Views In Depth
Governance/Leadership | Illegal Aliens | Affordable Housing | Redistricting | Reston Area Concerns | Why Vote For Me | The Playing Field
Governance / Leadership
- Since Gerry Connolly was elected Fairfax County Chairman, the average homeowners have seen their property tax bills double in most cases over the last four years and in all cases over the last seven.
- The County Government’s endless appetite for more of your tax money needs to be stopped, over the last eight years they collected approximately $1.02 Billion more than they had a budgeted need for, did they return the money to the tax payers? No, they spent every dime.
- Auditing the $6 Billion county budget needs to be a top priority and I think it can happen through the creation of a Blue Ribbon Commission made up of experts in our community.
- All county contracts and grants need to be on the Internet for the public to see
- Hire an independent Ethics Officer to end self-dealing and conflicts of interest from County Supervisors, their top officials, developers and contractors.
- Developers have contributed $218,000 to the campaigns of the members of this board, $180,000 of that to Gerry Connolly. You have to ask yourself, is this why they don’t stand up to developers and demand proffers in line with those paid to surrounding counties?
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Illegal Aliens
Below are the answers that I provided to the questionnaire submitted by the Vienna SE/SW Homeowners. As of 10/24/07 I am the only candidate that chose to reply.
Dear Vienna Homeowners:
Thank you for the great questions, this is an issue that is weighing heavy on the minds of people that approach me wanting to know what I will do to protect Fairfax County. The following are my responses to the questions posed to the Fairfax County Hunter Mill District Supervisor candidates.
1.) Please provide your personal statement regarding the status of illegal aliens residing in our community.
A: I am alarmed by the direction our current Board of Supervisors is going in. There is a conscious and deliberate agenda that Mr. Connolly, and those on the Board that support him, have to make Fairfax a Sanctuary County. Members of the community have reported hearing Cathy Hudgins announce that Fairfax County already checks the immigration status of persons that are stopped by police, yet makes it clear that the County does not verify the authenticity of the ID provided! What is the message to the illegal aliens in Prince William and Loudoun County’s, where local governments are willing to make hard decisions? It tells them, come to Fairfax County, we will look the other way. It is just this type of complicit behavior that exacerbates our open southern border and contributes to the risk to our national security.
I consider people who are in our country illegally to be criminals, no matter what their economic, ethnic or religious background, just as I consider a person committing white collar crimes to be a criminal. Fairfax County needs to have strong leadership who will enforce the laws in a fair and compassionate manner; Fairfax County needs Gary Baise as Chairman and me as the Hunter Mill District representative on the Board of Supervisors.
2.) Do you support/not support the use of tax payer funds to provide public services to those individuals with illegal status in the state of VA or county of Fairfax?
A: I do not support the use of taxpayer funds to provide public services to illegal aliens. We have a finite amount of resources to provide necessary and essential public services, and a responsibility to deliver them to our taxpaying legal citizens. We must not fail our taxpayers, or allow these resources to be depleted by people who have no legal or practical claim to access them.
Federal law entitles illegal aliens to the use of our public schools and emergency medical care, both of which we all pay for, one way or another. Additionally, we implicitly endorse the use of our roads and infrastructure by providing drivers licenses to individuals without confirming the authenticity of their identity. Many such recipients do not contribute to the tax base that provides these services to them. I believe we owe it to our taxpaying legal citizens to put in place an effective protocol for verifying identity and legal status before extending public services beyond those I have identified as protected by the federal government.
3.) VA Attorney General Bob McDonnell has endorsed local governments to participate in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program 287(g). Do you support/not-support Fairfax County and surrounding local governments in participating in the ICE 287(g) program?
A: I support the involvement of Fairfax County in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program 287(g)
4.) What specifically will you propose as measures to address the growing population of those who are of illegal immigration status in the County?
A: I propose to clean up my own back yard first. Fairfax County should be ensuring that the employees of the contractors the County hires are legal residents. I will also hold the private sector to the same standard. If we take away the appeal of employment from illegal aliens they will go elsewhere to find work.
I will support our police to receive 287(g) training so that they can better work with ICE officers to remove illegal aliens from Fairfax County. I look forward to closely assisting Patrick McDade as our new Commonwealth’s Attorney, to address the additional criminal activity symptomatic of illegal immigrants, such as gang activity, illegal residential boarding houses and tax evasion.
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Affordable Housing
- Our current Board of Supervisors enacted a plan called “One Penny for Housing” fund, to set aside $.01 from every dollar of Residential Property taxes. This plan has been in affect for three years now and has raised $63 Million but it has only helped 33 families. Yes that means that the County has earned $6.3 Billion from Residential Property taxes over the past three years. It also means that it costs our current board $1.9 Million to help one family with their affordable housing needs.
- The Crescent Apartments were bought by the County for $49.5 Million by using $9 Million of the funds accumulated in the “One Penny for Housing” initiative and by financing the remaining $40.5 Million cost through a one-year Bond Anticipation Note. The purchase includes 16 acres with 6 buildings holding a total of 180 units. Here is the problem, the people that inhabit those buildings are not people who came through the Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) to qualify for Affordable Housing, they are people that chose to live in housing that happens to be affordable. That means that our tax dollars are subsidizing 180 units for people that didn’t have to prove that they needed help in order to get it.
- Coppermine 2 had a 29% vacancy rate supposedly because no one wanted to live there while the building next door was under construction, meanwhile Million dollar homes are sold in new neighborhoods with construction lasting for several years and this does not detour buyers. I believe the cause is mismanagement on the part of our current board and a lack of priority given to the proper management of the programs that our tax dollars provide.
- Creating isolated clusters of government controlled affordable housing does not foster socio-economic diversity in a community. It creates a community within the community and encourages division not diversity. One possible alternative means of providing affordable housing to underprivileged members of our community is to intersperse the units throughout the community, a few here a few there in places where people will have access to public transportation.
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Redistricting
I live in Moneys Corner, probably the closest neighborhood to South Lakes High School that is currently in the Oakton High School boundary. I am the only candidate for Hunter Mill Supervisor that doesn’t live in Reston and hasn’t had a child attend South Lakes High School. I am a concerned parent, I believe we need to all work together to find a solution for the issues that area schools are facing with respect to attendance. One such solution that has been mentioned and I believe to have a great deal of merit is a Magnet program like the one used at Hunters Woods Elementary that has been such a big success in attracting students to that school. I have a school age child that will be affected by the decisions made about redistricting so these considerations are not made lightly. The Board of Supervisors by statute has no prevue over redistricting, but they do approve the school board budget so there is some natural leverage to be exerted upon them to address concerns over the mismanaged redistricting process. Based upon my experience from attending numerous community meetings with existing school board members and candidates for school board, it is apparent to me that the process is broken and no redistricting should take place until it is fixed. I am fully aware of the problems South Lakes has had over the years and what is being done to improve the school. It is my belief that South Lakes is doing well under the leadership of their Principal Bruce Butler, this belief makes me confident that a magnet program will work for this school.
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Reston Area Concerns
Below are the answers that I provided to the questionnaire submitted to me by email from a concerned Restonian and avid blogger on political issues.
Restonian,
Thanks for taking the time to write and ask me about my position on these issues. I don’t think that the Supervisor’s job is to impose their will on their District, nor to exploit areas for high density development that are not prepared to accommodate that increase in population. I’m not against high density development, I am absolutely for making responsible choices that don’t leave the community holding the bag because no one thought to prepare for the population increase that comes with approving requests to increase density.
1.) Keeping Reston Healthy and Vibrant:
A: I won’t treat Reston like an ATM as our current Board administration is doing. I will not block residents of Reston from having the opportunity to vote on a township referendum. Reston residents have a right to choose if they are willing to have and sustain another layer of government in order to gain some control over the land use decisions that affect their lives. I embrace democracy and any time government starts trying to erect obstacles to it I get worried. I think that much of Reston’s future prosperity could well be provided by becoming a town, for one thing they will finally be able to do away with the restrictions on their ability to tax businesses. I do not live in Reston. I live in Herndon/Oak Hill, so I cannot vote, but if I did live in Reston I would have signed the petition.
2.) Land Use, specifically the Nextel property in the SW corner of Reston Pkwy and the Toll Rd.:
A: They are perfectly able to sell the land or develop it themselves to accommodate the “need” for high density development, but who ever takes on that task will have to prove to me that the Transportation Infrastructure, Educational System and Safety and Human Services are able to sustain the projected increase in density. I don’t see TOD as a blank check to approve requests for increases in zoning density; it needs to work with the community to get my vote.
3.) Reston Master Plan:
A: I think that Reston will eventually exceed the 99,000 mark and I don’t understand the rush. Let’s make sound land use decisions that are mindful of the community’s ability to absorb the increase in population.
4.) Improving Traffic as it relates to Mass Transit:
A: I will not cast my vote in favor of density increases unless the surrounding communities have been prepared for the added strain. I will advocate for the improvement of intersections and timing of traffic signals that cause overwhelming delays to rush hour commuters. I will examine our options to eliminate the phased approach to the Dulles rail project so that the Wiehle Avenue station won't be the interim commuter collection point for all of Fairfax County, Loudoun County and all points West. I will pursue the dismantling of the sole source Dulles Transit Partners Design-Build Contract signed by the Board and push tirelessly for an open bid process to provide a tunnel through Tysons.
5.) Subsidized Housing and SROs:
A:I think that there is a need to have options for people in crisis on every level of our economic scale. I will however always be in favor of solutions that provide people in need with a path to success, not to say that that isn’t subsidized housing, more to say that while subsidized housing is one solution, there are also other solutions that I think better empower recipients of assistance to transition out of government assistance and into self sufficiency. SROs, I would love to hear you thoughts on them, honestly I haven’t formulated a position on them yet, as a Realtor, I know that they can be difficult to re-sell.
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Why Vote for Me
My background is in the enterprise networking industry. I worked my way up from an entry level position to an executive position as Chief Technology Officer. I now own Williams Realty, I am a member of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors and the Fairfax County Republican Committee. I continue to work in the enterprise networking industry for Orange Business Services as a project manager with a team of fifteen members all around the world. I have the management skills that are necessary to fill this position. I come from the private sector without a background in politics or government and strongly feel that it is time for a change with a fresh perspective and new solutions. I don’t boast about a long distinguished career of taking orders and executing upon them to the letter, I can think for myself. I identify areas of concern, develop the means to address and resolve the issues and implement solutions. I am process oriented, my ingenuity, organization, attention to detail and effective negotiation skills will be an asset to the Board of Supervisors.
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Playing Field
The Democrat Incumbent, A Democrat Independent, A Green Party Independent, and myself a Republican running as an Independent.