Nick Hagen, 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 Hagen, a 36-year-old Roanoke native who lives downtown. Hagen is an attorney focused on cannabis issues and a historic property developer. He ran for Council in 2022, placing fourth in three-seat election.

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 on Roanoke City Council?

You know, it's because it's been kind to me. Like, the city itself, has, in some ways, been kind. My grandpa was in the House of Delegates and everything like that. And I've chosen to come back here after law school and undergrad. You know, I think that Roanoke seems to be hurt, like, a little bit of hurting, like in the sense of, you know, we have a high crime rate, you know, it seems like Council isn't listening to a lot of people. You have issues with, obviously, affordable housing, and the attempts to fix that per Council have not been good. Yeah, I'm thinking about the mass rezoning, and basically I want to try and bring kind of a new perspective to Council that we haven't gotten in well over 20 years. 

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

I want to make sure that we can push back against this rezoning and get that rectified. That's kind of number one. I want to make sure that we can help protect Evans Spring over here. I want to make sure that we try and get crime rates down. We need to bring in new businesses and hopefully address our high tax burden.

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?

So we need to take a look at what services we're paying for, right, where we can make some efficiencies and be a little bit more efficient with the tax dollars, money. You know, the reality is, is that a lot of people are hurting in Roanoke. You know, I look at my own personal tax burden, right? I had a building over here that went from $6,000 annually in 2021, that was our tax burden to $16,000. It's not sustainable. Like the reality is, is that we keep seeing our population decline in the city, and part of it is because of this high tax burden. You know, you don't see businesses that want to come here because, you know, they're going to have to pay these massive taxes. And you know, as a result, everybody else has to pay higher taxes. 

So this becomes this weird cycle, and it impacts so much. So it impacts not just obviously, jobs, but, you know, if you don't have jobs in Roanoke, there are issues with crime. You see crime as a viable alternative. So, you know, if we don't stop this cycle then, a higher crime rate means less businesses, businesses don't come here means a higher crime rate. So we've got to stop somewhere and try to rectify that. For the budget itself, you know, I want to make sure that we're getting the services, and, you know, in an efficient way that we're paying for it.

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

You know, a lot of it is trying to rectify that past. I know that the equity and empowerment board was going to push for an apology for Council to give for urban renewal. You know, and that got nixed because of concerns about Evans Spring. I view Evans Spring and that whole thing is effectively an urban renewal 2.0. Because what you're looking at is the city trying to impose a lot of its will on predominantly African-American neighborhoods. You know, the reality is, is that when Henry Street, when The Yard, was around, they took a lot of it, including from my family. You know, like, I'm half Lebanese. And so one of the things that doesn't gets talked about, is the fact that, like, even today, there are places on in deeds, where we were all classified as Syrian because, you know, the history of race in this country is not great, and that's probably an understatement of the century. But, you know, like, there's still deeds on the books where Syrians can't own land. So it's always telling to see where people thought that I would be able to even purchase property. I think the way you get past is honestly talking with people, trying to learn from it, trying to address the inequities and injustices that you know that have been perpetrated, either intentionally or unintentionally by government. You know, when I look around and I talk with people, I know it's easy for me to say a lot of this stuff, because I’m the candidate, I’m the one running, but the reality is a lot of this could be helped by addressing the wrongs, and we haven't done that. I think that begins by actually acknowledging the problem and trying to address it, and trying to bring in new jobs and trying to give more people hope in the future, because we don't get that anymore, I think.

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

So I agree that we need to do something about the climate. That's kind of a non-issue. I think that the way that the city has tried to achieve this is a little bit misguided. You know, we need to be looking at concerns about things. Obviously, they talk about heat islands, they talk about things like that. You know, there are easier ways that we could be doing that we're not. So like, for example, you know, throughout Roanoke City downtown, you could have green roofs. Roanoke City is a heat island. I live literally a block away from here, and especially during this past summer, when we had those heat waves, I'd walk outside and just feel, being a bigger guy, I just feel like I was going to die just from a wall of heat. 

We could look at things like non-permeable asphalt, which would help both with, you know, addressing heat and rainwater and things like that. So that's one. You can look at towards actually changing the colors. Because shockingly, having things painted carbon or black, it being black, it ends up absorbing a lot of heat. And so you end up compounding this, you know, and it isn't just aspects like that are talked about in the climate action plan. 

You have issues with lead in our city that haven't been addressed. You have issues with other materials that were here because of the railroad and because of things that we used to use that would help to insulate or, you know, like because Roanoke is a relatively new city, obviously, but because it came up during the Industrial Revolution, you end up seeing these issues come about. So we need to address things like that, that I feel like the climate action plan isn't addressing. Plus there's other things like carbon capture from the air, honestly, changing the light bulbs to LEDs, which is a part of it. But you know what frequency? I mean, I could go into a very nerdy conversation about the frequency of light, but I will spare you all and the viewers. But you know, when you look at it, like these old bulbs, like even this one out here, you know that type is sodium mercury. Like, it is not good for the environment, and so as a result, you end up not being able to address newer technologies, and it ends up being, technically, a more unsafe thing for roads.

So it's not just climate action. You can see things like, you know, safety on roads, and public safety in general, with these types of things, because, you know, if you have a slightly different, bluer light, you end up seeing a better, light studies suggest, you see a better result with traffic in nights, because your eyes can adjust a little bit better. And again, I could nerd out with you for a very long time about this, and I'm sure he would probably appreciate some of the nerding out about light and everything like that. But I will spare you all and the viewers.

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?

So part of that is looking at things like historical tax credits and other grants that we can utilize to improve derelict properties. So currently, conservative estimates, if I recall correctly, there are about 4,000 to 5,000 derelict units in the city. The city says that we need about 3,000 units. Why you would not go about trying to revamp those houses first before constantly changing the entire prospect of zoning is beyond me. But sure. My plan basically holds that we need to revamp those houses first. And the issue with these— like there's a whole other mess of the issue with the zoning — so rather than, this impacts obviously Evans Spring as well, because Evans Springs is predominantly single-family housing for that area. So now what Council has done has basically pushed for more development of Evans Spring, despite the fact that they said that they weren't going to two years ago when a majority of them were running. To me, it's ridiculous. It's inconsistent, and it ends up being actual harm towards communities which have been harmed tremendously by the government of Roanoke City. So why wouldn't we just try to basically be like, Look, we messed up. We need something new.

As an attorney, you handle a lot of cannabis issues. Does the city have a role in that? Would a City Council person have a role in cannabis now that we're in this era of legalized marijuana, but it's still sort of unregulated?

I got to ask you. Was that a question for all the candidates?

Everybody got a unique question.

I was just curious. I'm like, I love that.

But what role does a City Council person have in cannabis issues? 

So there's a couple ways, right? So first off, we have the legislative committee. Basically we can recommend to the House of Delegates and State Senate. ‘Hey, this is what Roanoke would like to see. We'd appreciate your advocacy for this sort of thing.’ So that's on a much more philosophical level sort of thing, but it will depend on what comes about from the legislature, once we get the legal sales. Legal, over 21 recreational sales. Need to preface that. It will depend, because we are still a Dillon Rule state, and for those who don't know what Dillon Rule is, basically it says that all power for our local governments stems from Richmond. So that means that anything that is explicitly stated by the legislature or necessarily implied by the law, is things that council and localities can do. Sorry, I had to explain that a bit. 

So it will depend on what the legislation will look like. Ideally, I would like to see, obviously, a well regulated market in the sense of, like seed to sale, effectively 5 percent tax to the city, or broken up as 2.5 to 5 percent for the city and the state. You know, obviously, make sure that you know it's not getting in the hands of kids, not getting in the hands of anybody who would be harmed by it, make sure everything's well labeled, all kinds of things, right? Because ultimately when we talk about cannabis policy, you know, you want to make sure — because it's been effectively prohibited for over a century now — you are always concerned about somebody having issues, and you don't want that. 

For Council, depending on what it would look like, they'll be talking about bringing in new businesses, either through things like indoor grow and to even things which don't necessarily touch the plant, for things like marketing or banking or just the mere transportation of those, because you're going to see things where we won't be able to likely — unless something changes in the federal government, —we're likely not going to be able to see it being able to cross state lines. So you're going to have to have everything grown and done and everything here in Virginia, which is going to be great for us, considering Roanoke City has two methods of transportation. We have north to south for the interstate, and then the railroad from east to west. So we could be an actual hub for it. So that's kind of one of the reasons why I think about it. But I think that, you know, it's going to take a lot of work on the legislature's part, and you got some work to do. 

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

Oh, that is a tough question because there's so many. You know, I went for my birthday up to Six and Sky over here. It’s the first time I've been. It was delicious. Highly recommend. Also, Sticks and spoons. Man, they just opened up their late night menu and it's open till 10. Like, I'm getting older, like I could not go out drinking as much as I once was able to. But they just opened up their late night menu and they're delicious. And I'm a huge fan of ramen. Like, absolutely. Let's see, oh, what else is late? Oh, you know, if you ever feel like the end of the night, like, you know, Texas Tavern. I think that kind of has to be on everybody's list, right? 

That's more than one!

Look, I like food, if it has not been apparent. You know,we have so many great restaurants in the city, like, I apologize to the owners. I could not do it justice. Bobby’s Hot & Cheesy is definitely one of my go to spots for lunch and stuff like that. But you know, there are so many, and I try and visit all of them. Try and make it to a lot of them. But you know, it's hard to pick just one, to be honest with it.

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

So we got Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations.” I always think that it's always good to try and learn from the classics. Let's see. I mentioned this two years ago. I read the Bible every year to help my faith and everything like that. What else is there? I think it's just those two. I've severely cut back to kind of focus on running, because I think that, you know, I'm trying to serve effectively 100,000 people. I'm trying to dedicate a lot of my time and energy, and you know, even literally standing out during a hurricane during early voting. I do not recommend people doing that ever. Please stay safe. It's a lot of time, and just happy to do it because, you know, I'm hoping to see Roanoke grow.