the same time, I looked around and saw all this development and said, 'This is ridiculous.' "

Prince William's development, of course, has been driven largely by the demand for new homes from commuting professionals like Stewart. But he insists he's not seeking to shut the door on others.

"I'm not trying to keep anybody out," Stewart said, adding that his plan to demand more money from developers for each house they build would slow construction. "I'm trying to manage and regulate growth so roads and schools can catch up."

What Stewart is fighting to preserve in Prince William, he said, are the quiet, leafy, all-American communities like the one where he grew up: Duluth, Minn.

An avowed "conservative Republican," Stewart was raised in a Democratic household. His father was a longshoreman on the docks of Lake Superior -- a union man -- and Stewart said the two began to disagree about politics when he was a teenager, about the time Ronald Reagan inspired him to be a Republican. Study-abroad programs and a trip to communist-era Poland cemented Stewart's views.