News and Events . Knight For Delegate

Published on HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com (http://hamptonroads.com)

Barry Knight for the 81st District in the House of Delegates

A PUNGO hog farmer seeking to become the General Assembly's newest member would bring common sense and build consensus in a House known for partisanship and gridlock. As Virginia faces its worst financial crisis in decades, Barry Knight, the Republican running in the Jan. 6 special election to represent District 81 in the House of Delegates, offers the best hope for moving Virginia forward.

The district - which runs south from Rudee Inlet and includes southern Virginia Beach, Oceana Naval Air Station and Creeds as well as a portion of southeastern Chesapeake - is mostly rural and a Republican stronghold. Terrie Suit, who represented the area for nearly a decade, resigned in October to take a lobbying job with a law firm.

Knight, 54, a member and former chairman of the Virginia Beach Planning Commission, easily won his party's nomination this month, beating two excellent candidates - Virginia Beach Sheriff Paul Lanteigne and Tom Keeley, a former commanding officer at Oceana Naval Air Station.

Next week, Knight faces Democrat John LaCombe and Independent Jeff Dente. LaCombe, 24, who runs a consulting business and works part time at Ruby Tuesday restaurant, is full of energy and has passionately advocated for greater regulations on payday lending. But his resume is no match for Knight's record of public, professional and community service, strong indicators of competence and willingness to serve.

Knight's strongest endorsement comes from those with whom he has worked on civic, municipal and agricultural problems. Time and again they have recognized his leadership abilities.

Knight, a farmer since he was a youngster, bought his first piece of land at age 26 and now has 480 acres, producing 12,000 hogs a year. He is vice president of the Virginia Beach Farm Bureau and has been endorsed by every member of the Planning Commission as well as more than two dozen state and local elected officials.

He has twice won the "Clean Water Farm" award and is the largest landowner in Virginia Beach's Agricultural Reserve Program. He supports a smoking ban in restaurants and opposes extending water and sewer services to rural areas such as his home community of Pungo.

To deal with the burgeoning gap in the state budget, he says "everything is on the table," but "raising taxes is at the bottom of the list."

Knight says he "always looks for a compromise" and will bring that trait to Richmond, helping to figure out how to pay for schools and find solutions to transportation. "Status quo is not acceptable," he said. "For [Virginia] to prosper, we have to have roads."

We endorse that kind of governance, and hope progress, not partisanship, will mark Knight's tenure in the Capitol.