Jim Garrett, Roanoke City Council Candidate, Answers Our 9 Burning Questions for 2024

Ahead of Roanoke’s municipal elections on Nov. 5, The Rambler once again sits down with each of the candidates — this time with a twist.

Three candidates for mayor and seven City Council candidates agreed to videotaped chats as we probed them on Roanoke’s past, present and future. To distinguish our questions from those frequently asked of the candidates, we focused on budgets, segregation, climate, housing and more. (Of course, we also had to touch on where they like to dine out.)

For mayor, Vice Mayor Joe Cobb is running as a Democrat, Councilwoman Stephanie Moon Reynolds as an independent and former mayor David Bowers as a Republican. For City Council, the candidates are Democrats Terry McGuire, Phazhon Nash and Benjamin Woods; independents Evelyn Powers and Cathy Reynolds; and Republicans Jim Garrett and Nick Hagen. Voters can choose up to three Council candidates.

This interview features Garrett, a 67-year-old Lexington native who lives in the Greater Deyerle neighborhood. He served 21 years in the military, founded two telecommunications companies, and recently sold his business to retire and focus on his campaign. Garrett ran unsuccessfully for Council in 2014.

Candidates did not receive copies of the questions beforehand. Transcripts of the interviews have been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

View the candidate's full video interview here:

Why do you want to serve Roanoke as a City Council member?

Well, I moved here 17 years ago. I've been commuting for years. I met my wife here. Actually, I met her online. We met through eHarmony, and she lived here in Roanoke, and I found Roanoke to be a really attractive place to live. We found a beautiful home in a single-family neighborhood, and we bought it and got married. And we've been married now for 13 years. She's got a 38-year-old autistic son that I took on. It's very rewarding to work with him, and, you know, become part of that family.

Let's talk policy priorities. If you're elected, what's one of the first actions you would push for City Council to take?

If we can get enough people, the first thing I would do would be to rescind the zoning. And I would take a more measured approach and look at maybe RM-1 or RM-2 and putting that in place with the new zoning for maybe five years, and see how that worked out. I don't like what happened. It's part of the impetus that got me into this race.

You have one person on City Council that says single-family neighborhoods were developed because of racism and redlining. I would never contest that. I think that's very possible, what happened. I've knocked close to 1,000 doors. And, you know, a lot of people say we have 160 different nationalities. And I talked to, I don't know how many different nationalities in these single-family neighborhoods, so I think that the racism of the past is actually the past. I think there are people from every race and creed that want to live in single-family neighborhoods.

When I first started researching it, I couldn't find a single study that said it produced affordable housing. And what I've witnessed thus far, two lots over from me, is something that was once considered appropriate for 12 townhomes or 12 homes has now become available to build 24 townhomes on it. That produces more housing, certainly, but it doesn't produce affordable housing. And even if you talk to the people that are taking the houses and splitting them up into duplexes, one of them spoke at the Council meeting the other night right before the vote, and he says, you know, ‘I don't do affordable housing,’ so I don't think we're producing affordable housing. We're certainly producing more structures and making more housing available, but I don't think we ought to push to cram things into every single-family neighborhood.

One of my concerns is that knocking on almost 1,000 doors, I only found a handful — I certainly don't want to misleading and say that I spoke to 1,000 people — but the amount of people out of the amount of people that I did speak with, I could probably count on two hands that had any knowledge whatsoever there was zoning changes going on and and, I found that disturbing.

I guess that's the importance of reading local news.

Yeah, certainly. Certainly.

A main priority of Council is overseeing a roughly $380 million annual budget. What do you want to see happen with the city’s budget over your four-year term?

Well, I'd like to really examine the budget. Basically over the last 10 years, the taxes have increased every year. And I'd like to know where the increases are going. I can see that our bonds have increased over the last 10 years. I ran 10 years ago, so I know that's increased, so our capital expenditures have increased. But I'd like to really examine the budget and see where money's being spent. We had a meeting with Dr. [Verletta] White the other day, the superintendent of school systems. And, you know, unlike some of my conservative friends, I was really pleased and thrilled with what we're doing in the school system. I think that we increased the budget for schools, you know, because of Covid-19 and all, and we have to figure out how to maintain it. Because the reading at third grade level by third grade, I think, is a wonderful program. I was an accelerator reader when I was a kid, and I think it really contributed to my success. I think it's extremely important. And she's doing other things to form groups of peer pressure, to keep kids in school and increase the graduation rate. So like a lot of things she's doing.

What really concerns me is there's so many different things that I personally don't like about our tax system. And it's not that I dislike paying taxes. I know that in the rural areas that I think it's Halifax County, Prince Edward County, and there may be some other counties, they've been going to the General Assembly asking them if they could offer a referendum to the people to increase the sales tax by one cent and dedicate it to the schools. And I think that just recently passed, and now the voters get to vote on it. I don't think that real estate should be somewhat the primary foundation of our tax base. We have a lot of people that are financing their tax payments. You know, some of them don't qualify for relief, but that doesn't mean that they have extra money. I mean, with all the inflation and everything, you know, I really, I'm really concerned about people's ability to pay that. And I think that going to a sales tax is a much better way.

I want to keep the funding going for the schools. Safety is huge. Without safety, you don't have a city or an environment where people can live and have an education. Education is number two for me and I want to find creative ways to finance it. I just worry about homeowners and what we're doing to them. The county is 18 cents less than us, which doesn't seem huge, but if we were to raise taxes again, then the county's going to look more attractive. If you look at the population over the last 30 years, the county's gained 5,000 people. Over the last 30 years, the city of Roanoke has only gained 864 people. You know, are we going to create a situation where the county looks more attractive than the city does to people coming to the area? I think we have to be careful about that, because we need the population growth, because we do need to expand our tax base.

Roanoke’s residential neighborhoods remain highly racially segregated. What role should city government play in dismantling that legacy?

You know, that statement kind of bothers me, because I think they may be racially segregated because of the cost of particular housing in there. They're not racially segregated because of anybody blocking them in any way. If you could show me that, I would be very disturbed by it. I just, I don't see that. You know, one of my things is at my business in Farmville, so I've purposely not done business in Roanoke so that I wouldn't be captured in it if I decided to get involved politically. But I've given thousands of dollars to Habitat for Humanity.

I think Habitat for Humanity is one of the most wonderful organizations there is. My remarks to City Council the other night were, Why don't we create a line item in the budget and devote money to it? I found it disturbing that we're spending $14.5 million on Eureka Park [Recreation Center], which is important. You work hard, you have to play hard, and we need places for kids to spend time and, you know, not have idle minds. But if you're really into affordable housing, why not take a couple million of that and place it in the land bank and work with Habitat? I'm all for putting a line item into the budget every single year to work with Habitat for Humanity, and I'm talking one, two, $3 million, whatever we can, to help people buy housing.

It really bothers me when we start talking about real estate taxes. There's so many people that rent, and I think people get caught in a rental trap. And I don't think that they feel like they're part of the community, as much a part of the community, without home ownership. And I think we need to create way more homeowners than what we have. You know, when we got apartments that are $1,200 for a one-bedroom apartment, I just, you know, I know people can afford it, but you know, back in the day, I would have just been so alarmed at that. I'm pretty alarmed about it now. I think we need to create more home ownership. I don't know. At times I want to say I'm a fiscal conservative, but I'm very much a people person., I'm for the education, what the schools are doing, because we're going to end up with people without education. We’re going to have more street people and everything. You know, it's pay me now and pay me later. If you develop more home ownership, then you have people feeling more of the community. I think it's all part of community development.

How would you work to implement the city’s climate action plan? Or do you disagree with its recommendations?

No, I don't disagree at all. If you ever wanted to come to my house, you're welcome. I have a huge solar array in my backyard. My house is built with two by sixes in the walls. My walls are eight inches of insulation, all my outside walls, I have 24 inches of insulation up in the attic. I have to drive back and forth to Farmville. I am not ready for a totally electric vehicle, but my wife drives a hybrid. We bought it in March, and she hasn't put gas in it since April, because she drives around town, does her errands, and she plugs it in. And we have enough solar panels that it pays for it. I think it's wonderful. You know, I think that anybody argues against just basic common sense, you have to kind of do a double take. I think—

How would you work to implement the city's climate action plan?

I think we need more solar. I think this new bus station is an incredible place to put solar panels. You know, we need to reduce our electric bills. That helps the taxpayers. You know, it helps everybody. We need more canopy. Again, I planted all kinds of trees in my yard. I've had some that, some of these oak bugs, I don't even remember what they said they were that have killed some of my oak trees, probably all around.

I found it very alarming, [Laura Hartman, member of Bus Riders of Roanoke Advocacy Group] was alerting us the other day that we only have one person in the office that's implementing this. And then she said — I can't remember what city it was — it has six people, you know. I don't know what the six people are doing, but I think it's clear that one person is not able to do much. I don't know if they need six people. I don't know what we need. But I told her that if I got on Council, I would certainly want to sit down and take a look at what we're not doing and how we managed to get it done.

Molly [Hunter, the city’s neighborhood services coordinator], I think she might think I have a crush on her, because I just applaud her every time I see her, because she's so positive, upbeat and she brings so much to the table. And I think we need another, at least one more of her. And I think we're in that situation with the climate office that we have here. We need more people, and we need to educate people.

I mean, I think people think that because I'm a Republican, that I'm not logical and don't do smart things. I didn't get successful for doing dumb things. And I think that there are certain things that are just logical and the smart things to do. You know, obviously there's climate change going on. Well, some people can deny it. I don't think it's a gimmick or anything, and I work hard to recycle and and, you know, do what I can to do my part.

Let's talk more about housing. You’re on record opposing current policies that ended exclusively single-family zoning. What’s your solution to encouraging the development of more affordable housing?

Well, again, I would like to have a line item in the budget for Habitat. We had the discussion early on in the campaign about Evans Spring, and I'm not sure that I got quoted correctly on that. I think that we need to develop that. One of the things that I've always appreciated, there are parts of Forest, Virginia, and if you go down to parts of Myrtle Beach and Charlotte, most cities nowadays there are parts of them that are almost like little old fashioned downtowns where they, you know, they have housing and businesses and housing and business and, you know, and I think that's what we've developed in a lot of cities, including Roanoke downtown.

But I think we need to focus on grants that incentivize more affordable housing, and I think Evans Spring could be just a wonderful example. I'm not for a big Costco. I made that clear. I think if we bring in a Costco, we're going to put BJs out of business. We've already got Burlington building out there that's empty, and then we'd have another big, empty building. Plus we'd have all the pavement and we'd have to plant, I don't know how many trees for that much to compensate for all the asphalt that we put down there.

Maybe we can buy it as a city and then develop it, you know. I think it would be a good opportunity to kind of right the wrongs of Gainsboro. That's kind of my approach to it. And again, you know, homeownership, home ownership, home ownership.

You are among a group of homeowners that is suing the city over a townhouse development in the Greater Deyerle neighborhood. If that's the response to a new housing development, how can Roanoke increase its housing stock?

Well, see, you're painting with a broad brush, Henri. Before the new zoning, that was zoned for about 12 townhomes, or about 12 single-family homes. The initial plans had more affordable housing. This thing flipped several times. I never raised my hand. I never did anything when it was talking about 12 townhomes. I never said anything. When they started cramming in 24 townhomes. I said, that's a bit excessive. And when we went and started looking up the laws and everything and when we filed suit, the city had broken six state laws to approve that, six state laws. And one of the things that was most disturbing to me was that they said, Okay, you only have to have one driveway for every two townhomes, and if there are two cars per townhome, that means you could have as many as 36 cars on the road or parked on the side of the road, which would have gone way down into the the subdivision there.

You’re going out to dinner in Roanoke. Name just one place — where do you go?

I go to Billy Ritz and, well, I used to really like The Quarter, back when it started up and all. I'm not going downtown as much as I used to. I go to Montano's quite a bit.

Billy’s downtown? What do you like there? Anything particular?

Shrimp and grits.

What books are on your night stand? What are you reading currently?

I've got several books on my nightstand. I haven't picked any of them up in the last six months, probably. I read a lot of technical stuff. I actually licensed my telephone company myself. The attorneys wanted $100,000. So I've been through all the rigamarole of saving myself $100,000. It cost me about $6,000. I developed the telephone companies from scratch, so my life is being spent pretty much on technical stuff.

My secretary just bought me the biography of Jimmy Carter, so I need to read that. I do have my Bible on my nightstand. I do read it. My secretary has very different political views than me. I praise Jimmy Carter. I wasn't a fan back when he was president, but I think Habitat for Humanity was — I will tell you this, when I reached the first grade, I was reading at a sixth-grade level. When I was in the sixth grade, the teacher had me take the kids of color who had come into our school, there were seven of them. It was during, you know, I guess it was ’66 or so, and I had to teach. I shouldn't say “had to” teach. I just taught them to read. I didn't know what I was doing. So I used to be an avid reader, but I work all the time now. What was her name, the woman who was the Republican Alaska governor?

Sarah Palin.

Yeah. She didn't read anything.