An interview with Toshy Penton

Toshy Penton runs a local search marketing company in Charlottesville – Logical. He moved to Charlottesville in 1995. He grew up in Crozet and now lives and works downtown. In his free time he enjoys running, podcasts, and relaxing with his wife, dog, and three cats.

Curbiture: Hi Toshy, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. I hear you’re working on a local community site for Charlottesville. Can you tell us more about your project?

Toshy: Thank you, I’m excited to tell you about it. I’m developing a website to inform our community on local elections.

Selecting which candidates to vote for can be tricky, especially on a local level, when there is less information and coverage than we have nationally. So I wanted to create a one-stop-shop for people to navigate through local elections, learn about the candidates, and help voters make their own decisions on who to vote for.

C: So a website that provides information about all the local candidates on both sides?

T: Exactly.

C: So it sounds like you'll want the attention of both aisles.

T: Primarily I’m trying to reach anyone who is local. At the state level, we’ve posted election information for Charlottesville’s representatives in the State Senate and House of Delegates. At the local level, we’ve included candidates for the upcoming City Council election, and I’m hoping by the end of the year we’ll have added school board elections and state-level elections for Albemarle County.

C: Would you say your site focuses on how to solve local problems in the community? Education perhaps or crime?

T: It’s actually not that kind of political site. We’re strictly non-partisan and are only interested in providing candidate information.

Currently, it’s a passion project with little funding. Any funding that’s required currently comes from me, so it’s pretty straightforward keeping information non-partisan. Long-term, I’d love to expand our election coverage state-wide.

To do that, we may need some outside funding. It would have to come from the right source – someone who aligns with the non-partisan vision of this project.

We’ve got information for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. I want this website to be helpful for anyone in Charlottesville who is trying to figure out who to vote for on a local level.

C: Why are you focusing only on local politics?

T: Nationally, there’s so much political coverage already. Locally, not so much, and it’s kind of a problem. We get tied up in national issues (which are of course important), but we forget how much is happening at the local and state levels.

It’s too bad. I think people have a lot more in common, politically-speaking, than we realize. We just get caught up in divisive issues which makes it tough to find common ground. But in a broad sense, I think we share similar values: health, safety, security, freedom, economic viability.

C: What do you think are the top issues in Charlottesville?

T: I’d say affordable housing seems to be frequently at the top of minds here. And it makes sense. For families to prosper, work, contribute to the economy, feel free, etc., we all need housing. How we do that is another question.

C: Just to be clear, are you thinking about running for office?

T: I’m not! However, I’ve been wanting to get more involved locally. I think my time is better spent creating this website than it is campaigning. We’re lucky in Charlottesville to have a number of great candidates running for local office.

C: What is the ultimate goal for your site?

T: I want folks to get more involved at the local level. I know it’s tough though. Until recently I’ve been pretty apathetic when it comes to our local community and politics. But part of that, I think, was an awareness issue.

Local community issues and politics can easily get swept under the rug when, at a national level, we’re deeply divided and it’s so well-covered. My hope is that this website can be one small drop in the bucket to remind people that local issues matter too.

C: Thank you so much for talking with us. I love your idea and am happy to support it on Curbiture. For all who want to visit, the site is: www.localcandidates.org