Meet Alex Bessette

Welcome to the James Exchange. I am your host, Nancy Gill. It is Wednesday October, 30th. I am continuing my conversations with the candidates for Scottsville Town Council. As a disclaimer, all conversations are pre-recorded. Before I introduce today’s guest, Alex Bessette, I have a couple of corrections to make. A few months ago, I reported that the property off Rt. 20 north of the Green Mountain Store had been sold. I was mistaken. The current owner, took the property of the market. The second correction is a statement that Eddie Payne made during my conversation with him that Southern Home Development has their headquarters in NJ. He called me and retracted this statement. He added that he had heard from Charlie Armstrong, with Southern, and after looking over his research could not substantiate this claim and reiterated that Southern is indeed a Virginia corporation located in Charlottesville since 1999 and has no ties to NJ.

If you would like to follow along with the audio, click on transcript. Or, if you want to read, the transcript is there for this as well.

Meet Alex Bessette

Bessette grew up in the Esmont area of Southern Albemarle. He mentions that he and Josh Peck, chair of the Architectural Review Board, played soccer as youngsters. He is involved in the family construction business and has a degree in business and hospitality.

He is not in favor of a town property tax and thinks there are more avenues to explore before this is considered. He is not anti-growth, but like everyone I have spoken to, he is in favor of managed growth.

Another recurring responsibility he spoke to is taking care of what we have before taking on more projects. His goal is to have a baseline of what needs to be done to maintain the town’s properties and infrasture.

Bessette joined Council around three years ago when he was appointed to a vacancy.

In two previous podcasts, with Ron Smith and Eddie Payne I had a poll which I want to continue regarding May vs November elections. Historically, Scottsville held May elections. The cost to the Town was around $2,000. Around 2020, the Virginia General Assembly moved all state-wide elections to November. The vote was along partisan lines with Democrats voting for the move and Republicans against.

The Poll:

Currently, the poll is running even with yes/no votes with a few for the last option.

The Ballot:

I will be publishing conversations with Walter Townsend, Roger Whitley, Molly Angevine, and hopefully David Becker. As of today, I have yet to sit down with David.

I hope you listen to Bessette’s words and what he would like to accomplish during the next four years should he be elected on November 5.

As always, if you have a song, a story, an event, or an issue you would like to discuss, perhaps it is time for a conversation.