Jason Peters winds his way past ambulances and emergency personnel in the Vinton Public Safety Building, where the Vinton First Aid Crew that he’s served on for 20 years is located. Waving to a younger crew member, he works his way back to a small office. This is a building that Peters helped to build as part of the crew’s building committee, back in 2008.
As the starting point for his role in local public administration in recent years, there’s not a better place to discuss his goals as sole candidate for the Vinton district seat on the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors. He’ll be taking over from long-time supervisor Mike Altizer, who is retiring at the end of this year. There are no challengers in the Nov. 5 election.
“There’s not a complacency around here,” he said of the Town of Vinton and nearby areas such as Mount Pleasant, as he glances over at the Vinton Municipal Building. He attributes the special character of the town to the active role that residents take in their community. Peters is no exception to this nature, serving as the Vinton First Aid Crew’s sergeant, assistant treasurer and vice president of its board of trustees.
Working to help build the Public Safety Building for the crew in 2007 brought him in contact with capital improvement efforts in Roanoke County and he came to serve on the Roanoke County Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Review Committee. From there, he moved on to the Roanoke Planning Commission in 2010, where he’s served the past four years, taking on the role of chairman this year.
Peters said his experiences on the commission are largely what has led him to campaign for the supervisor position. The commission exposed him to several instances where he thought that ordinances and unneeded special use permits “kept people from branching out” in terms of their small businesses, ranging from in-home salons to new child day-care centers.
“I learned more about what businesses have to go through for expansion. You can’t understand until you actually sit down and see what they go through.” To this end, he and other commission members have submitted a resolution with revised, streamlined ordinances – designed to cut red tape and lessen the need for special use permits – to the Board of Supervisors. They have yet to approve them after several work sessions.
Peters’ time on the planning commission, he said, has given him a handle on prioritizing needs and navigating the “nuts and bolts” of land use and zoning. Looking towards his first year as an incoming supervisor, Peters sees a number of issues as priorities. Fire and rescue needs are of particular interest to him as he said there is a need for more personnel, improvement of county facilities and more competitive pay so that the Roanoke County can “not just be a training ground but keep personnel [here].” He wants to keep developing the economic partnership with other localities in the valley and with others jurisdictions nearby like Franklin County.
Focusing on his hometown of Vinton in particular, Peters said that he’s focusing his attention on the new Vinton Library, which is starting construction soon, to make sure that it reaches completion: “We can’t say the library is a done deal until the last brick is laid.” He’s also anxious to hear from the public about what they want to see done with the former Roland E. Cook and the old William Byrd High School buildings in town.
Peters said he doesn’t want to “just be someone they see on TV twice a [month]” in reference to televised board meetings. “Tell me what’s going on with you,” Peters said as he brings his hand up to invite the question. “What do you want your board to do?”
Note: the uncontested race in Vinton is unusual. There are contested Board of Supervisors races in the Windsor Hills District (incumbent Ed Elswick and former board member Joe McNamara face off) and in Hollins, where Gary Jarrell, Brian Lang and Al Bedrosian are vying for the seat being vacated by Richard Flora.
In Roanoke City incumbent Sherman Holland is being challenged by Roger Malouf for Commissioner of the Revenue and incumbent Sheriff Octavia Johnson is in a three-way contest with Travis Akins and Tim Allen; 17th District Delegate Chris Head (R) faces off for a second time with Democrat challenger Freeda Cathcart.
By Aaron Layman
