Bill Chafin

• Age: 69
• Occupation: Retired from Maytag Corporation in 2001
• Community roots: Born in Washington, D.C., and moved to Montgomery County in 1946 when he was 8 years old
• Affiliations: Kiwanis Club, American Legion, St. Paul United Methodist Church. Former Christiansburg Town Councilman (1984-88), past president of the Christiansburg Chamber of Commerce and charter member of the Montgomery County Economic Development Commission.
• Education: 1957 graduate of Christiansburg High School

Election index

• Other candidates in the NRV answer your questions

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

Bill Chafin: I’ve always had an interest in the community. Everything I’ve done has been that way. When I was president of the chamber of commerce, we formed a committee that wound up being the economic development commission of Montgomery County. That was a joint committee with the Blacksburg chamber at that time. I’m past president of the booster club here supporting our team and the past president of the Kiwanis Club, lieutenant governor of the Kiwanis Club’s Division 3. During my tenure of one year, Katrina hit and all seven clubs in the third division responded financially to support the victims of Katrina which would be handled through the Kiwanis clubs themselves. Also, we had a work party at Scotty’s Place over in Peterstown, W.Va., and all members of all clubs were represented the day of the work party. Scotty’s Place is a place for inner city kids to go and have an actual experience of what rural life would be like many years ago. A number of things I’ve been involved in have all been community related and try to make the community a better place to live.

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?”

BC: That would take some study on that because traffic on [U.S.] 460 is extremely heavy. There’s probably about 50,000 or 60,000 cars a day on Business 460. That’s after removing about 20,000 over on the bypass. To go with walk lights and that type of thing, it would also impede traffic, so it will probably take something like an overpass to accommodate the pedestrians. But when that occurs is a good question, but it’s something that definitely needs to be studied.

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?”

BC: My understanding is that the town was under the impression that if two members of council were present that it was not a meeting. However, since that has occurred and the article appeared in the paper, that will be corrected shortly, I’m sure. Now, the citizens of Christiansburg need to be notified of these meetings, and I propose that it would not hurt to put the agenda or planned meetings out with the water bills so that all citizens of Christiansburg would be notified at the same time. Of course, they’re subject to change, but at least there would be something in writing to the public that, yes, this meeting will occur. For example, town council meetings are the first and third Tuesdays. Other planned meetings could be on that list. The cost to the town for this would be the printing and stuffing of the envelopes because the water bills are being sent out anyway, so it’s not an added expense. It is added work and someone could be in charge of that just to keep up with the schedule of the meetings and the notifying of the public.

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?”

BC: In growth, there’s one of two things. The town will either grow or die. The town of Christiansburg was formed 300 years after Columbus discovered America, so that was a little over 200 years ago. In that time, it took the town 200 years to populate roughly 7 square miles. After the annexation — which was another square 7 miles —20 years ago, it has already populated to that point. As far as the downtown growth is concerned when I was president of the chamber of commerce, we had a committee formed to see what we could do to revitalize downtown. At that time and after extensive study and input, the committee came back and reported that the downtown area would probably be going toward the service industry, such as attorneys and eye doctors and this type of thing. Very little retail in that area. I think the downtown area also needs to be expanded from just Main Street to include First and College at least. The other point is that the east end of Main Street business area is now virtually owned by local governments, both the county and the town, with the exception of about four properties. But, yes, I think that we do need not only to attract retail but we do need to attract industry, as well.

“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?”

BC: Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I was on the town council when the last annexation occurred, which was 20 years ago. It was not expanded based on taxes. It was expanded at that time because we had about 9 percent vacant land available for development. It was expanded to have more area for development. Now as far as taxes are concerned, I believe people on fixed incomes particularly do not have an opportunity to raise their income. And inflation is the worst enemy to those folks. And I would like to look into the possibility that when a person owns his own house and less than an acre of land and lives in it —that’s their principal residence — that the tax assessment would be frozen at that point. That would kind of cut out the inflation. Now the tax rate would be what everyone else pays, but the assessment on that piece of property would be frozen at that point until it changed hands, either through probate or transferred to the family or sold to someone else. At that time, it would automatically go back to the assessed evaluation based on the last assessment. Yes, I think that we do need to really look at that. I don’t know if it would take something from the legislature to acquire this or if laws are in place to allow it at this point, but that’s where I would like to come from. The town for years maintained a 14 cents per $100 tax rate. Last year, due to the increase in the assessed evaluation, the town did cut it. I am concerned that they’re going to start playing with the rates again. I’m really not in favor of that.