Albemarle County Sheriff’s Deputy Roger Craig is running for the Democratic nomination for sheriff, the Daily Progress reports. He’ll be challenging Albemarle County police investigator Larry Claytor for the nomination; Claytor announced his campaign a couple of weeks ago. Charlottesville police captain Chip Harding is seeking the Republican nomination.
I’m told that Sheriff Edgar Robb, who is retiring, was backing Harding as his replacement, but that he also encouraged Craig to get into the race. That would explain Robb’s refusal to endorse anybody just yet, but it seems like an odd thing to do.
Craig’s candidacy is a bit of a puzzle — I just mapped his address in Google Earth, and he lives half a mile from the Albemarle border, in Orange County, just down the road from me, which would make him ineligible to serve in an Albemarle office. He started working with the Charlottesville Police Department in 1987, and he’s been with the Sheriff’s Office for 16 years, so I’m certainly not questioning the man’s commitment to law enforcement in Albemarle. Maybe he moved recently?
02/28 Update: Rob Seal writes in today’s Progress that Craig does live in Orange, but he and his wife own a house in Albemarle that they’ll move into in May in order to satisfy the residency requirement. That would certainly seem to settle things.
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