 Bob Fenwick, City Council Candidate (I) |
Independent City Council candidate, Bob Fenwick, held the second of his “Fenwick Forums” on July 25, 2009 at the First Amendment monument on the Downtown Mall. He plans to hold weekly forums leading up to the election on November 3. Last week he discussed the Meadowcreek Parkway and this week he focused on the importance of repairing the Charlottesville infrastructure, especially city sidewalks. Fenwick said many injuries have occurred due to faulty sidewalks. Pat Napoleon attested to this statement and told her story of a sidewalk injury.
“Several months ago I tripped and fell on a jagged, defective downtown sidewalk,” said Napoleon. “I endured weeks of pain and effects of trauma and narrowly missed severe permanent results to my face.”
Napoleon agreed with Fenwick by saying the City should be allocating its money towards repairing the city and said she believed Fenwick is “ably and effectively taking charge” of the sidewalk problem.
“The injury amount seems to be in the thousands of dollars,” said Fenwick. “It is only a matter of time until the City of Charlottesville has a major lawsuit followed by a major million dollar judgment.”
Fenwick was asked by Charlottesville Tomorrow to comment on City Council’s current priority to fix the aging infrastructure and what he would do differently. Fenwick said if he had the power he would begin repairs immediately. He also said there would be no need to raise taxes and believed enough money could be found within the budget. Fenwick said the money saved from the Downtown Mall renovation project also could have been reallocated to fix city sidewalks.
Fenwick is running against Paul Long (I), Dave Norris (D), and Kristin Szakos (D) in the November 3, 2009 City Council election. Andrew Williams (I) is also running a write-in campaign for one of the two available seats on City Council.
See Charlottesville Tomorrow’s Election Watch page for complete coverage of the City’s 2009 elections.
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