In Virginia, Boards of Supervisors govern counties, and their members are elected to four-year terms. Albemarle County’s Board of Supervisors has six members, one for each district.

The Democratic Party is holding a primary election to select its nominee for the Jack Jouett District. Sally Duncan and C. David Shreve are vying for the nomination. Incumbent Diantha McKeel is not seeking re-election.

Charlottesville Tomorrow designed a questionnaire based on roughly 50 responses we received to a voter survey. (There’s still time to respond to the survey, if you wish to ask questions of candidates running in this fall’s general election.) We have published the responses in the order we received them.

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Housing affordability remains a top concern to many Albemarle County residents who responded to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s voter surveys. The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors is taking steps this year to increase its investment in affordable housing. Do you think these measures will help with affordability overall? Are there policies or investments would you support to address housing affordability if you are elected this fall?

Sally Duncan: The increase to the Housing Trust Fund is great and shows that the county is serious about addressing the housing crisis. The county has a lot of other tools they also use to help affordability, such as various housing vouchers and incentives. These are all good, but it’s not enough. The Housing Trust Fund needs a dedicated source of funding so it is renewable every year. We need to speed up development so housing can be built quicker. We need to expand our emergency relief fund. Housing needs to remain a top priority because it is a fundamental need.

C. David Shreve: I support a targeted and multi-faceted effort to create more affordable housing options, but also to preserve the affordable or close-to-affordable housing we already have. This cannot be done well just by building more, even though we will surely need to build and renovate in measured and very focused ways. This also cannot be done without a strenuous public commitment of funds and to a housing policy that places shelter above asset-building.

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors recently enacted stricter regulations for data centers, capping the size at 40,000 square feet. Do you agree that data centers should be kept at this size, or would you like to see different kinds of regulations?

Duncan: I do agree with this cap. I would have liked to see the number be smaller, but I understand the building size comparisons. We do need statewide regulation for the hyperscale data centers and I am very concerned about the sound, emissions, water, and energy uses of them, so I am glad to see that we will not have to worry about them in Albemarle County.

Editor’s note: According to IBM: “A hyperscale data center differs primarily from traditional data centers by virtue of its sheer size. A hyperscale data center requires a physical site large enough to house all associated equipment — including at least 5,000 servers and quite possibly miles of connection equipment. As such, hyperscale data centers can easily encompass millions of square feet of space.”

Shreve: I support even stricter regulations on regional data centers. It is oh-so-tempting to bring them in — restricted or not — because they offer the magic elixir of new tax revenue without significant corresponding public sector expenses. The biggest “expense” here, however, is entirely “off-the-books,” as these centers gobble up massive amounts of energy, and wreak havoc on local water supply capacity. Their prospective benefits — often measured only in the “voodoo” economics of historical bubble investments, must be weighed against the enormous and clearly disruptive environmental costs.

Editor’s note: For more information, the Piedmont Environmental Council has compiled a map of current and planned data centers in Virginia. 

As the Trump administration continues to make broad changes to the federal government, how do you think Albemarle County local government should respond?

Duncan: We need to make sure we are prioritizing the fundamentals: housing, food, and education. If we face vast cuts, our role in the government should be to do everything we can to make sure our community has its basic needs met. We have an incredible nonprofit community here that also works to meet people’s needs, and making sure we continue to be a partner with them in the face of their cuts is also important.

Shreve: Recognizing the fiscal limits of municipal government, which has always depended on state and federal governments to meet its public service commitments and obligations, our local government must respond forcefully, to protect fragile gains in equity that we’ve pledged to support, to defend constitutional and statutory law, and to support those increasingly put in harm’s way by this autocratic and profoundly ignorant administration. We certainly need a far different federal government than this one, and we must speak loudly against its regressive and destructive character. November 2026 should be circled on all of our calendars.

How do you think Albemarle County officials, agencies and spaces such as schools, churches and healthcare centers should interact with federal immigration enforcement? What, if anything, do you think the Board of Supervisors should do about the federal government’s immigration actions?

Duncan: Federal immigration enforcement is a federal undertaking. Local government has no obligation to use resources to assist them. I believe at the very least, the federal government should be doing this in a way that protects due process. We also know that within the Albemarle County Police Department, at least one officer has been assisting Homeland Security Investigations with welfare checks and I am very concerned about that and would like to see that assistance end. I think our role as government is to protect and defend the people of our community and to stand up for their human rights and their human dignity.

Editor’s note: The information about ACPD assisting Homeland Security Investigations is highlighted in an email from ACPD Police Chief Sean Reeves to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Virginia Del. Katrina Callsen received the email as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. Read the correspondence here.

Shreve: In the manner of our experienced and talented Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley, we should do nothing less than protect our neighbors, by upholding the letter and the spirit of our Constitution and the laws of our nation and Commonwealth.

If you are elected, what would you do to change or maintain existing county taxes?

Duncan: I would hope that the state would allow us to have a 1 cent sales tax that would add $25 million a year to our budget for schools. Because of the Dillon rule, we are limited in how we can increase revenues. Funding for housing seems to be a challenge, but I think the example of Charlottesville should make us consider how we can do more. Charlottesville, who has a much smaller budget, has spent almost $60 million on housing in the last 4 years, while in the past 5 years, Albemarle County has spent only $17 million.

Editor’s note: The Dillon Rule is a legal concept that limits the authority of local governments, stating that they can only exercise powers explicitly granted by the state legislature, or those that are essential to carry out the functions they’ve been assigned.

Shreve: Our overall tax system at every level (federal, state, and local) should be based squarely on the historic and proven “ability-to-pay” principle, and on the demands of modern capitalist economies, which require it also to function as an engine of equity, purchasing the public goods we all need with the share of national, state, and local income that has the lowest marginal utility. Or as Wisconsin governor Francis McGovern once put it, “each individual should be held to help the state in proportion to his ability to help himself.” If elected, I will fight for this kind of reform, locally with great deliberation and democratic consensus-building effort, but also on the state and national levels, continuing an effort that I’ve waged for many years.

Editor’s note: Francis McGovern was quoting Edwin R.A. Seligman, a Columbia Professor, in Essays on Taxation, first published in 1895.

Are there any other critical issues facing Albemarle County that you would like voters to know about?

Duncan: I am concerned about the environmental impacts from the lack of housing infrastructure. Over 50% of Albemarle County’s greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. We need to make a concerted effort to reduce commute times and get cars off the road. The Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Transit Authority is a great step toward getting a better regional transit system in place, but we also need to create a county where people can live where they work. Our county suffers when our teachers, librarians, and nurses have to commute long distances every day. But when we invest in each other, we get better.

Shreve: Our community and region have been blessed with a spectacular but also increasingly threatened and surprisingly fragile natural endowment, on which we all depend for clean air and water, for recreation, and for healthy lives in general. Its protection must enter into all of our deliberations.

More about the candidate and issues

• Both candidates answered questions from Vote411
• Sally Duncan’s campaign contributions from Virginia Public Access Project
• C. David Shreve’s campaign contributions from Virginia Public Access Project
• 2 Democrats running to replace McKeel on Albemarle Board (for subscribers to The Daily Progress)

Here are key dates and deadlines in the 2025 elections

Friday, May 2, 2025	Early voting for primaries begins weekdays at local registrar’s offices.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025	Deadline to register to vote or update an existing registration for the primary election. You can still vote in the primary if you miss this deadline by registering at the polling place and casting a provisional ballot. You do not have to be a member of a political party to vote in that party’s primary election. However, you can only vote in one party’s primary election each year.
Friday, June 6, 2025, 5:00 p.m.	Deadline to apply for your ballot to be mailed to you. Requests must be received by your local registrar’s offices by 5 p.m.
Friday, June 6, 2025, 5:00 p.m.	Deadline to apply online for an absentee ballot using the Citizen Portal.
Saturday, June 7, 2025	Local voter registration offices open on Saturdays for early voting for primaries.
Saturday, June 14, 2025, 5:00 p.m.	Early voting for primaries ends at local registrar’s offices.
Tuesday, June 17, 2025	Primary Election Day!
Friday, Sept. 19 to Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025 5:00 p.m.	Check with your local registrar’s office for early in-person voting.
Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, 5:00 p.m.	Deadline to apply with your local registrar’s office for a ballot to be mailed to you.
Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025	Election Day!

We will update this list periodically as deadlines approach or we receive new information.

Register to vote, check your registration, find your polling places and apply to vote absentee at the Virginia Department of Elections here. Remember, even if you miss registration deadlines, you can register through Election Day and vote using a provisional ballot.

Need to know if you’re eligible to vote? Here are resources from the Virginia Department of Elections.