Will Mackintosh for City Council

What Inspires Me

Through my years of teaching history, volunteering, running a local small business, and serving on the Economic Development Authority, I’ve had the chance to lead and participate in many community programs and projects that have motivated me to do even more.

I am running for City Council because I am inspired to bring my passions and experience to serve the City.

Historic Preservation and Adaptive Reuse

As a professional historian, Fredericksburg’s amazing stories and historic fabric really matter to me. Historic preservation is critically important to our city’s character and economic development, and it allows us to be faithful storytellers about all the people who have had a role in creating this City and what it is today.

Adaptive reuse of our beautiful historic buildings is good history, good business and environmentally smart. The best way to ensure their preservation is to make sure they’re loved, they’re lived in, and that they host new generations of small business.

I’ve made that commitment in my own life. My husband Brian and I have lovingly and carefully renovated two historic structures in the city’s Historic District, filled them with businesses, and ensured that they are around to be loved well into the future.

My deep experience in preservation isn’t just theoretical. I’ve devoted my professional career to educating others about the importance of history, and I’ve personally spent countless late-night hours with my hands deep in the guts of old buildings to make sure they remain a living part of our city’s fabric for future generations.

I am excited to pursue land use and incentive policies on City Council that will help our people preserve and thrive in our beautiful historic city.

Bike Trails and Walking Paths

[picture idea: me at the end of the Lafayette path]

I am a runner, and my family spends a ton of time biking in the City, so I know full well how popular the Canal Path, the Heritage Trail, and the VCR Trail are. And I know we’re not alone, because on a nice day, our existing trails are crowded with people traveling from one part of our City to another, or just getting some exercise and sunshine. Mixed-use paths like these are an incredible enhancement to our quality of life, and they represent Fredericksburg’s future. I think we should build on these amenities to make them even more accessible to everyone in Fredericksburg.

Undoubtedly, the advent of e-bikes will increase the popularity of our trails, and more people will become comfortable living a car-light lifestyle in Fredericksburg if we can give them the infrastructure to do so safely. Making trails accessible to everyone will allow people to get around town without the need for a car (if they so choose). This will benefit our environment, provide some relief for our congested roadways, and alleviate some of our parking woes.

We need to finish the pathway on Lafayette Boulevard and build pathways on the Route 1, Route 2, and Route 3 corridors.  We need to connect those pathways to every neighborhood. Every Fredericksburg citizen, of all ages and stripes, should have the freedom of mobility and the opportunity to explore our city from the outside. Our city has so much to offer out there!

I am running for City Council because I want to help the city achieve high-quality mixed-use pathways within 5 minutes of every home in the entire City.

Career and Technical Education

[picture idea: education stock photo?]

For years, as Chair of the Economic Development Authority, I have been working in the background to help the effort to enhance Career and Technical Education (CTE) in our City Schools. Years ago we let those programs languish, and it’s high time we built them back up again. From my efforts, I know that the City Schools are working hard on this project, but they need more support from City Council.

When the City and the Schools were logjammed over whether 2300 Fall Hill Avenue (the old hospital) could be used as a school facility, I led the EDA in making a substantial investment to fund the necessary study to determine the feasibility of that building. Unfortunately, the study revealed that 2300 Fall Hill Avenue wasn’t suitable, but we finally had an answer, and the city could move on to the important decisions about building a new middle school, with a significant CTE component.

This study also showed me that we need to provide more space for CTE efforts at the high school level as well. We need to build training programs to ensure all of our students are prepared for modern careers, not just those who are headed to four-year colleges. Through these conversations, I have become inspired by the vision of a Career and Technical Education campus connected to our City Schools that can bring together the resources of James Monroe, Germanna, UMW, and employers in the city. All of those institutions are excited to be at the table, we just have to find the political will to make it happen.

On City Council, my track record of serious engagement on this issue will enable me to bring together stakeholders from around the City to help build significant CTE programs so we can prepare our kids for the jobs that are coming here and make sure that they get to share in Fredericksburg’s prosperity.

Redeveloping Our Underused Commercial Corridors

[picture idea: empty storefronts]

Fredericksburg is a small city, with very little space left for greenfield development. Luckily, I don’t think greenfield development is a smart choice for us, environmentally, or economically.

What we do have, however, is plenty of underutilized space in our commercial corridors that could be re-developed into real neighborhoods, where people live, work, and play. Those neighborhoods could provide workforce housing, new green space, and new tax revenue. Also, if we commit to connecting them to the rest of the City with high-quality bike and pedestrian paths, they will add fewer cars to our highways than greenfield developments.

Through its small area planning process, the City staff has offered a compelling vision of what those neighborhoods could look like, but we must bolster their efforts with the political will to realize their vision. We need leadership who can work with the private sector to make sure that their investments meet our targets for workforce housing, green space, and amenities. We have no time to waste as the City is growing rapidly and we need to intentionally direct that growth in ways that will benefit all of our citizens.

I am excited to join the Council so we can work on creating the right set of incentives, both carrots and sticks, so I can work with the private sector to make those visions a reality.

Ensuring Safe Housing for All Our Neighbors

[picture idea: rental properties downtown on Charles?]

Everyone who lives in Fredericksburg has a right to safe and comfortable housing. And to me, historic preservation means making sure we’re taking care of the buildings we have. The City used to have a rental inspection program that required all rental units in the City to be regularly inspected for safety and code compliance, but the City let that program lapse in 2009. It’s past time that we renewed that program to ensure that our citizens are living in high-quality housing and to ensure that our old buildings are being appropriately maintained. The cost could easily be borne by fees imposed on landlords or by enhancements to the existing landlord tax.

As a member of City Council, I will push to make sure that our City’s housing stock is properly built and maintained for the benefit of all citizens.