Bryce Carter is an undergraduate student who is a senior at Tech and is heavily involved in community-oriented clubs. Recently, he was awarded the Gwin-Parker-Gwin Community Service Award for engaging students in their community. He is heavily involved in the Environmental Coalition and was one of the main coordinators for Power Shift, a conference created to support sustainable energy. While Carter is an undergraduate, he states he has fallen in love with Blacksburg and considers himself a permanent resident with plans to settle down here after graduation. One of his most interesting ideas includes starting a group called the “Student Advisory Committee” to empower students by interacting with the local government. This committee would be entirely made up of students and would work closely with the SGA to bring issues of interest to students to the town council. Furthermore, Carter is an avid supporter of the environment and intends to promote the infrastructure required to make and keep Blacksburg a bike-friendly town. Finally, Carter has been an advocate of improving downtown without turning it into the faceless, generic, sprawling suburbia that many growing cities have become.
Susan Anderson, another candidate, is an instructor in the mathematics department and has been a resident of Blacksburg since coming to Tech in 1980 to get her master’s degree. She has made a name for herself outside the council by being heavily involved in women’s issues and Amnesty International, and she is the faculty adviser for the student organizations representing these issues. She has been a powerful force in shaping our community through the town council since 2006. She has pushed for downtown revitalization projects, which were designed to
improve awareness of local products and venues such as the farmers market, the Lyric and the Stepping Out festival. Similarly, Anderson has pushed for growth that allows Blacksburg to expand while not losing the qualities that make it special.
Finally, Michael Sutphin is a writer for College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, a job he accepted after graduating from Tech in 2006. As a student he was a member of the LGBTA and pushed for SafeWatch, a Tech Web site to report and monitor harassment and discrimination of all kinds. Similar to Carter, Sutphin wants to increase student involvement by including students in the town’s liaison group with the university. Additionally, in an attempt to encourage small business growth, Sutphin wants to use Tech’s arts initiative to drive foot traffic to local businesses.
This year we have several interesting candidates, many of whom are heavily involved in the university and therefore in a unique position to represent the issues important to you. Each of these candidates has important ideas on how to grow Blacksburg responsibly. Since Blacksburg is a growing town, we need to take care of how it grows. This means electing people who not only share a sense of where we come from but where we should go.
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Interesting that the editorial board does not endorse candidates, but columnists can.
What about Krisha Chachra? She is a PhD candidate at Tech. So she is involved in the campus community. She also was born and raised in Blacksburg.
Greg Fansler is an Assistant Director of Alumni Relations at Virginia Tech, a fraternity adviser and a grad student at Tech.
These folks also work with Tech. Why not endorse them?
As for student involvement in local government and having a say, that is part of the purpose behind Town/Gown http://www.blacksburg.gov/Index.aspx?page=59
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I couldn't agree more Lisa. The CT has done a woeful job of covering this election in general. All we get is sound bytes and talking points from each candidate. Where is the actual reporting? Where are the in depth looks at the important issues? Does anyone at the CT know the first thing about the economics of the F&M development? Does anyone there know a lick about the old middle school debate? Do they know anything at all about Tom's Creek issues? Do they know anything at all about the downtown recycling project being instituted for businesses? If they do, they've tried very hard to make sure their readers do not!
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Then after not really covering the election in a meaningful way all semester, we get this pseudo-endorsement of 3 candidate because they are chosen as representatives of the student community? There are 3 CURRENT VT students in the race, but the CT writes that somehow only 1 of them would represent students and the VT community well? It just shows that their stated reasons for endorsing are clearly half-truths at best. If VT representation coupled with civic involvement were truly their principles, the endorsements would have been Carter, Chachra, and Fansler. If they want to endorse professionals that work for Tech, they'd say Anderson, Bush, Fansler and Sutphin.
This whole thing is a joke. I stopped reading the CT a long time ago for a variety of reasons but came back again this semester because I thought it was the only local news source that could provide the kind of coverage local elections deserve. Boy was I wrong!
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I cannot believe the bias I read. I personally will be glad when elections are done. The unequivocal support or lack therof of all the candidates. Blacksburg needs growth. But the powers that be appear to be too blind to realize it. Don't grow, hit em where it hurts--in their pocketbooks when they whine because they are raising taxes because they have no business income, or whine because everybody leaves Blacksburg to shop and/or eat because a select few stifle growth. Me, I'll be glad to ocntinue my quest to Christiansburg where our dollars and voice are appreciated or to Roanoke.
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Susie - You clearly don't know how Sales Tax Money Works. Blacksburg gets the same money from sales tax no matter where a store is in Montgomery County. Blacksburg benefits from sales at Christiansburg Wal-Mart and at Christiansburg Lowes the same way it does from sales at Blacksburg Heavener Hardware and Blacksburg First and Main stores.
Our dollars in Cburg effect Blacksburg the same - in terms of sales tax. The sales tax for Montgomery county is added up as a whole and then re-imbursements to Cburg and Blacksburg are split. Cburg could have more business than Bburg, but Bburg will still get a percentage of what Cburg sales tax brings in.
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But who would support Greg Fansler? His distaste for a vibrant downtown community and smart, sustainable development make him a rather repulsing candidate.
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I agree. Looks like someone either didn't research and/or is using the Collegiate Times to support their friends. That's what we get with "journalists" these days.
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I agree with Ken. The CT has done a horrible job in covering this and a horrible job with news coverage on all elections this semester! This town council election is making blacksburg history and this newspaper has done nothing to be a part of that. CT you are a joke and make a mockery out of journalism
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