Name: John Moss
Biography: John Moss is currently on the Virginia Beach City Council. He worked in resource management for the U.S. Navy for 39 years, and is currently the director for submarine program requirements and warfare development for the Commander Submarine Forces.
Website: Councilmanjohnmoss.com
1. Why should residents re-elect you to City Council?
I have been a voice and vote of reason on City Council. I decide issues on the merits independent of the political connections or lack thereof of residents and businesses who come before City Council. I never forget the City does not earn the money it spends, and support its allocation to the priorities of residents not special interests. City budgeting is the same as family budgeting there are just more zeroes at the end of City’s balance sheet and more folks around the municipal dinner table. Priorities are priorities all the same. You take care of needs before wants. Right now, preventing future flooding is the need that trumps all wants.
2. What is the most pressing issue facing your community, and how would you address that issue?
Flooding is the existential threat to our community, our top priority. You only have to look at Hurricane Florence’s impact on North Carolina to see what easily could have been us. I support realignment of revenues within the operating budget and the capital improvement plan to eliminate the now twelve-year backlog in drainage maintenance in six years or less. Deliver the six approved flood mitigation projects in eight years or less versus the now fifteen years. I support new building codes and land use policies. I support a future bond referendum of flood prevention projects for the voters’ approval.
3. Where do you stand on raising taxes to balance your locality’s budget?
Given the growth in revenues and the opportunities to realign current revenues to the highest priorities, I do not see the need to raise taxes to balance the budget to deliver the core functions of local government. We did not raise taxes this year. I see no need to raise them next year.
4. What’s your plan to reduce crime?
Virginia Beach’s crime rate is as low as it was in 1962 when Virginia Beach had one-quarter of today’s population. We need to continue our focus on community policing, to invest in training for our offices, and to sustain our high closing rates on crime.
5. What are your community’s biggest infrastructure needs, and how do you plan to fulfill them?
I am going to repeat my answer to an earlier question, as eliminating the twelve-year backlog in drainage maintenance, accelerating the current fifteen-year program for six flood mitigation projects, and setting the stage for a future bond referendum to continue to address flood prevention is our biggest community infrastructure and public safety need.
Flooding is the existential threat to our community, our top priority. You only have to look at Hurricane Florence’s impact on North Carolina to see what easily could have been us. I support realignment of revenues within the operating budget and the capital improvement plan to eliminate the now twelve-year backlog in drainage maintenance in six years or less. Deliver the six approved flood mitigation projects in eight years or less versus the now fifteen years. I support new building codes and land use policies. I support a future bond referendum of flood prevention projects for the voters’ approval.
6. What businesses and industries would you try to attract to your community?
It would be hubris at best and to a less prosperous end for City Council to continue to pick the winners and losers in a dynamically changing economy. I want to see the results that come from the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity of Beach residents and outside investors that are attracted to a City with low crime, excellent schools, God’s gift of favorable geography, and a City Council not beholden to special interests that provides level-playing-field economic development incentives. By phasing out taxes like the business personal property taxes and ending the current practice of City Council trying to pick the winner and losers, Virginia Beach will become a free market oasis where small businesses are easy to start and grow. I strongly support creating a free-market that creates and sustains robust economic growth.
