By Caroline Shimp
Rockbridge County voters chose Steve Hart to represent the Kerrs Creek district and incumbent Jay Lewis to the Walkers Creek district on the Board of Supervisors. Here’s a look at the results:
Walkers Creek
Voters elected incumbent Jay Lewis to fill the Walkers Creek seat. Lewis received 35.00% of the votes with Toria Brown trailing closely behind at 32.30% and Steve Reese behind Brown by only 0.84 percentage points at 31.46%.
Lewis has served as the Walkers Creek representative since 2017. During his two terms he has focused on county economic growth and supported the county’s emergency services.
The race was closely contested. All three candidates were within eleven votes of each other as of 9 p.m., but the final count revealed a more substantial margin among the candidates.
Jay Lewis did not respond to numerous calls and voice mail messages seeking comment.
Kerrs Creek
In the Kerrs Creek district, Steve Hart secured the only available seat, facing competition from just one other contender. Hart received 68.65% of the votes compared to Boyd Brown’s 30.75%.
Hart will replace incumbent Daniel Lyons, who did not seek re-election.
“The campaign is for the families, the farms and the businesses that actually call Rockbridge County home,” he said in an interview Tuesday night.
Hart, a farmer and retired U.S. Army officer, ran on a platform that emphasized decreasing the county’s $87 million debt. Hart said in an interview in October that he decided to run for office when the Board of Supervisors passed two 30-year bond issues totaling $42 million last year.
Hart wants to do something about the county’s debt by limiting the supervisor’s borrowing power.
He said in the interview he would “limit the supervisors’ borrowing to ‘zero dollars’ and just pay cash for the county’s projects.”
“The fact that the county is $87 million in debt means we have no flexibility in our budgeting, our taxation and decision-making,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
He says he also wants to change agriculture regulations to reflect modern farming. Specifically, to allow farmers to do direct consumer sales.
Hart says for changes to happen in the county, it will be a group effort.
“If we really want things to be better, we’re the ones that are going to have to go out and do it,” he said.