10 questions with Bill Stanley

Bill Stanley’s law career got off to an auspicious start before he officially became an attorney.
    In 1994, while in his final semester at the District of Columbia School of Law and clerking for D.C., attorney Gil Davis, Stanley embarked on a four-year journey as part of the team representing Arkansas state employee Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton.
    “We took [the case] to the United States Supreme Court. I helped write the briefs and was there when the argument was made and to hear the 9-0 unanimous verdict,” Stanley said. “It’s a case that’s taught in law school every year now. It was pretty amazing, something I’ll never forget.”
    Stanley, whose father was a U.S. Navy aviator, since has blazed a notable career path. While grooming his defense skills at a large Arlington firm, he encouraged his mom, Diane, a real estate agent who had always aspired to work as an attorney, to attend law school. After she graduated in 1996, the pair opened an office together in Fairfax and another at SML, where the family had enjoyed outdoor activities since 1983 when they purchased a home in Franklin County.
    In late 2001, they transitioned the business completely to the lake, where Bill Stanley, 44, has been involved in many of the area’s highest-profile cases in the past decade. Stanley also has served as chairman of the Franklin County Republican Committee and as 5th District Republican Party chairman. On Jan. 11, he won a special election to fill the final year of Robert Hurt’s term as senator for Virginia’s 19th District, which includes Smith Mountain Lake, after Hurt was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
    “The General Assembly started the next day, the 12th,” said Stanley. “I got [to Richmond] at 3 a.m., got about an hour’s sleep, went to a prayer breakfast, then went to the orientation where they basically gave me a rule book to study and showed me where I’d be sitting. They showed me how to press the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ buttons, and then said ‘good luck’ and I was sworn in. It was very humbling to take the oath in the Senate that so many great Virginians before me had taken.”
    In April, legislators voted to redraw district lines. While most of SML remains in the 19th District, Stanley has chosen to run against 14-year incumbent Roscoe Reynolds, D-Henry County, for the 20th District’s senate seat in November. Stanley said he continues to live at his lakefront home on the weekends, but his primary residence is now in Glade Hill, just within the boundaries of the 20th District.
    With his first year as a Virginia legislator wrapping up, we thought it would be a good time to check in with Stanley to get his thoughts on the state of Smith Mountain Lake.

Q: In what ways do you think the lake has changed since you first moved here?

A: I’ve been coming down here since the early ’80s and the transformation from then to now has been incredible. When I first started coming here there were barely any houses on the shoreline. … We didn’t even have any grocery stores. So I think the progress we have made at the lake is excellent. That’s the reason why I knew I could bring my small business here.

Q: What appeals to you most about the area?

A: It’s just the best place to work and live. It’s got the best people in the world. It amazes me how everyone here is always smiling; they’re friendly to each other; everyone’s always waving. I think it’s great that, with all that’s going on in the world, people here still hold on to their values, their traditions and their way of life.

Q: What do you see as the most important challenges facing the Smith Mountain Lake region?

A: The No. 1 challenge that we have, and I’m intimately involved in my legal practice as well as on a political level, is the overreaching authority and involvement of AEP in the individual property rights of our citizens who live here at the lake. I believe that the grant of federal power to AEP was for flowage and sediment and erosion in the management of the hydroelectric dam.  

Q: What other lake-specific issues do you see as critical?

A: How do we turn around our housing market? And how do we support small businesses in the area? … The boom of the real estate market, I think, overvalued property here and literally took the middle class out of the ability to enjoy and buy property here. That was one of the greatest things about Smith Mountain Lake – that you didn’t have to be rich to have a lake home or a fishing cabin. With that, it was unrealistic for people to take property that was worth $80,000 and when it was all said and done it was selling at $600,000. So you took a huge segment of the population out of possibly coming down here. I think we need to balance that out to make it, hopefully, more affordable. We need to encourage relocation here again and also show that this is not just a great place to live, but it’s also a great place to work, or retire or start a business or relocate a business.

Q: What do you think is missing from our community that would make it more attractive to new residents and businesses?

A: Pizza delivery (laughing). … We have had a growth here that has been helping the lake. How do you take it to the next level and what will be at that next level? It’s kind of a combo – you want to take it to the next level, and our next level is recovering from what we’ve suffered the past two years, but we also want to preserve what we have and not turn it into something completely commercialized like Lake Norman in North Carolina. I think you have to strike a balance between the two.

Q: What’s the best way to make that happen?

A: I think the most important thing we need to do is raise the profile, and I think we can do that. We have a great chamber of commerce and we’ve tried to do that pretty successfully through the advertisements that we’ve done, but we also need to have our voice heard in Richmond. Most tourism dollars and how our tourism industry looks at the various parts of Virginia comes from Richmond. And so I think if we show a strong voice and that we’re a force to be reckoned with in tourism industry that would be great. That and pizza delivery.

Q: How important is tourism to the overall economic health of the lake area?

A: It’s absolutely critical. One of the things I noticed in Richmond is that when people talk about tourism, they talk about King’s Dominion. They talk about Virginia Beach. They talk about other areas. I think what we need to do is raise our profile in Richmond and the rest of the Commonwealth of Virginia to show why this is a great vacation destination. I’ve already talked to [SML Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Director] Vicki Gardner about our lobby efforts for next year. I want the lake chamber to come up and really lobby and be a force to be reckoned with in Richmond.

Q: Does Smith Mountain Lake have much name recognition among your colleagues in Richmond?

A: A lot of times I heard, “Isn’t that where ‘Dirty Dancing’ was filmed?” I’m like, no, that’s Mountain Lake [in Giles County]. I don’t even think there’s water there anymore. So, some of them knew about it, some of them didn’t. ... Sometimes I think we’re overlooked. We’re not forgotten, but we’re overlooked, and that certainly needs to change.

Q: Four of the nine bills you submitted in your first Virginia General Assembly session passed. Which are you most proud of?

A: I think the one I’m most proud of is the reconfiguration of the Governor’s Opportunity Fund, which is a fund by which the governor and the government, in order to entice business to come here, offer low-interest, no-interest loans or grants to businesses if they promise they’ll bring 100 jobs and $10 million investment into the community. If that occurred, then they were eligible for the opportunity fund. The problem with that was it left out our localities where there’s a high poverty rate or high-unemployment rate in more rural areas. So what we did is we created a tiered system where, instead of just going for the big whopper job, the big corporation, that in high-poverty or high unemployment-rate rural areas, a company that would promise $1.5 million of investment and 15 jobs would have the same avenue to the opportunity fund that a bigger company would have. So, it’s tiered from $1.5 [million] and 15 [jobs] and then it goes up like that. That opens the door for smaller businesses to come in … to our region. And I’ll take 10 of those small businesses bringing 15 jobs over hoping for one company that will bring 100 jobs.

Q: What are your predictions for SML for the next decade?

A: I think the challenges we face in the next 10 years involve making this community more than just a secondary home market or a retirement community and incorporate that also with an incredible small business community. … Other challenges we face include safety, making sure that this is a safe place to boat, and also making sure we preserve the property rights of those who choose to live here.