Richard Stuart, also running for the 28th District Senate seat, shakes hands with Anne Sullivan of the disAbility Resource Center in Fredericksburg. SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Pollard SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Stuart SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Richard Stuart speaks at Hilldrup Moving and Storage in Stafford. He says he's been campaigning nonstop. SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Pollard calls voters from a back room in his campaign office in Lively. His polls indicate he's doing well, he says. SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

State Senate candidate Albert Pollard (right) meets with Willie Mae Hall, a resident at the Lancashire Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center in Kilmarnock. SUZANNE CARR ROSSI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Pollard, Stuart vie for open 28th District Senate seat

BY CHELYEN DAVIS

Date published: 10/27/2007

BY CHELYEN DAVIS

When Debe Fults starts telling Richard Stuart the problems children with disabilities face in public schools, he knows exactly what she's talking about.

Stuart, running as a Republican for the open 28th state Senate seat, has a child with special needs and, as a prosecutor, has seen others come through the court system after they lash out from frustration and misunderstanding.

So a campaign stop at the disAbility Resource Center in Fredericksburg, less than two weeks before Election Day, is a personal stop as well.

Stuart talks passionately to Fults, the center's director, about the frustrations he has with schools and how they often take the wrong approach with special-needs children.

"You have to deal with those children differently," Stuart adds. "It's a different approach. You pay now or pay later.

"Hopefully I'll be in the Senate and able to [help]," he adds on his way out the door. "I'm obviously a supporter of what you all do."

On the other end of the district, earlier on the same day, Democrat Albert Pollard Jr.'s stops at the Lancashire Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center.

It's full of the chatter everyone from a small town has heard before: Who were your people? I remember you as a kid. Where did you grow up? Do you know so-and-so?

"If you're a Gaskins, you can't run too far from Weems," Pollard tells one woman, who was a Gaskins, from Weems.

Some residents recognize him from campaign mailers, others remember him or his family from years ago. One woman even got a call from Pollard earlier that morning--he was calling voters his campaign had identified as undecided.

"I'm the one who said we liked you," the woman reassures him.

Earlier, in the Southern States store in Kilmarnock to buy ties to fasten campaign signs, hometown connections are also evident. Everyone wants to talk about the drought or the new, just-opened Wal-Mart.

Pollard greets Orrie Lee Smith, who has been a waterman for 57 years, and who had urged Pollard to introduce his first bill back when Pollard was a state delegate.

NAME: Albert C. Pollard Jr. ADDRESS: Lancaster County POLITICAL PARTY: Democrat POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: House of Delegates, 2000-2006 AGE: 40 FAMILY: Wife and three children. OCCUPATION: Property manager EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in urban planning and development, Virginia Commonwealth University COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES: Member, Trinity Episcopal Church; serves in vestry and as a lay reader. HONORS, AWARDS WON: Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Legislator of the Year Award, 2004; Rural Health Care Association's Citizen of the Year Award, 2004 THREE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES IN THIS RACE: Bipartisan education reform; real transportation solutions; and protecting the taxpayers' dollar NAME: Richard Stuart ADDRESS: Montross POLITICAL PARTY: Republican POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: Elected Westmoreland County commonwealth's attorney in 2003. He resigned in June 2005 because of health issues in his family. AGE: 43 FAMILY: Wife, Lisa; two daughters and a son OCCUPATION: Attorney, assistant commonwealth's attorney for Westmoreland County EDUCATION: Westmoreland County Public Schools; Bachelor of Arts degree, Virginia Wesleyan College, 1988; International Law of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, Cambridge England; law degree, T.C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond, 1991. COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES: United States Marine Corps Reserve, 1984-1992; attends St. James Episcopal Church, Montross; Virginia State Bar Sixth District Disciplinary Committee, 2002-present; Northern Neck Bar Association; American Bar Association; Virginia Trial Lawyers Association; Woodland Academy, 2002-present (current chairman of board); trustee, Westmoreland Volunteer Fire Department, 1999-present; George Washington National Memorial Foundation; Northern Neck Land Conservancy HONORS, AWARDS WON: None THREE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES IN THIS RACE: I am committed to addressing the transportation crisis that we are faced with, to make sure that we are able to fund the needed improvements, and to make sure that those improvements are done, including the extension of the HOV lanes to Massaponax, more commuter lots in Stafford County, the third track for the VRE, and assisting localities in properly planning for the growth that is to come--including making sure developers pay their fair share of much need infrastructure for our communities. Secondly, I plan to make sure that we address and tackle the problem we are faced with from illegal immigrants. They take billions of dollars from services provided. We must make sure illegal immigrants do not receive any taxpayer services, that they do not receive bail when they are charged with a crime so that they can stand trial for their crime and then be deported, that they do not attend our colleges and universities, nor get in-state tuition rates as a result of being able to attend our colleges and universities, and make sure we hold employers accountable who knowingly hire illegal aliens. Thirdly, we have to stop the pollution of our natural resources as they are a big part of economic engine in the state of Virginia, including diverting sewer effluent from our rivers and streams and disposing of it in the form of spray irrigation on crops, such as corn for bio-diesel, hayfields, and nursery stocks, together with educating and developing guidelines for the homeowner use of pesticides and fertilizers so that the misuse does not simply run into our storm sewage and continue to pollute our water ways.

Date published: 10/27/2007

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