Timeline of Campaign.

Planks of a Platform

1. Fifth Amendment vs. Housing Authority
2. Education
   * Being Assembled *
3. Law Enforcement
4. Environment
5. Abortion
6. Gay Rights
7. Social Profiling
8. Tax Burden
9. DMV & VDOT
10. City, County Cooperation

How to Participate

"The mass meeting will be sponsored by the House District Committee.   The committee consists of Keith Drake [Albemarle party chairman] and me.   People would come to the meeting, sign up (which will probably include an oath to support the Republican candidate) and stay until the vote.   All persons must be registered voters in the 57th.   There will be no fees, though voluntary contributions will be welcome." - Bob Hodous, Charlottesville Republican Committee Chairman.

The Convention date and filing deadline for candidates have not yet been announced. 5-8-2003

Volunteer Openings

• Campaign Manager
• Chairman of Committee to Elect
• Treasurer
• Historian

Mon Apr 7, 2003

A white man who grew up in poor black neighborhoods and public housing of Charlottesville, two-time winner of the Clark School spelling bee, Blair Hawkins announces he will seek the Republican nomination to represent Charlottesville and Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Delegates.

"My immediate strategy is to inform the public how they can join the Republican Party in order to vote at the convention to make sure the election is about issues, not incumbency," says Hawkins.   "A vote for me is a vote for inclusion in the political process.   It's also a vote for equal protection of the Fifth Amendment."

The convention should be in early June, but the date has not been set.   The filing deadline and fees have not been determined.   Hawkins is asking for contributions to pay for filing fees and to advertise his message.

He says, if elected, he will use the office to bring about positive change locally.   He will argue and introduce legislation to cut funding to the Housing Authority because of its well-known history of violating the Fifth Amendment process for taking property.   These large-scale violations have created unintended consequences.

"Urban renewal has contributed to a shortage of affordable housing, high rents, high property values, loss of confidence in property as a safe investment, declining civil rights as the amount of private property decreases, mass exodus of residents, loss of history, labor shortage, increase in violent and race-based crime, economic stagnation, and general civic shame for the most recent chapter of local history.

"My plan is to increase the supply of real estate by changing one word.   Convert public housing 'apartments' to 'condominiums' owned by the current residents.   Instant empowerment of low income people through a land grant."   Fifth Amendment vs. Housing Authority.

Hawkins' basic message is to force reductions in harmful services by cutting taxes.   "No agency or company will reform if the revenue stream continues at or above past levels.   Sometimes a new program is the solution.   But sometimes repeal of a bad law will improve quality of life."

His is a cautionary tale.   "If you stop forced renewal and subsidized housing, many of our social problems will magically go away.   If we don't address these two practices, some kid who lives on Tenth Street today will have a similar message forty years from now, just as people are still talking about Vinegar Hill forty years after the last building was torn down."

Biographical Resume

Born Mar. 5, 1964 at UVa Hospital.   Mother went into labor with her third of five children at the Paramount Theater on East Main Street during the Doris Day, Rock Hudson film, Pillow Talk.  

Schools Attended

• Hope House for Preschoolers on Garrett Street.
• Greenbrier.
• Burnley-Moran.
• Clark.
• Buford.
• Walker.
• Jefferson alternative school.
• Charlottesville HS, 1982 graduate in top ten percent of class, Honor Society, French Club President, first speech delivered to ELKS Club on subject of school violence.
• UVa First Summer Foreign Language Institute 1981, German Program 4.0 GPA.
• Georgetown University Russian Program, freshman year.
• North Carolina State University, B.S. Meteorology 1993, Computer Science Minor; 3-year Army ROTC scholarship, Dean's List 3 semesters.
• Piedmont Viginia Community College.
• Cleveland State University, computer technology.

Places Lived

• 509 and 522 Ware Street (Photo Vignette).
• Ridge Street.
• Pine Grove trailer court at southwest corner of Hydraulic-Emmet Street intersection 30 years ago.
• Westhaven public housing.
• 1100 block of Market Street across from Skate Town.
• Garrett Square public housing.
• South First Street public housing.
• Harris Street house and trailer park (both gone).
• Sixth Street trailer park.
• North Garden in southern Albemarle county.
• Rugby Road.
• Belmont Avenue.
• Raymond Avenue.
• Cottage Lane apartment in Rosser Mansion on 200-acre farm that once stretched to the Rotunda.
• Also Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, Cleveland, Ohio, and Caribou, Maine.
• Summer 2002 camping in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, northeast of Seattle, Washington.

Military Service

• 1983-85 Enlisted, Private First Class; Basic Training Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; Advanced Individual Training 96B Interrogator, Fort Huachuca, Arizona; Defense Language Institute at Monterrey, California, Introduction to Arabic; US Military Academy Prep School, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.   The Army paid off my college loans.
• 1985-88 Army ROTC, NC State University; Color Guard, Ranger Trooper, Public Affairs Officer; Advanced Camp at Fort Bragg; Northern Warfare Summer Course, Fort Greely, Black Rapids, Fairbanks, Alaska, in July; Infantry Officer Basic Course at Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia; Second Lieutenant Commissioned Officer.
• 1996 Reserve Obligation Expires.

Positions Held

• Daily Progress newspaper boy with routes south and east of downtown core.
• Lawn boy.
• After school painter, dishwasher, construction worker. Cook at Fellini's in the glory days.
• 1994-97 Meteorologist for National Weather Service. Resigned to take care of father who passed January 11, 1998. (Photo of Marvin Hawkins).
• Brick Mason, Journeyman, Apprentice, Laborer.
• Webmaster, Content Writer, College Level Tutor, Delivery Driver, Barista, Handyman, Tent Erector, Events Lighting Technician.
• Volunteer Service:
  • LiveArts Spotlight Operator for Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Robber Bride Groom; Slide Projector Operator for The Cryptogram.
  • Candidate for Charlottesville City Council 2000. (Speeches and documents of the campaign).
  • The Witness Report Pamphlet, 7 issues, August 2001 to April 2002.
  • HealingCharlottesville Website of political activism, created January 2002.
  • Letters of Charlottesville in hiatus after 2 issues.

Special Thanks to Teachers and Mentors

"It's impossible to name every person who has influenced my life.   But some deserve mention.

• Clark School 1st grade Ms. Staggers who taught phonics.   Ms. Bohr for science.   Fifth grade Ms. Carter who put her job on the line to have a violent boy expelled for the few months that remained in the school year.
• Ms. Carson for 6th grade math and joke teller extraordinaire on the Upward Bound bus trip from D.C. in a snowstorm.   And the late principal Ralph Law, who gave me three whacks of the paddle in his Buford office.
• Will Paulson and Tom DeMayo of Outreach.
• Michael McCumber, UVa grad student who hired me as an intern for two summers between 9th and 11th grades to help with computer modeling of thunderstorms over Florida and Oahu, Hawaii.
• Mesdames Morton, Rose, and Decanio for French.
• The teacher I think about most is Ms. Miles, 11th grade English, essay-style expository writing.   I use her techniques over and over.

Blair Hawkins
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