Recently, an anonymous letter circulated questioning an essay I published in April, before announcing my candidacy for the Board of Supervisors. Since it has been brought up, I’d like to address it directly.

First, the missing article. The Appomattox Times website was migrated to a new platform this summer. In the process, several older articles, including that essay, were mistakenly left on the old server. This has since been corrected. There was no attempt to hide anything. In fact, I published it openly under my own name, months before I was a candidate.

Second, the “wealthy landowner” charge. Every property I own is right here in Appomattox County. My current residence and two rentals in town and twenty acres in Hixburg, all mortgaged, purchased with hard-earned dollars, and on the tax rolls. Nothing was inherited. I’ve invested here because I believe in this county’s future.

As for the essay itself, I stand by its spirit. I was writing as a new father about the burden one generation can place on the next. Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1789: “The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. No man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied… to the payment of debts contracted by him.” Jefferson’s point was clear: one generation has no natural right to eat up the substance of those who follow. Yet this past April, Washington passed a budget that will add $5 trillion to the national debt. My point was simple: if Congress will not think of our children, then at least here at home, we must.

That was an essay, not a policy proposal before the town. My record on council speaks to what I’ve fought for: water, sewer, trash, and economic development. Check the minutes, check the votes, check the statements: you will see I’ve been leading on the very issues our town needs solved first.

Anonymous letters can throw around labels like “socialist.” But Jefferson was no socialist, he was the first Virginian to warn that generational debt robs the future. That is the tradition I am standing in, and that is the standard I will continue to uphold.

Nathan A. Simpson