Still trying to follow the logic in yesterday’s rantings on BVBL:
The promotion of efforts by Mexicans Without Borders to protest Prince William County’s policies within the historic district of Manassas City by 9500Liberty, and their new appreciation for Jeff Winder and “The People United” as reasonable voices in the immigration debate leaves this film propaganda project without any credibility whatsoever. They have embraced the radical open borders crowd, allied themselves with the local arm of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and now characterize the leftist rantings of Jeff Winder as “prohpetic words”. I guess if one could consider Karl Marx’s rantings as prophesy, this would fit pretty well, but not too many Virginians think there’s a lot of value in the Communist Manifesto.
Can anyone help me understand this? 9500Liberty has a video of Jeff Winder speaking at Citizens’ Time and that means they have ’embraced the radical open borders crowd’? What about this video with Robert Duecaster aka Advocator aka ResolutionMan have they not too embraced the other extreme?
An update – recognized one of the police officers still outside as having taken the report from me on my stolen property, so went out and talked to him. He told me it is a rape investigation. Nice people I live next to! One who no longer lives there was identified by a neighbor as seen running from the back of my house so is a suspect in a burglary, and now another person in that house who still lives there is apparently a suspect in a rape investigation! Just lovely.. We were going to do a little more house hunting this weekend, now I think it may be a lot more – I feel an even more urgent need to get out of here. We are escalating the crimes fast here – first burglary, now rape, what’s next?
I certainly feel sorry for whoever the victim is, and don’t know if the actual rape occurred here in the neighborhood or elsewhere, obviously. Still, don’t like living next to a possible rapist. My wife had always been uncomfortable with them staring at her so this latest development really drives the point home.
I suppose innocent before proven guilty, but in my mind if there was one criminal living in this house I’m not surprised there’s probably another – so in this case I kind of think there’s a good reason there’s a rape investigation going on there. I never bought into the fact that the rest of the occupants had no idea where this person has gone to anyway – and really thought more than just one person of that house was involved in the burglary of my house. The neighbor could only positively recognize one of them given it was dark, etc. Then again that neighbor has had retribution since then, even after this person fled – in the form of rocks thrown at his house in the middle of the night. Could be the person who fled, but more probably one or more of his former roommates I bet. I suppose it would be a form of justice if indeed it was one of the other people in this house were involved in the burglary of my house, and now is the alleged rapist, but I’m sorry that someone was victimized in that way, and actually hope it to be no one here in the neighborhood. Not that it is a good thing for it to be anywhere – but hope the actual rape occurred someplace else. I have seen women come in or out of that house at times around 10 PM when I’ve been out walking the dog, so would be scary if the rape actually did occur inside there. Don’t think there’s any women actually living there however, but at times it is very hard to tell given the traffic in and out of the house, who are really residents there.
testing……tommmy, can you see me?
LOL
ok, I see my post!
Admin/ Elena,
how do I contact you?
And as a final update, saw one of the occupants being led out in handcuffs a little while ago – and the police activity is now gone. Hopefully he’ll stay in jail where he won’t be a threat to anyone else, and maybe it will put some fear into his housemates to at least be law abiding. Just some nice drama to make one feel safe on a Friday night here in the delightful neighborhood!
anon,
I don;t know the answers and do not DOUBT for a minute you are telling the truth.
The City tried to do that thing with limiting the numbers of family members, etc.
and you are talking about how you have SEEN, LIVED the thought of neighborhoods coming together and trying to work things out.( that happened prior to the city trying to pass that ordinance and now we have something different but the SAME in my eyes , the resolution in PWC)
I want to ask you what you think should and can be done, but I see that you feel like nothing can be done as you have stated that you feel that you have done EVERYTHING you can do and want to move.
I understand that. The problem is going to follow you where ever you move but this just makes me ask again and again…wtf is up with our own fed gov?
Why are neighbors fighting against neighbor, etc….
Anon,
I am just catching up. You do live in the city of Manassas? Who is the landlord who owns the house where the problems are?
Anon, sounds like you are in a bad neighborhood or at least on a bad street. (Sorry to hear that!) I’ve lived in places like that before (i.e. store across the street got broken into every other month or so, cars stolen, vandalism, etc.) and there wasn’t an “illegal” problem. It was just a bad neighborhood. What is the relationship between the “illegal” issue and what you are describing? Do you know there are “illegals” living next door or are they just plain old hoodlums?
Yes, I am in the City of Manassas, although only a mile and a half roughly from the border with PWC. Unfortunately I think the landlord is one of the occupants. Not that I want to again link this to Hispanics, but the owner of the house (looking at the Manassas City website where you can see the tax assesment/sales prices/owners) the owner has an Hispanic name. It seems that when the house was sold 3 years ago a group of people moved in, most of which have changed, but I believe 2 still live there. At one time I called the overcrowding hotline and the city took care of it and for awhile it was good. Then after the ordinance got killed it went right back to being the way it was, and the city seems too cowardly to do anything about it (believe me, I tried but they want a long drawn out investigation process to avoid any lawsuits – of any house where they are looking into overcrowding). That is why I personally was affected by that lawsuit against the ordinance – things might not be where they are at today if that house was never allowed to get back to an overcrowded state.
As far as what could be done to turn things around in this neighborhood, I’m frankly out of ideas and feel entirely burned out about the whole thing. I’m sure this is an unusual case where neighbors inflict crimes upon direct neighbors – and it is part of why I think things are relatively hopeless. Anyway for me personally – the only light at the end of the tunnel I can see is to just sign a contract on some place in another neighborhood. In reality, I ask myself why put up with a long commute I don’t particularly enjoy – it would only make sense if I was commuting to/from an area that I felt was nice. So that’s really another big factor – if I can shorten my commute that’s a plus too, and takes out another element of stress. I try to avoid the traffic, which makes me have to get up at a fairly insane hour – and isn’t made any easier by neighbors who make noise past 10 – 10:30 PM when I want to get to sleep during the workweek. So all things considered, the more I look at it, I can’t rationalize any reason for continuing to put up with this, plus my wife is none too comfortable after the break-in. Really, once your house has been broken into, you no longer feel secure. Did install an alarm system – but now that’s an extra $35/month expense I’m paying which I wasn’t before. If I still was working here in Manassas, I’d have more interest in staying here, now it really just makes no sense.
The thing is that no one could have sued the city if they just came in to EVERY crowded home and cited safety, fire, and health codes. The city CAN get sued for citing FAMILY! I wonder who is writing these policies and if they are getting second, third and fourth opinions before trying to implement them. Obviously, this county didn’t bother trying to get other opinions first, and that’s why we are in this mess.
As far as “illegals”and my linkage of that to the problems in my neighborhood. I can’t generalize of course that all the problems in the neighborhood are due to “illegals”. But, for my specific case of the break-in to my house – I know the one person next door that another neighbor on the street identified as being one of the ones involved in the break-in to my house – had no identification of any kind when the police investigated. So that’s how I know he is illegal. Any legal immigrant would either have a green card or a Visa in their passport at the very least, even if they didn’t have a driver’s license. So to have no identification – and then flee and no one else in the house knows where he went – I’d say there’s a 99% chance he is an illegal. So I’m not making some assumption there. As for the rest of them, I have no idea whether they are legal or not. So the one specific issue (and I know it is a specific case) is where I connect it to the illegal immigration problem. A legal person probably wouldn’t just pick up and flee like that, and there’d be some trail as to where he went. Who knows even if he gave a correct name? Without any “documentation” (that is identification) what’s to stop someone from making up any old name to the police? Again, why the police didn’t arrest him on the spot is a good question – somehow I guess they had to wait until I returned home and listed stolen goods. I guess that would be to build a better case perhaps. Who knows. I consider that part a screwup by the Manassas City Police.
Anyway, I’m sure my emotions have gotten the better of me in all of this – and that’s why for me personally, the best thing is to get out of here. I actually think, once your house is broken into that’s kind of the last straw – it is hard (at least for me personally) to feel really secure. With my wife home alone during the daytime (other than for the dog who doesn’t qualify as a watchdog – she is too friendly) – it also now makes me feel less secure about that. As I say, don’t know for other people – but for me – once your house has been broken into – it is like an invasion of your security and there’s no way of regaining that, for me personally. Thinking back, I didn’t really have any plans of moving out of here before the break-in – so all of that changed with the break-in – which was just a little over a month ago now – and really only started looking at houses last weekend for the very first time. In fact, the before the break-in I wasn’t actively following discussions on illegal immigration, to be perfectly honest.
The problem is it takes a huge amount of people in a townhouse to violate fire, safety, and health codes. What a reasonable person might assume is the max number of occupants for a 3 story, 3-bedroom townhouse – does not at all match what the fire, safety, and health codes say. I’m sure if they were amended to more reasonable numbers, there’s be a lawsuit too. It’s a no-win situation. Even if the city had gone about it another way, I’m sure with lawyers, there would be lawsuits. The city is very very cautious now with lawsuits, that is for sure. It is also unfortunately real difficult just counting numbers of individuals in a house, when they come and go at all hours of the day and night. Really, at times I see so many different people coming in and out of there- I really don’t know who are residents and who are visitors. That’s why I suspect they tried to define family, so if they found a bunch of unrelated people living there, and there appeared to be large numbers of people, it might be easier to prove overcrowding. Again, this is just my guess, and I don’t know it for a fact – as to why they tried to go to some definition of family to attack the overcrowding issue.
In fact, this year’s city budget has a substantially increased lawyers fee in it, and obviously is a direct response to the fear of lawsuits, or continued lawsuits. It was one of the justifications for the budget increase and increased taxes – even though assessments are down, the tax rate has been adjusted to actually increase real estate taxes by 10%. Some of that is for a new fire/safety tax levy, but the lawyers fee increase definitely didn’t help things either.
Anon,
Your HONESTY shows!
That is why it is believable to me, “raw emotion” I am sorry this happened to you and I am not sure how I would react but would think that I would do the same.
I see you being PROACTIVE in trying to find answers/hanging in there, etc.
This is why, YES, I was a supporter of the resolution because I wanted to see changes and thought THIS was the answer. I jumped on the only thing riding ( and am STILL THANKFUL, for the op) but started to see that this was NOT the answer back in December of 07.
This is why I say there is no easy answer and that it is a very complex issue. PATHETIC? YES!
Anon,
I am so sorry to hear about the events next to your home tonight. I would be very upset if I were you too. I remember, when I lived in the townhouse in centreville, I awoke to a woman screaming at the top of her lungs, I went rushing outside(blind as a bat because I had been sleeping and didn’t have my contacts in) and then saw a vehicl peel away while leaning on the horn. I ran back in the house, called the police, turns out someone had tried to attack a woman at gun point! Luckily she escaped unharmed. they never caught the assailant but I was terrified for months just walking to and from the car to the front door, front door to the car. I even took a self defense course sponsored by frfx county police. Now, I this was a fairly new neighborhood, and still there was an attack like this! It is obvious you are frustrated and anxious about what is happening in your neighborhood, and what I wish we had, in place today, was a professional task force that had different language speakers, especially spanish, to help deal with some of the broader issues.
Red Dawn – definitely agree this is a highly complex issue with no easy solution, and there is no one answer that will magically solve it. It is unfortunate that things weren’t done a long time ago to address this problem – whatever solutions that would have been found then would have been a lot easier for all parties concerned. And yes, the period since the break-in has been a time for me personally when my emotions have been very close to the surface, and I don’t really enjoy the feeling. I actually can’t remember a time in my life when I’ve been so angry and frustrated about things, and the only thing that prevents a feeling of hopelessness is that at least I afford to move out of here so that’s the only way I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I had quite gotten used to the fact that my mortgage payments were low having bought a long time ago (when at that time it really stretched my budget to get into this neighborhood). Not terribly looking forward to that again being rather pessimistic about the price I’ll get for this house in today’s market (or at least so I can sell it quickly), but I’d rather have less money to spend and be happy than living here with a low mortgage and not being happy and not feeling a sense of security about my house.
Elena – your story above is interesting and would be scary as you say. For me, I often have to travel as part of my job, since the system I work on is located in US military bases mostly at least not in the continental USA and also in some foreign countries where the US has bases. So now am not really comfortable with my wife being here alone obviously while I’m away – since the time of the break-in. I usually have some travel every month or so – for a week or two at a time, so now it is at the point where I’m going to have to deal with that too as my first trip since the time of the break-in is coming up. Although there are options for her to stay with friends or my brother and his family who are here in the area, but that is complicated with the dog and not wanting to impose and also not being as close to her English classes she is taking at present. Taking her with me is something I’ve done when it is to places that are desirable to visit (which some are), but not all are and the ones out of country usually stay at lodging inside the base, which is not an option for my wife as she is not a US Citizen and would not be permitted to stay on the base.
Anyway, the net of it is, when you no longer feel comfortable about the safety of your house, it is time to move. It makes no sense for me to have a somewhat of a long commute and put up with the frustrations sitting in traffic in the evening, when I’m driving back home to a place where I feel my sense of security has been taken away from me, or I can really be proud of. If I was still working here in Manassas it might be a different story, I guess.
Well, it is time to go look at houses, so I’m off of here for now.
“Thinking back, I didn’t really have any plans of moving out of here before the break-in – so all of that changed with the break-in – which was just a little over a month ago now – and really only started looking at houses last weekend for the very first time. In fact, the before the break-in I wasn’t actively following discussions on illegal immigration, to be perfectly honest.”
So if you didn’t have crime in your neighborhood, what you are saying is you wouldn’t care about anyone’s citizen status. I’ve heard at least one other person say that, and I completely understand. No one wants to live in a dangerous place.
I hear what you are saying about the safety codes. But I also think there are other things to consider here. For example, you can’t have different gender children sharing a bedroom after a certain age. You can’t have kids sleeping with parents after a certain age. These are DSS violations and not health/safety violations. There are other things like you can’t have people using something without a window as a bedroom. If it’s a kid, it’s a DSS issue. If it’s an adult, I don’t know what it is.
I would really wonder about a house that is as over-crowded as you are describing. I bet there are other issues there than just health and safety (and criminal activity of course).
My complete sympathy!
Well, we’ve been out looking today, and actually think we found a nice neighborhood. And I did see Hispanic families walking around there, but that’s fine. What I think is the big problem in this neighborhood – is most of what is living here are a bunch of unrelated people in these townhouses, and no children (or in many cases I don’t see any women either). This neighborhood we’re seriously considering looked family oriented and I have absolutely no problem with what I saw today which did include some Hispanic families out walking about. By families what I saw in a few cases were 2 parents and 1 or 2 young children. These are single family homes we are looking at – my wife feels if we are going to move, she doesn’t want to move to another townhouse community, even a new one. In a way, I have a feeling that single family homes, in at least a new neighborhood (although this one is maybe 3 years into a 5 year buildout) seem to have more stable looking families and less of a bunch of unrelated people – at least when they are new. Of course, hard to predict what any neighborhood will look like in 10 or 15 years. Anyway, beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel – we probably will go back tomorrow and get pretty serious about something there. I liked what I saw – I think the problem is this neighborhood has moved away from traditional families like that, for whatever reason. They have a deal where they will arrange leasing your current house for up to 12 months if it takes you that long to sell it. So that seems to alleviate my fears about having to try to sell it quickly. Anyway, will see but feeling a bit more hopeful about things, and like what I saw of the mix of people – again including several Hispanic families out and about around the neighborhood. It was a nice day – so many people were outside today so a good way to get a look at who is living there. I have a feeling, if those kind of Hispanic families were in this neighborhood, it would not be like it is now. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen – at least near me, there doesn’t seem to be traditional Hispanic families in here (by that I meant parents with children, and maybe some other relatives). Instead, it all seems to be unrelated individuals, that are somewhat transient as the composition of the household seems to change quite often – at least the house next to me seems to maybe only have 1 or 2 of the original people in there at the time the house was sold to the latest owner 3 years ago.
For the record, we have no existing footage that shows a MWB person being hateful. The closest thing would be the lady who said kiss my ass which was posted on Nov. 2nd, 2007.
I want to say something about Mexicans Without Borders.
I’m sorry to say I had a negative impression of them at first, because of things I heard and, I guess, believed, most of which was said at the Aug. 28, 2007 Help Save Manassas meeting. Then, I actually met some of the people from MWB, and it turned out they were really nice, voicing their opinion in completely non-violent ways, and doing their best to hold together a fractured community. I didn’t give them a lot of “air” time in our videos because it really seemed to me the decisions our community needed to make hinged on the average voter and the Board of County Supervisors, and whether or not they would accept or reject the doctrines of Help Save Manassas.
We probably should have done more to debunk all the false rumors being spread around about MWB. But, even the most reasonable people had already assumed that MWB was radical and scary, in part based on their radical and semi-scary sounding name. And again, Prince William County was not deliberating a legislative agenda from MWB; the legislative agenda was from HSM.
Eric, would love to see you do a video where they discuss their ideologies, Zapatistas and all that stuff (with translations, of course). That’s the kind of education we all need to help build community.
Eric, I too have met several people from MWB and you’re right, they have been nice and while practicing some civil disobience, have worked to avoid confrontation as they havea learned and realized that to win the majority’s sympathy and/or support they cannot alienate that majority (as waving foreign flags did during protests two years ago). One of the difficulties I have is that in dicussions with them, they DO advocate no borders between specfically Mexico and the US. I have personally had John Steinback (sp?) tell me this. This concept to me is unworkable and a deal breaker. I also object to a group whose members (the vast majority) cannot vote trying to decide or influence county policies. We are a demoncracy and a participatory one at that and that right to participate and make decisions comes with being a citizen. Now I am supportive of some type of path to citizenship, but those that are not citizens should not be given the same weight or right to influence those policies that are to be ultimately decided by elected officials – officials that citizens voted in and can vote out.
Agreed, that is the big problem with MWB – their position is there are no borders between Mexico and the US. There is a reason that countries have borders, and for someone to say they won’t honor that, also makes me not interested in their position. As pointed out above, for them to influence US policy, without being citizens also isn’t right. Any current legal immigrant still has a path to go to get to citizenship and the right to vote – it is earned over time. Here people entering our country are trying to influence policy right away, and that isn’t right.
I’m also opposed to MWB’s position of no borders. I think we’ve got two types of immigrants. Temporary workers who want to come here to work and then go home should retain their citizenship to their country of origin. They should be protected under the law and subject to the law.
The second type of immigrant wants to come to stay. That’s great but they’ve got to make a sincere commitment if they want the country to commit to them. No dual citizenship. No North American Union. It’s not easy to build a nation. First thing thats necessary is that people gotta care about it.
It’s pretty arrogant for MWB to say we’ve got to erase our borders…obnoxious really. They give people like Greg LeTiecq ammunition.