This fall, Stafford voters will head to the polls to elect their representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates. All 100 seats are on the ballot, including Stafford’s 23rd, 64th, and 65th districts. Potomac Local News continues to shine the Spotlight on our local elections, inviting all of the candidates from Districts 23, 64 and 65 to a virtual interview with the same five questions; their answers have been condensed into a series of articles.
The videos are available here.
23rd District (Stafford and Prince William):
Candi Mundon King (D, Incumbent) did not respond.
James (Jim) Tully (R): Tully enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1987, serving in the Gulf War before building a career with the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office. He later retired during COVID after serving in the governor’s National Guard response and is now Deputy Superintendent at the Rappahannock Regional Jail. Tully and his family live in Stafford, where his wife and daughter teach in the county schools. This is his second run for delegate in the 23rd District.
64th District (Stafford):
Stacey Carroll (D) was not able to schedule an interview.
Paul Milde (R, Incumbent): Milde moved to Stafford 35 years ago and is a Stafford County business owner with approximately 30 employees. Milde served three terms on the Stafford Board of Supervisors from 2006 until 2017. Milde ran for Delegate in 2017 and 2019 before winning in 2023.
65th District (Stafford, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania:
Joshua Cole (D, Incumbent): Cole grew up in Stafford County, a graduate of Stafford County Public Schools. He is currently the assistant pastor at Union Bell Baptist Church and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. Cole has served two terms as Delegate for the 65th District.
Sean Steinway (R): Steinway served four years in the Marine Corps, before becoming a Fairfax County police officer. After Fairfax, he worked as a DEA contractor for 20 years, running a unit in Guatemala City and later joining the International Trading Unit. In 2010 he returned to the States and has served as a deputy sheriff in Stafford County for the past two years.
Virginia has become the data center capital of the world, but communities have raised concerns about land use, water, and energy demand. What role should the state play in regulating or guiding data center growth?
Tully:
Data centers are becoming the world’s new infrastructure for technology. It’s a local issue when it comes to water usage, land usage, so that should be in the realm of the Board of Supervisors. On the state level, we need to pay attention to the power usage – what Dominion Energy is doing with data centers, and how we regulate how it affects the local users, the citizens in the community.
Milde:
I served 12 years on the Board of Supervisors, so I really believe in local control. I do not think the state should be forcing localities to accept data centers, nor do I think they should make it harder for localities. I think data centers make a lot of sense in the right place. [Stafford’s Board of Supervisors] worked so hard to bring more commercial investment in Stafford. We wanted a certain amount of our tax revenue, at least 25% of it, to come from businesses. We knew data centers were available or a possibility for Stafford. We had data center-ready sites back when the sites were smaller, because we were trying to attract them, and the minute we got them to come here, there was a movement to try to stop them. Data centers should not be near residential areas or destroying our viewsheds of our beautiful rural areas. I think that you can mitigate the water usage [like the Stafford Technology Campus near Eskimo Hill Road] using cleaned, non-drinkable water. They’ve mitigated the noise problem, except generators when the power goes out. I just don’t think that they’re getting a fair shake right now in the public. We need the tax money, and I could go on and on about why we need the tax money and what’s going on in Stafford with your tax rates. But that’s a serious consideration. [Data centers are] a possibility for us to keep the residential taxpayers from paying so much more in taxes.
Cole:
As we have these conversations about data centers, the localities should be empowered to make the decisions themselves. This is a local issue, and we’re seeing that some of the localities can really benefit from having data centers where they are. As a state, ratepayers should be protected, water should be protected, and our energy should be protected first and foremost. We should have some kind of ramifications and protections for our state as it relates to data centers, but we also need to make sure that our localities, the local governments, should have some kind of empowerment to make those decisions themselves.
Steinway:
There’s a lot of back and forth between data centers. I understand data centers are important, but we also have to understand the needs of the people and what the people want. For some people, [data centers] might be important and beneficial; for other people, they value their privacy, their land, and what they have built over the years. A friend of mine bought a beautiful piece of land, which was his family’s dream. Now there’s word they’re building a data center right across the street from his land, and he is worried because it is infringing on what his American Dream was. So I think there is a time and a place for data centers, but we need to work with the people in the communities to see what their needs are.
In Stafford County, early voting will be held Monday through Friday at the Registrar’s Office at 124 Old Potomac Church Road, Ste. 205, from Friday, Sept. 19, through Friday, Nov. 1, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The only Saturday voting days will be Oct. 25 and Nov. 1 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 4, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The deadline to register for voting or request an absentee ballot is October 24.
👉 Next in our series: How should Stafford County manage its $1 billion budget and ensure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely? Candidates respond in tomorrow’s installment.
