Altizer announces bid for re-election

Roanoke County will have at least one contested race for the board of supervisors in the fall.
Mike Altizer, the seven-year Republican supervisor from the Vinton District, announced on Friday his bid for re-election.

"You won't hear me say I'm 'a man of the people,' " he told a room filled with more than 100 supporters. "You'll hear me say that I'm always going to do the right thing."

Altizer has already purchased lawn signs and handbills touting his intentions. Among his accomplishments, he listed starting dialogue on a regional jail, which was opened earlier this month, and opening a police academy in the county.

"We didn't have to send deputies for the jail to train in Martinsville, or Pulaski or Montgomery County," he said. "And we saved thousands and thousands of dollars by training them here."
U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, told people in the room that the district needs a "common sense conservative."

"We don't need any kind of change here in the Vinton Magisterial District," he said. "We have a great man running right here."

Altizer was appointed to fill a vacancy on the board in 2002, and ran unopposed in the next two

elections.

He will face a challenger. Patrick Patterson, director of guidance at William Byrd High School, announced he was seeking the Democratic nomination last fall.

Altizer, who is a retired district manager of Monroe Muffler Brake and Service, on Friday emphasized that his part-time job of supervisor had become a full-time ordeal for him as he traveled to Richmond to lobby for the regional jail.

Regarding Altizer, Patterson told The Roanoke Times in November:
"I'm not running against Mike Altizer. I'm running for the residents of Vinton, Bonsack, Mount Pleasant and all of east Roanoke County."

Up for election in November are three seats on the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors: Altizer's seat, and those held by Vice Chairman Joe McNamara, of Windsor Hills, and Richard Flora, of the Hollins District.

Roanoke Times story