Ed Elswick's Motivation to Run for Roanoke County Supervisor

Relax, parents to be!!

By the time your offspring produce grandkids, the Roanoke area will provide good jobs, excellent schools at all levels, adequate recreation of a created and natural kind and basic services without unnecessary overindulgence and our valley will be the envy of all.

A majority of citizens will decide that spending money on hugely expensive projects benefiting a few is illogical and that taxation should be utilized for providing adequate services and few amenities allowing your grandchildren to decide for themselves how their wages are spent. Explore park will still be a natural place to visit without swarms of tourists and a beautiful amphitheatre will be there for our world class symphony and local bluegrass musicians to entertain them. Our parkway will be preserved, and enhanced with efforts of volunteers, and our mountains will be free of industrial-looking apparatus because we have figured out how to manage our use of electricity and power companies have modernized their transmission methods.

Our civic organizations will have consolidated and concentrated on attracting business to improve the economy so much we will be able to afford all kinds of amenities—to suit all types of citizens. An international airport will be near and businesses will be dying to locate in our beautiful area with its tax rates at reasonable levels. Our down home, friendly atmosphere will still be here together with great cultural, artistic and recreational opportunities.

Housing will be affordable as area zoning will designate some locations for beginning households. Blighted neighborhoods will be re-built and once fabulous homes in the city will be returned to their former state. Neighborhoods will be just that as citizens recapture the old-fashioned notion of getting to know, and help, each other.

Reliance on government for anything other than basic, citizen-defined needs will greatly diminish as help is only a neighbor away. Citizens will assume more authority for their lives and government will reduce its scope and demands.

After I decided to run, I spent many days going door-to-door visiting citizens’ homes and listening to their concerns.

I campaigned to help citizens become more directly involved in county administration. I am beholden to citizens only, not any political or other organizations.

I am a Republican because I strongly support the party’s traditional conservative principles and emphasis on family values. I have a passionate commitment to making fiscal responsibility a high priority for our county. I maintain that I am the best advocate for citizens.

I am a retired financial manager, am adamant that your voices be heard, and have time available to devote to managing county business.

I have been active in civic affairs, not politics, for years and evidence supporting my opinions can be found in various news sources. My opinions on how our county should pursue spending projects and utilize our tax dollars reflects a passionate desire to have our resources managed in the same manner most citizens handle their personal budgets.

My ability to oversee county actions can be exactly measured. I worked 31 years with General Electric as a financial manager with a concentration in cost accounting, financial systems, government contract accounting, contract negotiations and interfacing with government auditors. Additionally, I assumed responsibility for government quality assurance when our system was deemed inadequate to meet requirements and obtained certification of the highest level of quality system acceptability. Our business was also certified to the highest level of government accounting system requirements.

My approach has always been to work with customers and fellow employees to develop a cooperative approach to conducting business. Citizens of Roanoke County are customers and certainly supporters of all county aspects and deserve a strong voice in how their tax payments are utilized.

We have made serious commitments of taxpayers’ ability to finance large projects. Changes of a permanent nature need to be made to ensure on-going expenditures do not exceed a reasonable capability of taxpayers’ ability to finance the activities. Spend and tax is not how we should run the county—a reasonable level of taxation should be established and spending should only amount to the funds generated by that level. Excessive debt, although popular with governments, is not what citizens in Roanoke County desire. Having the highest tax rate in Virginia is not something to be proud of!

The county supervisor role is primarily one of administration of our tax payments. It is a very demanding and time-consuming responsibility. Managing county business has a direct effect on our tax payments and level of services. The ability to manage expenditures in a sound fiscal manner, listen to citizens and exhibit a great concern for their opinions is most important. Political games have no place in the management of our county.

In this time of economic uncertainty and, in particular, when we don’t yet have experience with the impact of current spending programs in our county, it is vital that we practice a very conservative approach to all spending. Major projects not yet initiated should be scrutinized closely for maximum benefit at the lowest cost or not pursued if the need is not of an immediate nature. All spending, no matter how small, must come under good common-sense review and curtailed when possible. We are seriously committed financially and must exhibit the utmost control of expenditures.

My intention is simply to manage citizens’ tax payments and county services in a conservative manner and to include citizen opinions in decisions affecting those services and tax payments. I have no future political objective. I AM A CITIZENS’ ADVOCATE!