Ken Reid Leaves Town Council

After five in half years of serving on the Town Council, Ken Reid attended his last official meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 13. He was recently elected and sworn in as Leesburg’s next district Supervisor and he will formally take office on Jan. 1.

On Tuesday, Reid said he is looking forward to his new role, which is something he’s been interested in doing since he moved to area back in 2002.

“When I first moved here I was very much involved,” Reid said. “There was a board of supervisors that was in office when I moved here that was talking about downzoning the county, taking away a lot of property rights from people, getting rid of a lot of right of ways for roads. They were essentially trying to turn the pendulum back.”

Reid said he was a frequent speaker at these board meetings, while also being involved with trying to fight the toll increases for Dulles Rail.

“I was actually more involved the first two years of living here with county issues than town issues,” Reid said. “It was my thought that I would be very good for the Board of Supervisors.”

As a result, he decided to run for Town Council, which Reid said was “a good first step and very good training.”

“The Town Council pretty much has universal say over the entire budget for the town and pretty much all the policies and regulations in the town,” he said. On the other hand, the Board of Supervisors does not have any specific say when it comes to certain issues including the school budget which is at least 70 percent of where taxpayer money goes. “That’s going to be a major difference.”

The other thing he’ll have to get used to, Reid said, is the fact that more work will be involved. The Town Council is a part-time position depending on how many boards and commissions you volunteer for.

“From that standpoint I think the Board of Supervisors is going to be much more demanding and take more time.”

The nice thing, Reid said, is that the entire board will be Republican, which might help when it comes time to vote on certain issues.

“That’s going to be one positive thing compared to what I have dealt with the last five years of Town Council where even though it’s non-partisan there’s a mixture of people of a liberal or conservative persuasion,” Reid said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how well the new council works with the new Board of Supervisors given the fact that there are political differences."

Unfortunately, Reid said, some people inject their politics into things, which becomes the essence of problems all over the country especially in Washington.

"Some people can’t look beyond political differences or philosophical differences to try to achieve some kind of consensus," he said. "But I’m not under any false impressions that the new Board of Supervisors, even though it’s all republican, is not going to agree on every issue.”

Reid said there are things he’ll miss about serving on the Town Council but is looking forward to his first official board meeting on Jan. 3, 2012. It is there that he will begin to represent the majority of Leesburg.

“Ken has been a very strong advocate for the causes he believes in,” said Mayor Kristen Umstattd on behalf of the entire Town Council. “He has promised us that he will work hard to protect the interest of the Town of Leesburg while on the Board of Supervisors and we wish him well and all the best.”