PRESS RELEASE
For Meredith Richards, Maurice Cox, and Kevin Lynch - Democratic Candidates for City Council
For Immediate Release
April 14, 2000

Contact: Connie Jorgensen
977-7997

Democratic City council candidates, Meredith Richards, Maurice Cox, and Kevin Lynch will hold a press conference on Monday, April 17 at 12:00 noon at Campaign Headquarters to discuss strategies for meeting the water needs of this community. Democratic Campaign Headquarters is located at 110 14th Street, NE, just off the downtown mall.

As ardent supporters of community-based regional planning, Meredith Richards, Maurice Cox and Kevin Lynch encourage all citizens of the region to attend the Tuesday evening public meeting of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA). For several years the Democratic candidates for City Council have participated in the process of defining strategies for meeting the water needs of this community. At the RWSA meeting the latest set of alternatives to meet our water needs will be discussed with the public.

While early in the process, the RWSA had focused on strategies that constructed new or enlarged existing reservoirs, however through a process of extensive community involvement, a wide range of environmentally intelligent alternative options have been introduced and articulated. These alternatives have the potential for creating a process where our needs can be met through a series of small-scale, incremental steps that will respond to water demand when the need is there.

Meredith Richards, Maurice Cox and Kevin Lynch:

· Endorse active, meaningful community participation in the process of planning our community's future, as exemplified by the discussion about our water future.

· Applaud the RWSA's movement, over time, from a reliance on new or enlarged reservoirs to incremental, environmentally sensitive strategies as an example of sound planning and fiscal responsibility.

· Believe that, once again, our community's abundance of creativity and intelligent engagement has borne substantive fruit.

The Democratic candidates for City Council endorse the following principles with regard to water supply, water quality and eco-system health:

· Our community should live within our watershed's water means and not encroach on the potential water supplies of other communities.

· Water should be reused whenever feasible.

· Insofar as possible, we should avoid damming more streams.

· We should meet our future water needs in the most simple and least environmentally invasive way possible.

· Our water needs should be met without compromising the biological vitality of our precious surface waterways.

In 1996, Meredith Richards helped create the Rivanna River Basin Roundtable, a regional body of citizens charged with envisioning the future of the Rivanna River watershed, when she sat on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC). The Roundtable published its landmark study, "The State of the Basin" in 1998. Never before had all of the variables affecting water supply and eco-system health been studied in a coordinated manner, resulting in a broad array of recommendations for regional cooperation.

Ms. Richards participated with other regional leaders, when the TJPDC sponsored a series of Regional Water Summits. Recognizing the need for sensible and proactive regional cooperation, these summits lead to the Regional Water Accords. These accords paralleled the "Sustainability Accords" another project of the TJPDC during Ms. Richards tenure.

Recognizing the fact that all resident's of this region share the same "watershed address" and that we are all affected by management practices up and downstream from us, the TJPDC has submitted a grant to the state for a Regional Water Advisory Board to provide expertise in water supply and quality issues to local governments.

Mr. Lynch has been engaged in the regional water discussion through the Ad Hoc Water Conservation Committee, an outgrowth of the League of Women Voters Natural Resources Committee. He has worked through the Charlottesville Federation of Neighborhoods, to help inform City residents about regional water supply issues. In 1999, the League published its summary of the water supply issue in "Water in the New Millennium", whose publication was timed to inform the RWSA Water Supply Study.

A milestone in City/County cooperation occurred when, in 1999, Ms. Richards and Mr. Cox joined with their colleagues on the City Council to unanimously endorse the request from the League of Women Voters and the Rivanna River Basin Roundtable that the City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors jointly sponsor a public meeting on the water supply issue. This historic meeting of November of 1999, with Ms. Richards and Mr. Cox in attendance, was the first time that the RWSA, the Board of Supervisors and the City Council had met with the public to discuss the future of our water supply.

Mr. Cox has been a voice for regional cooperation in planning throughout his tenure on the City Council. As a member of the Metropolitan Planning Organization he has been an advocate for considering the impact of transportation solutions on the health and vitality of the environment. During his tenure, the MPO has hired a consultant to study the impact on the regional water supply of the proposed 29 By-pass.

The region's first Water Conservation Specialist was recently hired by the city of Charlottesville, with the endorsement of Ms. Richards, Mr. Cox and their colleagues on the City Council, in response to the issues of water supply that have been identified by active citizens and the RWSA. With the new additional to the staff, the City will lead the region in developing and implementing responsible water conservation strategies.

The Democratic candidates for the City Council celebrate the continued active participation of all members of the community and encourage a broad attendance at the public meeting with the RWSA in City Council chambers from 6:30 - 10:00 pm on Tuesday, April 18, 2000 (formal presentation starts at 7:30 pm), as our community moves toward a decision about how to meet our water supply needs, while respecting our role as stewards of the natural environment.