Lynchburg City Councilman challenges Scott Garrett on '07 tax vote

House of Delegates candidate Scott Garrett is being called out by one of his City Council colleagues over a 2007 vote on the tax structure of Lakeside Centre, a major retail development that has yet to break ground.

Councilman Michael Gillette, who first raised these allegations during a heated tax debate last week, says Garrett’s vote back then exposes hypocrisy in his current campaign rhetoric regarding taxation and transportation funding. Garrett, who has served on council with Gillette for more than three years, dismissed the claims as political posturing.

Garrett, a Republican, is running for the 23rd District seat in Tuesday’s election. Gillette has endorsed Garrett’s opponent, incumbent Shannon Valentine, a Democrat, in that race. The 23rd District includes Lynchburg and part of Madison Heights.

Last week, during a testy City Council debate about a possible tax rebate for businesses, Gillette challenged Garrett’s pro-rebate arguments in part by suggesting that Garrett voted in 2007 to levy higher taxes on Lakeside Centre through the creation of a special taxing district.

The reference sparked a brief dust-up during which Gillette and Garrett talked over each other in an effort to make their points. Garrett said he never voted to raise taxes, while Gillette began repeatedly calling out the date of the vote.

“A tax is a tax, Scott. A tax is a tax is a tax. August 14, 2007. You voted for a special taxing district,” he declared.

The mayor, after quieting her colleagues, asked Garrett if he wanted to respond to that charge. Garrett passed, saying in a later interview he felt Gillette was “playing politics” and distracting from the issue at hand.

“This had no bearing, no merit, no standing with what we were discussing at the time,” Garrett said. “He was merely making polarized political statements and there’s no reason for that.”

The 2007 vote referenced by Gillette, which was unanimous, did not directly raise taxes. Rather, it authorized city staff to begin the process of establishing an independent authority to finance roughly $50 million in road and utility improvements for Lakeside Centre, a large retail development that has not materialized, although backers say they hope to revive the project when the economy recovers.

It was expected by all parties that the authority would levy higher real estate taxes against the Lakeside Centre property in order to offset its infrastructure costs. But other terms were supposed to be more fully developed through negotiations between the city and Lakeside Centre, which supported the plan. A final proposal was never brought back to council for approval.

Gillette said he felt Garrett’s willingness to move ahead with such a system was still significant given his heavy criticism of Valentine, whom Garrett has accused of having a secret plan to raise taxes for transportation. Valentine has adamantly denied this and said repeatedly that Garrett is distorting the facts.

Gillette said, “This vote demonstrates that the question of taxation is a bit more complex than all of the candidates in this race have admitted. I’m not saying it was a bad vote. I think it was a good vote. But it does demonstrate that he voted in favor of creating a special tax to pay for transportation … I think people need to understand that’s what he did.”

Gillette said, “It’s hypocritical of him to say that if Shannon Valentine has ever supported the concept of taxes than she can’t be trusted, but he can be trusted even though he cast a similar vote.”

Garrett insisted this vote was not a tax increase,

noting the system was never finalized.

“It’s not like we approved or disapproved of it,” he said. “All we were doing was saying this is reasonable to consider. Bring us back a proposal. Give us our options.”

He said he would not have supported the measure if it involved a citywide tax increase or if Lakeside Centre did not support it.