Kennell announces election bid

Published 5:41 pm Thursday, October 15, 2015

Cumberland resident Tim Kennell has announced his candidacy for the District Two seat on the county’s board of supervisors.

Kennell, who previously served on the board, said in a statement that for the last four years, District Two “has not had a voice at the county board level.”

Email newsletter signup

Kennell said that Lloyd Banks, who currently represents the district and is seeking re-election, has abstained from voting 38 times since taking office in 2012, calling Banks’ actions “an absolute embarrassment.”

Kennell, who’s running as an independent, recently retired from Bridgestone Firestone where he accumulated over 35 years of business management experience.

“I have over 32 years of community leadership experience. I believe that if you invest in the community in which you live, you can help ‘open doors’ for others and benefit from a better community,” he said.

Kennell said the solution to the county’s high tax rate “is to find more income to pay the county bills, not stepping back to the 50s to withdraw into our shell with hopes that we don’t get hit so hard that it cracks our shell.”

The candidate says his first step to solving “our budget woes [is] to complete the Cobbs Creek Reservoir Project.”

“In addition to the $53 million, I negotiated to get the $3.5 million back from Henrico for the permits that our county spent on the Cobbs Creek project,” he said of his previous time on the board. “The $3.5 million was put into the county reserves and has paid for the last four years of county improvements and has been spent by our current board to keep taxes from [rising] higher than the four-cent increase that it has gone up.”

Kennell says he will support new businesses with tax incentives.

“I will be the ‘boots on the ground’ to get out of the courthouse and bring business to the county, including a grocery store. I will represent Cumberland through the Virginia Association of Counties … in Richmond to work with counties surrounding Cumberland to help solve our financial problems,” he said. 

Kennell said he’ll work to support tourism to bring more money into the county.

“Our state parks and the state forest in Cumberland County are an untapped opportunity for Cumberland business, and I will work with those assets to get more dollars into Cumberland.  I will continue to reduce county debt and will only support county projects that do not increase taxes,” he said.

Kennell said he believes the “single most important thing I can do as a county supervisor is to be informed, be fair and represent District Two with a yes or no vote, and care enough about citizens to represent their concern, not abstain.”