Three candidates for two Democratic nominations for City Council address Greenbrier neighborhood

Early voting has been underway for the June 17 primary for almost three weeks now and there’s under than a month to go.

The Virginia Public Access Project has pulled data from the Virginia Department of Elections and through May 22, 669 voters in Charlottesville have cast ballots for the Democratic Primary.

In addition to statewide races for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, voters in Charlottesville will select two nominations for City Council. This is the first time that ranked choice voting will be used yet there are only three candidates in the race.

On May 14, 2025, the Greenbrier Neighborhood Association held a candidate forum for the race.

“Our candidates, we have two incumbents,” said Jake Mooney who served as moderator. “They are Mayor Juandiego Wade. They are Brian Pinkston, who’s the Vice Mayor. And there is Jen Fleisher who I believe is running for the first time.”

Mooney first asked candidates to introduce themselves. Juandiego Wade went first and said he’s been in the community since coming here to attend graduate school after receiving an undergraduate degree from Norfolk State. Charlottesville is where he met Claudette Grant, his wife of 32 years.

“We love this city,” Wade said. “And I came here without the intention of staying here for 30 some years, of making a career at it.”

Wade has worked for Albemarle County for 34 years with the last 15 or so as a career counselor. He announced his retirement from that position shortly after the campaign forum.

Brian Pinkston said he has been in the area since 2004 and also moved to the area for graduate school.

“When I was working on my PhD, I got a job working in facilities management at the University,” Pinkston said. “My undergraduate is from Georgia Tech in mechanical engineering. And I’ve spent 30 years doing project management type work.”

Pinkston and his family moved into the city from Greene County in 2015 after he got a salary increase. He wanted to get involved in the community after the national election of 2016. He ran for Council for the first time in 2019 when there were three seats available. Pinkston placed fourth in a five-way Democratic nomination race.

In 2021 he tried again and placed second in a three-way race behind Wade and cruised to an easy victory in an uncontested general election. Pinkston said he’s enjoyed his time on Council.

“I think, for a lot of ways, as an engineer, seeing how the different parts of the community work together, and as a project manager, seeing how, you know, we’re able to bring people together of goodwill around a hard conversation or hard issue, treat each other with mutual respect, value difference and try to find compromise,” Pinkston said. “And that’s what we’ve done in the last three years and three months.”

The newcomer to the race is Jen Fleisher, a program officer for the Blue Ridge Health District. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was part of the agency’s efforts to do community outreach to expand service to sectors of the population that may not actively seek health care.

“We actually just had a clinic last night and all of that work from COVID to now has been a real community wide effort and thanks to those strong partnerships that we built kind of region wide in throughout the localities around Charlottesville,” Fleisher said.

Fleisher has also become involved in efforts to improve area transportation systems to make journeys safer for all modes of travel. She said there’s a lot of talent in the community waiting to be harnessed.

“I think our city can do more to make the most out of all that talent and energy,” Fleisher said. “So I find that maybe what sets me apart is that I really know how to get things moving and especially when the stakes are high.”

Two questions made up the first query. What should be done about the unhoused population in the community and is the answer to let developers build as much as they can?

Fleisher said she supported work toward creating a low-barrier shelter and increasing the amount of transitional housing. She said developers should work within the language of the new Development Code.

“They must provide that affordable housing,” Fleisher said. “Density… can be done smartly and strategically rather than everything getting gobbled up for market rate and just giving way to kind of the highest dollar.”

On the campaign trail, Pinkston said many have expressed concern about the unhoused population and Council has accomplished a lot such as directing money to the Salvation Army’s project to expand the family shelter on Ridge Street. He said work continues toward finding a location for a low-barrier shelter.

“This is something that I am deeply frustrated about that we’ve not been able to do more about,” Pinkston said.

As for the second question, Pinkston said not enough homes have built around the country and he said the new Development Code will begin to change that over time.

Wade said Charlottesville is an expensive place and he said many of the people he mentors are in households at risk of losing their rental homes because landlords can always find a tenant willing to pay more. He said he will continue to tackle the issue on Council.

“We see the unhoused very visibly on the Downtown Mall,” Wade said. “I talk with the shop owners on a daily basis. They contact me because I know them, they’re friends on what we can do to address it. Many of them have mental disabilities that really must be addressed and if we don’t do that, they’re going to continue to be unhoused.”

Wade said he stands by his vote to approve the Development Code in late 2023 but said the new rules have not yet resulted in many new units.

The final question was another combination. Mooney asked candidates to name the top services the city provides and to provide a closing statement.

Wade responded that the number one thing Council does is hire a city manager.

“I think that we have an awesome city manager in Sam Sanders because they really run the city,” Wade said. “Secondly, I think that we need to adopt a budget and we have, we do that.”

Wade said stability has been restored to city government since he and Pinkston were elected.

Pinkston said one person on the campaign trail told him that local government should only provide a minimal role, but he disagreed.

“That’s not what we do in Charlottesville,” Pinkston said. “We’re a progressive city and we believe that government can be and should be a force for social good.”

Pinkston said that means funding programs to assist people in need. He agreed that Sanders is running the city the way the Council wants it to be run.

“I think the most important thing that we can do right now is continue to keep that leadership pointing in the right direction,” Pinkston said.

Fleisher said the top three services the city provides are public education, public transit, and transportation infrastructure.

“I know the city can do more to foster healthy living and quality of life for every resident,” Fleisher said. “And that’s why I’m running.”

There are two additional events, though one a is round robin event for multiple offices.

• Can I Talk to You Cville is holding an event called Governing Charlottesville on May 27 at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Learn more here.
• The Free Enterprise Forum will hold a City Council candidates forum on May 28 at 6 p.m. at the Hillsdale Conference Center. I will be one of the moderators alongside Neil Williamson of the Free Enterprise Forum. Learn more here.

Before you go: This story was originally published in the May 19, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. If you’d like to support the work, please take a look at the top of the page.