Samuel “Sam” McCoy Bishop

• Age: 56
• Occupation: Retired as a captain from the Blacksburg Police Department in 2007. Currently works as a police manager at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke.
• Community roots: Christiansburg native
• Affiliations: Asbury United Methodist Church, member of the Christiansburg Rescue Squad since 1988
• Education: Obtained high school diploma in the U.S. Army, associate’s degree in political science from New River Community College, bachelor’s degree in management human resources from Bluefield College

Election index

• Other candidates in the NRV answer your questions

Why should voters vote for you to serve on the Christiansburg Town Council?

Sam Bishop: I feel people should vote for me because, one, I want to be the voice and the ears for the citizens of Christiansburg. What I mean by that is the citizens should have a right to know what’s going on in their town government. Everyone cannot make the town government but they should have a council member they can contact and voice their concerns.

First-time voter Sarah Hamed, 18, asks: “When will the town ever put in sidewalks uptown? The area is inaccessible for pedestrians.” Coreen Mett, 60, also wonders about foot traffic around the New River Valley Mall area: “My question is how soon are we going to be able to cross [U.S.] 460 as a pedestrian?” SB: As far as putting in sidewalks, I’m sure the town would have to get with VDOT [the Virginia Department of Transportation] because I’m sure there are such regulations as how wide the sidewalks would have to be, how much road space there needs to be. Once again, I would hope the town government would get with VDOT and see if it’s possible. VDOT or whoever controls the highways may say, “We can’t put sidewalks in these locations.” As far as people getting across [U.S.] 460, the only way I see for people to do that safely is if the town somehow came up with the money to put up a pedestrian bridge. Right now, I see a pedestrian trying to cross 460, four lanes, it’s going to be very dangerous. We could put walk and do-not-walk lights up, but would people obey those lights?

Doris Oliver, 74, has a follow-up question to a recent news story about Christiansburg’s failure to follow open meeting mandates in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act: “Do you intend to acquaint yourself with FOIA rules prior to taking office?”

SB: Yes, right now I am currently searching the FOIA rules online. I want to know exactly what information can be given out to the citizens. Once again, the government should not appear to be a closed government. The town of Christiansburg should make all information available to the citizens. Once again, I think the council members should take the time on his or her own and research what we can do now and don’t wait on training.

Ryane Doyle, 23, is a Florida native who has lived in Christiansburg for the past 1½ years. She asks, “Do you intend to continue attracting retail growth in Christiansburg? What could be done to attract business to the downtown area?”

SB: Well, the downtown area is one of my big concerns. That’s questions I ask myself, “What can we do to get business to come downtown, as we call it, and stay downtown?” It may be to fix the streets and that seems like a big issue right now is getting those streets fixed. Maybe getting new business to come in, we can offer some type of incentive, whether it be a little bit of a tax break or something like that just to get somebody started that comes in and says, “Why should I be here?” You know, maybe we can do something, give them something. No promises but we need to look into it. But the main thing we need to do is to fix up downtown to make it look more attractive than what it is. Yes, there’s a little bit of room for growth uptown that maybe some more spaces could go in for people to use. How do we get them? It seems like the word of mouth is people saying “Christiansburg is the place to be.”

“Will Christiansburg raise real estate taxes as the county plans to do?” Is there some way to maintain tax relief for the elderly citizens?” asks William June Smith, 70. On the subject of taxes, 21-year-old Danielle Akers wants to know if the town “will consider expanding town limits to increase revenue taxes?”

SB: I’ve been called one of the outsiders. As far as real estate taxes are concerned, I really don’t know what the town’s plans are at this current time. That’s probably something that’s probably going to come up in the near future and I would like to look into that. If at all possible, I would like to see us not raise real estate taxes if we can get the taxes from some other means. Once again, being from the outside I don’t know what the current plans are but definitely would like to know what we can do in the future. I think raising real estate taxes should be probably one of the last things we do. I believe the town does offer a tax relief for older citizens. I think that’s going to stay there. I think they even had a vote a few weeks back to keep that tax relief in place and I think it’s a good idea. I think towns are always looking at extending, annexing. Where do we go? If we annex, what can we put on that property? If you annex some land you can’t use for anything, you kind of defeat your purpose. Once again, should they look at annexing? Oh, yeah, you should always look at it, but you need to make sure it can pay off in the long run.