Comment: Vote for Mr. Hagerman, voice of reason, understands the problems of uranium mining!
By John CranePublished: May 04, 2011
A former coal miner and law enforcement officer plans to challenge incumbent Fred Ingram for the Callands-Gretna seat on the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors.
Jerry Hagerman, 66, lives in the county’s Banister District, but if this year’s redrawing of the county’s magisterial districts works in his favor, he will end up in Ingram’s district and vie for his post on the board.
Keeping taxes low, filling empty buildings and industrial parks in the county with industry and opposing uranium mining would be Hagerman’s priorities if elected, he said during an interview Wednesday.
“I’d like to try and hold taxes down,” said Hagerman, a native of Yukon, W.Va. “With the economy being in the shape it’s in, that’s an important issue.”
He is against the Coles Hill project, where Virginia Uranium Inc. proposes to mine and mill a 119-million-pound uranium ore deposit six miles northeast of Chatham.
“I’m certainly not for uranium mining,” Hagerman said.
He says mining would reduce tourism at places like Smith Mountain Lake and would adversely affect not only Pittsylvania County but neighboring counties and cities.
“I don’t see any future in that,” Hagerman said. “It would harm the people and the economics of this county.”
Hagerman lives in Pittsylvania County with a Gretna address.
Hagerman, who is retired, has had a varied career. He worked as a coal miner, justice of the peace, a county magistrate and a sheriff’s deputy in McDowell County, W.Va. He later lived in Franklin County and was a police officer in Rocky Mount.
He also worked as a sheriff’s deputy and later became an investigator with the Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Office before retiring in 2006.
“I’ve served the public in one way or the other for a big part of my life,” Hagerman said.
Hagerman attended Marshall University, Danville Community College and West Virginia State Police Academy.
Read more:
http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2011/may/04/candidate-pittsylvania-board-opposes-uranium-minin-ar-1017608/
