India’s Insights: August 2026

The Work of Community Builders: From Texaco to Ice Cream

Four hours. Two projects. Two deferrals.

Last week, I attended a planning commission meeting in my home county. On the agenda: a development proposal requesting a proffer amendment from 4,000 to 1,925 homes and a rezoning case for a commercial industrial park. As with most development debates, the room was full of passionate voices on both sides. After more than four hours of presentations, both items were deferred, and everyone left frustrated. Some felt they didn’t have enough information to decide; others were frustrated that no vote was taken to move the projects forward with recommendations for approval or denial to the Board of Supervisors.

The very next day, in my role as Town Manager of the Town of Bowling Green, I helped host our 4th Friday event — shops on Main Street open late, live Music on the Green, and, as is tradition, ice cream with my kids at Gibson’s.

As I watched them devour their chocolate ice cream buried under chocolate and rainbow sprinkles, my mind drifted back thirty years, to what my hometown looked like when I was their age. The building where we sat was once a Texaco station, run by our community’s beloved ambassador, “Shorty” — a black man in his mid-fifties with an infectious smile and a helpful spirit, who greeted every customer with a wave and would tend to whatever your car needed. A watercolor of that old Texaco hangs in my office today. Shorty is waving from the corner — just about the spot where my children sat joyfully enjoying their Friday treat.

Watching them, I thought about how Gibson’s itself began: a food truck parked just across the street. As Town Manager, I now know that food truck wasn’t a permitted use when it first opened. Six years later, it’s a thriving brick-and-mortar anchor on our Main Street — one of those places where kids, adults, and seniors alike make core memories. I can guarantee that not one customer has thought about what regulations were in place to make it happen, but I can guarantee that everyone loves having them in town. Because who doesn’t love ice cream?!?

I share this story because of the interconnectedness of the places and the people that create our communities. A gas station becomes an ice cream shop. A food truck becomes an anchor. An ambassador’s wave echoes thirty years later in a watercolor on a Town Manager’s wall.

Nearly three years ago, I had a conversation with Rob Stalzer about governing philosophies, and he left me with one of the most memorable perspectives I’ve heard on the role of Chief Administrative Officer. When building his leadership team, he said, he thought carefully about how each member’s skills played off the others — because he saw the role, at its core, as being a community builder. He relied heavily on his CFO, he told me, because he “liked to spend money” — because if you are building community, you are making financial investments for the public good, for both the short term and the long.

That conversation helped spark some intentionality about our roles as community builders. And it echoed again this week as I replayed that four-hour meeting in my mind. At its core, the tension boils down to this: those who believe in the dream and promise of building something new, and those who fear change to the community already built. Both are acts of love for a place. Our job is to hold space for both.

So, in the coming days, weeks, and months, I’d urge each of us to think about our unique role in building the communities we have the privilege of leading. Ask yourself if you need to take a more proactive role or step back to allow others to fill the gap.  Thirty years from now, someone may be sitting on a corner you helped shape, making a memory with their children or grandchildren.

Welcome to our new VLGMA Members:

Kevin Gentry, County Administrator, County of Middlesex

Whitney Hughes, Management Analyst, Town of Leesburg      

James David, Director of Community Development, Town of Leesburg    

Amy Wyks, Director of Utilities, Town of Leesburg   

Leah Kosin, Assistant Public Information Officer, Town of Leesburg  

Andrew Newby, County Attorney, County of Henrico   

Jackson Baynard, Deputy County Manager for Public Safety, County of Henrico  

Tanya Kendrick, Chief of Staff/Chief Human Resources Officer, Town of Herndon 

Brent Heavner, Chief Communications Officers, Town of Herndon    

Kevin Catlin, County Administrator, County of Chesterfield     

Amy Ring, Director of Community Development, County of Isle of Wight     

Michael Frickanisce, Director of Parks and Recreation, County of Isle of Wight        

Michelle Clark, Director of Human Resources, County of Isle of Wight