With Leesburg moving to a November election this year, officials are expecting a good turnout at the polls, especially with a tight race for president and a battle for the U.S. Senate.

Three spots are up for grabs on the Leesburg Town Council as well as the coveted position of mayor. Council members Tom Dunn, Dave Butler and Katie Hammler are all running for re-election as well as Mayor Kristin Umstattd.

A total of seven candidates will be on the ballot vying for three openings on the Town Council.

Over the next few weeks, the Loudoun Times-Mirror will profile each of the candidates for Town Council. First up is incumbent Katie Hammler and first-time candidate Jim Sisley.

Katie Hammler

After serving on the Leesburg Town Council for the past eight years, Council member Katie Hammler is seeking her third term.

Before being elected to the Town Council in 2004, Hammler served on the Economic Development Commission. She is a former captain in the U.S. Army Reserves and works as the president and CEO of KSH Technology Solutions.

Katie Hammler

Hammler and her husband, Rich, have been residents of Leesburg for 18 years. They have two children, Kathryn and John.

During her time on the council, she served as vice-mayor from 2008-2010. Currently she is the council’s liaison to the Loudoun County Economic Development Commission, the Leesburg Technology and Communication Commission and the Leesburg Thomas Balch Library Commission.

Hammler feels as though her experience will be her greatest asset during her re-election campaign.

“The experience I have gained in the past eight years because it has made me a better council representative,” Hammler said. “From serving as Council’s liaison to the regional Loudoun County EDC, to having been elected to a statewide leadership role on the executive committee of the Virginia Municipal League – each position has helped to spark new ideas, has helped me to develop important relationships and allows me to advocate for Leesburg.”

Hammler has focused her campaign on homeowner affordability, high-quality economic development and to further define quality of life.

“I want to be making the right judgment calls as to what we want to invest in for the future of our town,” Hammler said. “The small business angle is critical because the heart and soul of this town are the independent business owners.”

According to Hammler, come 2017, the next council is going to need to raise taxes for residents should it not stay on track because at that time the town will have reached its debt capacity.

“It is essential the next council either cut services or increase quality revenue and that is why quality economic development is so very important as we are looking into 2017, when we are on track to have a huge tax increase because we have reached our debt capacity and we have a large debt payment,” Hammler said. “We are of course on track to doing the right things to keep the residential tax payer’s tax rate as low as possible when 2017 comes around.”

On the issue of homeowner affordability, Hammler points out that as a member of the council she has successfully worked to maintain or lower an effective tax rate six years in a row, even through one of the worst economic recessions.

Hammler was a key vote on the Village at Leesburg’s town center style mixed-use center, which has provided hundreds of jobs for the town, returned 100 percent in meals tax and provided much needed commercial tax revenue.

As for quality of life, Hammler is looking to advocate for public safety programs, ensure the court system stays in Historic Downtown and extend the quality of downtown and prioritize important construction projects.
Hammler is passionate about the Town of Leesburg and thinks recent successes are leading a gateway into the future.

“There is nothing more important than the town we live in,” Hammler said. “As a matter of fact we are such a success story with how a government operates at optimum efficiency and it is going to be interesting to see how everything ends up.”

Jim Sisley

Candidate Jim Sisley is seeking his first term as a member of the Leesburg Town Council.

However, Sisley has been active in the town for a number of years. He has been a resident of Leesburg for more than 19 years.

Jim Sisley

He currently serves as the vice-chair for the Leesburg Economic Development Commission and the vice-chair for the Leesburg Board of Architectural Review. Sisley was the founding president of Leesburg Crossroads, a nonprofit organization focused on optimizing Leesburg’s historic commercial district. Sisley is also a member of the Downtown Improvement Association and a founding member of the Leesburg Downtown Business Association.

As the owner of Paladin Real Estate in Leesburg, Sisley has spent more than a decade building up Leesburg’s business, retail and commercial offerings. His work with numerous organizations and commissions has helped in achieving economic optimization and preservation of architectural assets in Leesburg’s traditional commercial district.

As a candidate, Sisley has a platform that is primarily based on economic development due to his career in the industry.

“I see all of these different jurisdictions and it seems to be an almost myopic focus on cutting the budget. I don’t think any of us can live our private lives simply by trying to conserve our budget,” Sisley said. “I think you have to go to work and earn your way in this world and municipal corporations all have the same opportunity.

“That doesn’t mean you have to raise tax rates, but you can increase the number of people participating in generating tax revenues and in that, it has been proven at least locally that it costs less to support a business than it does a residence,” Sisley said. “So, the net spendable revenue that comes to the municipal corporation is larger when the commercial base is the source of that revenue.”

Sisley wants to bring not just more businesses to the town, but more employers because it will improve the quality of life by allowing residents to work locally and be closer to their families.

While his campaign plan focuses on the economic development side, Sisley recognizes there is more in play than just economic impact.

“When you talk about a platform to a candidate, then that is their plan, but there are a lot of other things that have to be managed. The budget is a management effort, transportation is quite honestly a management effort,” Sisley said. “We had transportation problems 20 years ago and we will have transportation problems 20 years from now, but the difference in scale of those challenges have increased exponentially and there will be more of that as we move forward.

“You have to identify those problems and prioritize them and address them as they come along,” Sisley said.

He addressed the potential for the growth of Downtown Leesburg and the direction it seems to be headed with the approval of Courthouse Square.

“As a citizen and candidate running for Town Council, I see Courthouse Square as a huge positive impact for both the local jurisdictions, because it brings those new employees and shoppers and customers into downtown,” Sisley said. “A common complaint of merchants is a lack of feet on the streets and the only way you are going to cure that problem is by bringing more jobs into the downtown district.”