Proven Leadership for Western Loudoun: Why Geary Higgins Has Earned Our Vote

By Lisa Harcrow

Have you enjoyed the last four years in Virginia with record breaking job growth, year over year surpluses, and record economic investments? If so, vote for Geary Higgins. Or, would you like to go back four years … with closed schools, churches and businesses, a wrecked economy, a failing education system, mask mandates and unconstitutional gathering restrictions that pitted neighbor against neighbor? If so, then John McAuliff would be your guy. 

Delegate Geary Higgins has served a majority of this House district for more than 14 years. He is not some unknown quantity that makes empty promises, he is a pragmatic and honest public servant who gets things done for us. His record of accomplishments is long—he has fought hard for us and delivered commonsense solutions, time and time again.

As a School Board Member in Loudoun, he increased teacher pay and pension benefits, brought Lacrosse to the County, and created the Academies of Loudoun STEM School. Geary Higgins believes that schools should prioritize academic excellence and should educate, not indoctrinate, students, and that parents have a right to a seat at the table when it comes to their children’s education. 

During his eight years on the Board of Supervisors, he helped to grow Loudoun’s commercial/industrial tax base from 18% to 38% and he lowered the residential real estate property taxes every year for eight years. Not just the percentage either, but the actual effective rate. At the same time, Loudoun became the number one county in Virginia for agritourism, wine production, equine, and number three in cattle production. 

As a supervisor, he had the courage to say no, and was the strongest voice for protecting our rural way of life in Western Loudoun. He stopped the huge AT&T “switching facility” on top of Short Hill Mountain. He voted against data centers proposed in the wrong places, and fought hard to keep them out of the transition zone and the west. He’s the very reason our district is not full of data centers. 

More recently, as a Delegate, he stopped a new transmission right-of-way from being cut right through the center of Western Loudoun and ensured that it would be built in the existing right-of-way—saving countless homes, farms, and historic sites.

His conservation and preservation record is second to none. He worked with three Governor’s to bring the Sweet Run State Park to Loudoun. He secured emergency funding for the Waterford Foundation when the Fair was postponed due to a hurricane, as well as funding for the rehabilitation of the “Old Mill”. 

Geary Higgins served 10 years on the Loudoun Museum Board and secured County funding for it. He secured VDOT funding to save the John Lewis Bridge, personally donated the E. E. Lake Store to the County, put the Village of Bluemont on both the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places, and helped Morven Park with approval of their projects. 

After partisan Democrats spitefully killed the Oak Hill State Park plan for President James Monroe’s home last session in Richmond, Geary Higgins convinced the Governor to include Oak Hill in his final budget this December.

Geary Higgins supported and worked with Mayor Roger Vance to bring traffic calming to Hillsboro, speaking to the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) in support. It was his initiative that brought the round-about to the intersection at the Berlin Turnpike and the Charles Town Pike (currently under construction), and he worked with then Supervisor Buffington for the improvements on the shared Berlin Turnpike and Route 7 bypass in Purcellville. 

As our Delegate, he passed bills to: notify parents of opioid overdoses at schools, ensure homeschoolers could participate in JROTC, free up VDOT funding to preserve our gravel roads, remove toxic food dyes from our kids’ school lunches, improve worker safety, and allow individuals with developmental disabilities to curbside vote. 

Finally, you may have seen two recent mailers his opponent John Mcauliff sent out.

One mailer claims that Geary supported
the elimination of the Purcellville Police Department. That claim is categorically false, and nothing could be further from the truth. Geary Higgins has always supported the Purcellville Police, and law enforcement in general. 

He has received endorsements from all law enforcement entities who make endorsements: Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman, Fauquier Sheriff Jeremy Falls and the Police Benevolent Association. John McAuliff is lying about Geary, because he couldn’t find a single member of local law enforcement to support him, so he filmed his lousy attack ad with a failed Democrat politician from Virginia Beach. 

The other mailer his opponent sent touts his endorsement from “Save Rural Loudoun.” This group claims to be “non-partisan,” and asserts that this is the first time that they have endorsed a candidate. 

I asked Delegate Higgins how any group claiming to “save” rural Loudoun could ever possibly endorse against our strongest fighter for preserving rural Loudoun. Well, he sent me their questionnaire, and virtually all questions applied to local county zoning authority and had nothing to do with state legislative issues. Geary told me that he thoroughly explained this to them in a lengthy discussion at their booth during the Bluemont Fair, while discussing with them all the ways he can help them preserve rural Loudoun. 

Save Rural Loudoun is led by liberal former candidate John Ellis, and it seems the whole endorsement process was a sham in order to provide an in-kind contribution to a fellow Democrat. Look for yourself on social media. Ellis was liking and commenting positively on McAuliff’s ads, before the endorsement. 

In fact, according to VPAP, nearly all of his board members and he have only ever donated to Democrats. You can see why Delegate Higgins didn’t spend hours off the campaign trail filling out a survey for a predetermined endorsement. 

This election, I hope you’ll block out the lies and noise, and vote for someone who’s been there for us, and delivered actual results for Western Loudoun and Fauquier Counties.

Lisa Harcrow and her husband live in Town of Purcellville where they’ve raised their three sons, who are all current and former LCPS students. She is a marketing professional and advocate for excellence in education.