INSIDE Goochland woman celebrates 100 years > page 2
Volume 58, Number 3 • January 19, 2012
New Goochland Democratic Chair plans on rebuilding the party By Ken Odor jodor@goochlandgazette.com
Just elected, the new chair of the Democratic Pary hopes to expand the number of the party faithful in Goochland County. That’s why Molly Payne was busy stirring up a pot of chili last Friday evening, preparing for the next day’s meeting at the Company 5 Firehouse. She took over the leadership of the local Democratic Committee last month, replacing former chair Alan Tucker. Payne, 27, said when Tucker asked her to take the job, she had to think about it awhile before deciding to accept it. “I took a couple of weeks to think about it,” she said. “A lot of people said it would be a tough job,” she added, referring to the conservative, GOP leaning nature of Goochland. But Payne, who said she grew up in a diverse, middle-class area in Lansing, Mich., where there was strong union support, sees a strong need for the party in Goochland. “There is a population out there that is not represented,” said the Michigan State University graduate, who came to Virginia
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Photo by Ken Odor
New Goochland Democratic Party Chair Molly Payne shows off the party Web site she recently created.
in 2008 after graduating with a degree in Zoology, to take a job as a rider and show groom at Plain Dealing Farm in Scottsville, Va. She found a place to live in Goochland and has been here ever since.
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“I fell in love with the county and the community and that’s why I’m still here,” she wrote in an email to the Gazette. She’s since moved on to her current job as Claims Review Specialist at the law firm of
BrownGreer PLC, where she’s worked since November 2010. “A Democrat born and bred,” is how she describes herself on the new Goochland Democratic Committee’s Web site, which she recently created. She worked for Democrat state senate candidate Bert Dodson in his recent campaign and said she was very disappointed at his loss to Republican Tom Garrett. “My goal for this county is to make it okay again for people of different ideologies to talk to each other to work to solve problems,” said Payne, who laments what she sees as the wide gulf between the parties. “We are so far apart the people are not being served.” One might say her chili pot was a step toward bridging the gulf between the parties, since the recipe for the turkey chili she was stirring came from a Republican friend. Speaking of her circle of friends, she described the atmosphere she’d like to foster. ‘We talk politics and can disagree but still love each other,” she said, adding there’s no reason the country can’t do the same thing.
New school board chair Beth Hardy said last week the board will present a balanced budget to the board of supervisors when it finishes its work January 31, the projected date for approval of the schools budget. “We are preparing a budget that will eliminate this,” said Hardy after last week’s four-hour meeting, referring to the more than $500,000 gap between projected revenue and expenditures. Toward that end the board adopted a partial reorganization chart for schools administration that adds a second assistant school superintendent for operations but eliminates the directors of sec-
see Dems > page 4
see Schools budget > page 2
Photo by Ken Odor
Bea Cantor and Jeff Hendron videotape last week’s school board meeting, with live streaming on the schools’ Web site.
Hardy vows to close budget gap $500K deficit must be overcome By Ken Odor jodor@goochlandgazette.com
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