"Another grocery store," clean businesses, and all-in for a skate park
Town Council candidates play to the crowd at forum sponsored by Just Orange
At the Saturday morning candidates’ forum at Taylor Park, all four hopefuls for Orange Town Council sounded a warm, friendly note during their brief speeches to an audience of around 40. It was great to see them take a cue from the thoroughly charming, openhearted middle school and high school members of Just Orange, the nonpartisan civic youth group sponsoring the event. The young people introduced the candidates and provided welcoming and closing remarks while Just Orange cofounder (and self-described “momma bear”) Dani Rivera watched from the sidelines.
The Town of Orange has two open seats to fill on Town Council because longtime members Martha Roby and Rick Sherman are not seeking reelection. They leave behind incumbents Donna Waugh Robinson, elected to council in 2018 and reelected in 2022; Jeremiah Pent, elected in 2022; and Jason Cashell, also elected in 2022. Pent and Cashell ran as a politically conservative duo and drew the outrage of some local citizens who protested both before and after the election that neither man was a town resident.
“I want to represent every voice in Orange. Every voice is equal and should be heard equally.” —Rita Carroll
Going in alphabetical order, the first council candidate to speak was Rita Carroll, a Northern Virginia transplant and current member of the town’s planning commission. She told the audience she grew up in a military family and moved “about 17 times” while growing up. A graduate of George Mason University, she works for Red Hat, a software company, and lives in Orange with her son. She said she’s helping to draft a 20-year plan for Orange as part of her work for the planning commission and if elected to council wants to help the town “set achievable goals.”
In what seemed like an allusion to possible feelings of disenfranchisement among some residents, she stated, “I want to represent every voice in Orange. Every voice is equal and should be heard equally.”
Stressing her devotion to the town she has chosen as her home, she concluded on a light note, “You’re stuck with me whether I win or not. I remain on the planning commission.”
“We need to get the engine of our small town revved up in high gear.” —Harrison Cluff
Next up was Harrison Cluff, who spoke of his Orange roots and his decision at age 17 to join the Orange Volunteer Fire Company. The owner of C&G Carwash on Berry Hill Road, he told me before the program began that he graduated from the University of Virginia and had a career in TV journalism before coming home to Orange.
During his public remarks, he said he wants to bring entrepreneurs and new businesses, including high-tech firms, to Orange, expand broadband options within the town limits and consult with leaders of other towns to figure out how to attract “another grocery store” to Orange. “We need to get the engine of our small town revved up in high gear,” he said.
“Local businesses need Town Council’s support, to improve the appearance of the town.” — Jeff Crane
Speaking next, Jeff Crane also drew on his Orange origin story. The son of Ernie Crane, he grew up working at his father’s landmark service station in the center of town. He said that from age 13 through high school, he washed cars for just about everybody in Orange. Like Cluff, he proposed meeting with representatives from other small towns to find out how they attracted supermarkets (other than Food Lion, that is) to their communities.
Crane spoke of the need for “clean businesses” that would increase the tax base and said, “Local businesses need Town Council’s support, to improve the appearance of the town.” He also said he’d like to see Little League or Babe Ruth baseball return to Orange and bring back the fun and excitement that young players and spectators enjoyed during earlier decades.
“This town is not broken.” —Delmer Seal
The final council candidate to speak was Delmer Seal, an Orange native who said he’s lived in Orange his whole life except for his time with the military. A 40-year military veteran, he recalled his early jobs in Orange as a paperboy and an employee of Susie’s Flower Basket. He mentioned that his wife is a teacher, and his son, Captain Bryan Seal, is a school resource officer for the local schools.
“This town is not broken,” Seal told the audience, adding that he doesn’t believe in burning bridges. “I’ll shake your hand, win or lose. We’re all Americans. We all belong to the Town of Orange. We all are citizens of Orange.”
“I truly do believe all politics is local.” —Derrick Anderson, Republican candidate for 7th District Congressional representative
The forum’s other featured speaker was Derrick Anderson, Republican candidate for the 7th District Congressional seat. Anderson is competing against Eugene Vindman, a former U.S. Army colonel and whistleblower during former President Donald Trump’s administration, for the seat that Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor, is vacating. Vindman was not present on Saturday.
A native of Spotsylvania County, an attorney and a member of the National Guard, Anderson discussed his career traveling the globe as a Green Beret and said he’d loved his time serving as a platoon leader at Arlington National Cemetery. Circling back to his roots, he told the audience he grew up working at his mother’s restaurants and gas station in Spotsylvania.
“I truly do believe all politics is local. It’s important to hear all voices. It’s important to vote on November 5, especially the younger generation,” Anderson said.
All the candidates are proponents of the kids’ skate park that has been Just Orange’s signature cause for more than two years, with Rivera leading the charge. Though many people agree that Orange needs more places where children and teenagers can have fun and get some exercise, the skate park (proposed for the former Gardner property on Blue Ridge Drive) is not a done deal.
“These elections directly impact their everyday lives”
On Tuesday evening, I wrote to Rivera and asked why she’d organized the forum as a Just Orange event.
She gave me a thorough answer: “From Day One of Just Orange, I wanted to bring awareness to local government because I wanted to expose the kids to the leaders of their own community, the ones who make the decisions where they are growing and moving through life. And now that they want this skate park and they know what civic processes we have to move through, they must know and learn [about] every candidate who could possibly make a decision on the future of our project.
“I stressed to them that these elections directly impact their everyday lives, and we need to always have our fingers on that pulse, front and center. Introduce ourselves and let them know what we are here and willing to do as collaborators for our town, our home,” Rivera wrote me.
Are the dollar stores really “alternative grocery stores”?
After the candidates’ forum, I had a brief exchange with former school board member Sherrie Page. Regarding Cluff’s and Crane’s expressed desire to bring in a new supermarket to compete with Food Lion, Page remarked that surely current and past council members had tried to do that already.
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