Voters in Spotsylvania County’s Lee Hill District will have a distinct choice to make in this year’s election for the board of supervisors, especially when it comes to two major issues facing residents — data centers and managing growth.
Incumbent Lori Hayes spoke strongly in favor of requiring a special use permit for data centers during a recent meeting. Challenger Marcus Garcia, a Colorado native who works as a utility project manager for an architecture and engineering firm, said in an interview with the Free Press that he supports by-right development of the polarizing facilities that store, process and distribute large amounts of data.
“I recognize the adverse tradeoffs that come with data centers, but in the end, the benefits outweigh the costs,” Garcia said. “This is an opportunity for Spotsylvania to realize some significant gains. If they don’t come here, another community will take advantage, and we will simply lose out.”
Hayes views it differently.
She said that while she is not “anti-data center” she appreciates the revenue they generate, the SUP would protect the citizens of the county from the projects encroaching on residential areas. It would also allow the supervisors to consider the projects on a case-by-case basis.
She noted that county officials could examine issues such as topography and vegetation in addition to the proximity to homes before allowing data centers. The supervisors deadlocked 3-3 in a vote to require a SUPs, but the planning commission is working on more stringent guidelines to recommend to the supervisors for an upcoming vote.
“I felt that the SUP was actually the best way to develop data centers that are in more densely populated areas because we could then look at the site plan and determine how much space you need between this housing development and the data center,” Hayes said. “If it goes in by-right there’s very little parameters around that.”
Lori Hayes earned 61% of the vote in 2021 to secure her first term representing the Lee Hill District on the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors.
How to manage growth is another distinction between the candidates. Hayes noted the county’s comprehensive plan aims for 70% residential development and 30% commercial. She said residential is currently above 80%, and those figures dictate her votes on development projects. She’s supported 33% of residential rezoning requests and 72% of commercial requests.
Garcia said growth is to be expected given the county’s location between Richmond and Washington, D.C.
“It’s unreasonable that legacy Spotsylvanians have this expectation that you’re never going to grow,” Garcia said. “We sit right between the state capital and the nation’s capital. To think we’re going to preserve some nostalgic Spotsylvania of yesteryear, it’s nonsense. I’d be better off standing on top of New Post Church and trying to fly.”
Garcia and Hayes both expressed strong support for public education. Garcia grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as the product of a lower lower-middle-class Hispanic family.
His mother owned a Mexican food store, but it went out of business when she was unable to compete with a large corporation that dominated the area. His father worked maintenance at a local high school.
“I heard for years and years and years as a lower-middle-class Hispanic kid that education is the only thing they can’t take from you,” Garcia said.
Garcia advocates for Spotsylvania County Public Schools as a regular speaker during the public comment portion of meetings. He said supporting schools is his No. 1 priority, in addition to “pragmatic growth,” workforce development, technology and regional collaboration.
Garcia said his goal as a board member would be to fully fund Spotsylvania’s public schools. He served on the school board’s committee that helped develop the 2025-30 strategic plan.
“We know why detractors of public education are detractors,” Garcia said. “They don’t want an even playing field … That’s what we see at the school board meetings. Under this current board of supervisors, there’s this slow degradation of funding. You can’t expect a system to work if you haven’t maintained it.”
Hayes disagrees.
She acknowledged that prior to the beginning of her term, which started in 2022, the supervisors may have underfunded the school division. But she said that for each year she’s been on the board, funding increased.
This past budget cycle, the school board and supervisors held two-on-two meetings to improve the relationship between the bodies. With guidance from first-year Superintendent Clint Mitchell and County Administrator Ed Petrovich, the boards agreed to an incremental approach to attacking a budget shortfall of nearly $47 million, leading to an $11.7 million increase in local funding for fiscal year 2026. She also said the school board and board of supervisors need to push for more state funding.
“I’ve been a huge advocate for the schools throughout my time on the board,” Hayes said. “If [Garcia] wants to fund schools, then he needs to be careful about the growth. Those two are very inter-mingled … You’ve got to have balance. This job isn’t just about the schools.
“If you want to serve only the schools, then you need to be on the school board. When you’re on the board of supervisors, you’re not only managing funding the schools, you’re managing law enforcement, you’re managing the general government, you’re managing fire and rescue. There are many different things that need to be funded and there has to be a balance.”
Garcia, 47, said he’s been the “beneficiary of a lot of schooling.”
His family couldn’t afford college, so he entered the U.S. Coast Guard, completing tours across four continents over 24 years.
He later used the GI Bill — a law that provides educational benefits to veterans and their families — to enroll in the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He later earned an MBA from University of Arkansas at Grantham and a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.
Garcia landed in the Washington, D.C. region in 2016 to perform a short-term emergency management planning job for the presidential inauguration in 2017. He moved to Spotsylvania to be closer to his 5-year-old son.
Garcia, who retired from the Navy earlier this month, said he’s also passionate about infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, and utilities. Before moving to the East Coast, he worked for a municipal utility company in Colorado for 13 years.
“I geek out over that stuff,” he said.
Hayes moved to the Fredericksburg area in 1982 and graduated from James Monroe High School in 1983 before moving to Spotsylvania County with her family. She attended Germanna Community College, Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in social work.
After moving to Northern Virginia, she returned to Spotsylvania in 2005 to be closer to her family. She and her brother co-owned Calypso Kennels in Stafford County before he died in 2023. She is now the sole owner of the company, which opened in 1990. She earned her first term on the board of supervisors with 61% of the vote, outpacing Todd Alan Rump (39%) in 2021.
Hayes and Garcia are both running as independents. Early voting begins Sept. 19, and Election Day is Nov. 4.
