Questions for Board of Supervisor Candidates, Accomack County

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Respondent:  Sandy Hart Mears, District: 4 Date: 8/21/07 1. In your opinion, what are the top three problems for the county? A. Economic development throughout the county B. Support for small towns C. Unfunded State and Federal Mandates 2. Why are these problems? A. Economic development has not provided sufficient good paying jobs necessary to support many families on the shore and provide job opportunities for graduating high school and community college students. The demand for public services for roads, fire and EMS services, public sewer systems and education is much greater than Accomack County’s ability to pay for these needs. B. Several small towns throughout the shore are struggling to maintain and build their communities. These small towns have tremendous potential to support county wide economic development with public investment in critical infrastructure such as public sewer and downtown redevelopment. Once downtown businesses are lost, these small towns lose much of their ability to reinvest in themselves which not only hurts the town but the economy of the entire Eastern Shore. C. The State and Federal governments have and continue to approve programs, laws and regulations that increase the workload and responsibilities for the County without paying the cost for these programs. Rural counties must then, “rob Peter to pay Paul”, because they lack the necessary funding to fully pay for the additional workload. County staff then must do more with less which makes it very difficult to meet the needs of the public. 3. What would you do about them if elected to the Board of Supervisors? A. I have and will continue to encourage the development of a County-wide Water and Sewer Authority that involves business and County and local governments working together to plan for our future. I have and will continue to support the work to the Tourism Commission to market the special character of our small towns. I have supported the creation of the County’s first Economic Development Director to work with the new and existing businesses to create better paying jobs and investment for our community. B. Small towns need well planned growth. I have and will continue to encourage greater residential and business growth around our towns. The public, Towns, and County all win in this approach since lot sizes around and within towns are smaller and more affordable, people who live closer to towns save money on transportation, and the cost for the County to provide services is much lower. This approach will work best if local, state, and federal governments can work together to develop sewer capacity. C. I will continue to speak out against state and federal mandates and voting against new programs coming from the state and federal government that don’t provide funding and are not needed by our citizens. 4. What do you think about water in the county – Storm water, Ground water, seawater, bay water? Clean and abundant water is most important for our future. Clean water is necessary for personal and economic health of our community. Accomack County has limited ground water that needs to be protected and conserved. The quality of the water in the streams and branches flowing into the Chesapeake and Ocean Bays needs to be protected for our quality of life and to support industries such as tourism, and aquaculture, and recreation. 5. What do you think of the recent (June, 2007) report on the Accomack County Public Safety System? The study on Accomack County’s Public Safety System is another “wake-up call” to the County. The Shore has changed a lot over the past 20 years and the system of Fire and Emergency Services must also change to meet future needs of our citizens. Volunteers have and continue to do an outstanding job protecting us; however it is becoming difficult to provide adequate services with increasing emergency calls. It is necessary to plan and adopt recommendations that will build a better system to met the needs over the next 10-20 years. We cannot afford to wait much longer to act. Sincerely, Sandy Hart Mears If you have questions or comments or would like to respond please click here.