Manuel Alvarez Ousts Orapax Shooting Preserve Foe from Goochland Board

Manuel Alvarez defeated incumbent William "Bill" Quarles for a seat on the Goochland Board of Supervisors.  Alvarez, an NRA member, is a true success story.

Alvarez’s journey to Goochland County has been a long one, starting from his birthplace, Matanzas, Cuba, a port town about 100 kilometers east of Havana.

After the revolution and Fidel Castro’s rise to power, Alvarez’s parents sent him, along with his sister, to Spain in 1968 when was 14. After six months there in a Catholic refugee camp and a home in Madrid run by German Lutherans, he came to the U.S.

“We flew into New York City and had to circle the airport several times,” said Alvarez, who had just turned 15. He recalled seeing the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.

Quarles was seeking his third term on the Board and had plans for a future run for the General Assembly. Gun owners in Goochland may remember Quarles as one of the Board members who voted in 2007 to reinstitute a requirement for a special use permit to open a shooting range.  The move was viewed as a direct end run around a zoning appeal that Orapax Hunting Preserve had pending with the Goochland Board of Zoning Appeals.  Orapax operates an upland game shooting preserve on 700 acres in the county and wanted to add a sporting clays range open to the public.

Congratulations to Mr. Alvarez on a great victory.