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Steve Bickley is seeking a second term on the Goshen Town Council, where he currently serves as the town’s vice mayor. He and his wife moved to Goshen eight years ago to be close to their son who was working in the ministry with Good Samaritan at the old Camp Virginia.
A second term is not something he says he had in mind when he was elected four years ago, but “after a lot of thought” he decided to run for reelection.
“Our town is on the verge of some very positive things potentially happening that I feel I should see through completion,” he said. “This town has been ignored and not treated fairly for a long time. Over the past four years we have seen substantial investment in our town from county, state and federal sources.”
Among those investments are a $255,000 allocation from the United States Department of Agriculture for purchasing land for a new community center. The town has also brought in an additional $560,000 of funding, $255,000 of which is dedicated to improving the water system and $305,000 toward the community center. In addition to the funding from the USDA, the town was credited with a like-kind donation of $156,000 for the volunteer hours that Bickley and Mayor Tom McCraw put toward the project.
“We have made significant improvements to our water system which has improved its reliability and our ability to respond to problems,” he said. “Our new community center is going to help the people of our town by providing services that they would normally have had to travel to Lexington or Staunton to get.”
The biggest long-term issue that Bickley sees facing the town is the age of the main water lines, most of which are within 10 years of their life expectancy. The town, he said, is working with the Virginia Department of Health and the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission to fund testing of the older lines to determine which are in most immediate need of replacement.
“These replacements are expensive, about $1,000,000 per mile and unfortunately most grants for this require us to fund half ourselves,” he said. “Our best way to prepare ourselves for this is to increase the number of active water accounts. We have about 70 inactive water hookups that could be providing additional income. I believe by making our town more desirable through services and amenities, we can draw people to fill these vacant homes and lots.”
In the short-term, Bickley sites “negativity and resistance to change” as the main issues the town is facing.
“As much as I love this town just the way it is, our long-term survival requires us to make some changes,” he said. “We must regrow our population by attracting people who work in Lexington or Staunton looking for that beautiful spot in the country. We can do that by moving forward with the current plans in place. We can have services for aging parents, medical and dental providers, entertainment and recreation activities for the kids. That’s how we grow.”
