Those who know Steve Huppert understand some of his passions. These include his family, our town, and Will Rogers.
Huppert, recently
interviewed after this past week's town council elections, has been an ardent supporter for Downtown Christiansburg and trying to rebuild a sense of community -- through his frequent letters to the editor to update residents about relevant issues or council activities, and in working to rebuild the business environment and aesthetics of the town's central business district.
In the interview, he touched on getting to know two of the men who will assume council positions during recent debates. For this election, the Historic Cambria & Downtown Christiansburg Partnership (HCDCP) sponsored three candidate forums and the Montgomery County League of Women Voters (LWV) hosted a fourth forum. While this race and these venues put the candidates in a competitive mode, it also provided them -- and citizens -- an opportunity to get to know each other and develop a better understanding of issues and positions. This relationship building should be seen as a positive, secondary outcome of having such forums which can benefit all community members.
Huppert also mentioned that the annual anticipated costs of the town's new aquatic center would be about $1 million, and the challenges operating this facility will pose in generating revenues to cover those costs. The concept for a community pool was expressed by citizens more than ten years ago, and evolved into an aquatic center to be utilized by residents while also serving as a location for the VT Swim Team to practice and be their ACC sport venue. It has also been stated the aquatic center is expected to serve as another draw for tourism and enhance related tax revenues, yet commonly, these types of sport venues do well to simply break even. This new expense challenge alone gives substance to Huppert's belief that the town would be well served in expanding its accounting and financial planning capacity, as the complexity of managing town finances becomes even more important than in the past.
Maybe, due to public service or his focus on improving the downtown, residents will see him appear again -- either as a future candidate for office, or when adopting his Will Rogers persona and tickling the community's funny bone at a future festival.