Who is donating to whom? What you should know before the Nov. 8 election 

By Valerie Cury

With the Town of Purcellville election coming up on Nov. 8, here’s a look at who is donating to each of the two teams. 

Donations for the Grewe team are mostly coming in through Erin Rayner, who is running for Town Council. Most of her donations are from the development community, including the developer of Vineyard Square on 21st Street in downtown Purcellville. 

Her campaign received $3,750 from CaseCo LLC, which is a division of the Chapman family company. Calvin Chapman donated $2,000 to her campaign while Merit Restorations donated $1,750.

Rayner received a $10,000 donation from Natalie Hornbaker, who works for one of the Chapman brothers’ development companies located in Purcellville. David Hornbaker, who is also with the company, donated $1,500. Her campaign also received various smaller sums of money donated by the Chapman group, along with $750 from Rainbud LLC and $1,900 from the Purcellville Health Club Inc.

Candidate for Mayor Joel Grewe received $4,000 from CaseCo LLC to his Town Council account last year.

The Stan Milan team has received a total of $13,500 from Uta Brown of Crooked Run Orchard in Purcellville. Sam and Uta Brown’s 250-year-old 90-acre farm is located on Main Street near the traffic circle, and along the Southern Collector Road. Their farm is in permanent conservation easement, and both Sam and Uta Brown are strong advocates for preserving Purcellville. 

Milan has also received donations from citizens of the Town of Purcellville.

At the Oct. 25 Purcellville Town Council Meeting, developer Casey Chapman spoke in the citizen comments portion of the meeting, saying that he wanted to clear some issues “that are out there.”

“Regarding the downtown Vineyard Square project, as many of you know, I’ve spoke [sic] to many of you individually,” Chapman said. “No member of this board said they supported this project. I’m okay with that.” 

His comment follows on the heels of his recent remark before the Town Council that he does not need O Street for Vineyard Square. This is a reversal from earlier statements Chapman made that he does need the Town of Purcellville to extend O Street to Hatcher Avenue – at the taxpayers’ expense of millions of dollars.

Chapman also said, “Vineyard Square has not made one political contribution, so once again, Vineyard Square does not need to make a political contribution because it’s a vested by right project.”

What Chapman left out is that one of his numerous companies, CaseCo LLC, has contributed heavily to both Joel Grewe’s campaign account last year and Erin Rayner’s campaign this year.

When asked what she thought of the Vineyard Square project in an interview to fill a vacant seat on Town Council on June 11, 2021, Erin Rayner said, “I have looked at the plans, I’m not pro a super tall building, but I do like what I see. I think it’s a nice plan.”

It is rumored that the Chapman group and others are purchasing Valley Business Park on 21st Street. When we emailed Casey Chapman to see if there was any truth to this, he responded, “Once again you seem to have bad information. I would recommend getting your facts straight before writing anything.”

We emailed him again and asked if he purchased or will be purchasing Valley Business Park. Chapman did not respond to requests for comments.