A prospective candidate has emerged in the Jackson District seeking to secure a place on the ballot in the upcoming race for Board of Supervisors.
Amissville resident Donna Comer
Photographer: Luke Christopher
Amissville resident Donna Comer, an employee at Laurel Ridge Community College’s workforce solutions department, is seeking signatures from residents in the district to be listed on the November General Election ballot. As of Monday, she had collected 34 of the 125 needed signatures, according to Rappahannock County Registrar of Voters Kim McKiernan.
Comer, and other prospective candidates seeking to be placed on the ballot, must attain the requisite number of signatures by late June. McKiernan said Comer is the only Jackson District resident to have filed signatures with her office.
Should she get on the ballot, Comer could be mounting a challenge against incumbent Jackson Supervisor Ron Frazier, the longest serving member on the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors. “Anyone can run for the seat,” Frazier said of Comer’s intent to seek office. “The seat belongs to the residents and taxpayers of Jackson Magisterial District and the voters elect whomever they believe will best represent them.”
Frazier did not return a request seeking comment as to whether he intends to seek re-election.
As a working class mother of a child in the public schools system, Comer said she would provide a fresh perspective for county leadership that is reflective of residents in Jackson District.
“We’re the part of our county being pinched by Fauquier and Culpeper County,” Comer said of the district. “So I think we’re just uniquely positioned in a different way. Some of the issues in Rappahannock just impact us in a different way,” she said noting, how the district is uniquely home to the highest number of students in Rappahannock County Public Schools.
“We’re driving one place to go to work, then we’re driving to the other end of the county to pick up the kids or to volunteer at the school or to go to parent-teacher conferences,” she said.
In a letter to the Rappahannock News (see Page 14), Comer listed support for broadband expansion, improving public schools and bolstering fire and rescue by seeking additional volunteers all as campaign priorities.
Broadband, she said, is a necessity, citing frustrations with unreliable internet connection during remote schooling. “Broadband is important for quality of education, opportunities, life saving matters, even employment,” she said.
“I am happy that [the county’s] broadband deal seems to be moving forward and is in good shape,” Comer said. “I support always questioning – we don’t know what we don’t know. I don’t want it to be twisted in that I support anything blindly. I’m always in favor of asking the right questions and the hard questions.”
Frazier has long opposed the county’s broadband expansion plan and has made several efforts to thwart its ability to proceed.
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