Slutzky elected as Board Chair; Mallek will be Vice Chair

David Slutzky (Rio) has been elected as the new Chair of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. Ann Mallek (White Hall) has been elected as the Vice Chair. The leadership change comes as a result of the Board’s first organizational meeting of the year.

Chairs generally serve two years, but Slutzky’s future on the Board is uncertain. He has considered running for the House of Delegates seat held by Delegate Rob Bell (R-58) and must choose between that challenge and running for re-election. His term expires at the end of the year, as do the terms for Supervisors Dennis Rooker (Jack Jouett) and Sally Thomas (Samuel Miller).

Outgoing Chair Ken Boyd (Rivanna) congratulated Slutzky and Mallek on their new positions, and said he looked forward to being out of the spotlight.

“I’m going to leave it up to you to herd all of us honorable cats for the next year or so,” Boyd said. 

Supervisor Rooker thanked Boyd for what he called an excellent job as Chair for the last two years. “I think we’ve had good leadership and I’m confident we’ll have good leadership going forward.”

Slutzky currently serves as the Chair of the MPO Policy Board and will continue to hold that position this year. However, that leadership role did not come with a very important tool.

“I’ve never held a gavel before, and I’ve been looking forward to holding this my whole life,” Slutzky said. He said that his tenure as Chair would likely result in a more informal atmosphere during meetings, but that he could become more formal if requested.

“I’d appreciate your guidance as I try to help herd the cats on this Board, which is an extraordinarily collaborative group of very diverse points of view, and I think that’s a testimony to how our community works because we each reflect different elements of the community,” Slutzky said.

Sean Tubbs