Month: May 2008

According to the Wasington Post, the drop in ESOL students isn’t truly saving the schools the $6 million that Corey repeatedly suggests. If we remove the $2 million of additional state funding then the ‘savings’ start to look more like $4 million. At this point we start to reach numbers that according to Corey himself are insignificant in an $850+ million dollar budget. Of course, if the trend continues it could have an affect on school construction etc… This year’s double digit losses in real estate assessments combined with a staggering forecloser rate and an over abundance of homes on the market that now appear to be selling at dirt cheap prices leads me to believe next year’s assessments will again suffer debilitating losses. How does this translate into next year’s budget since schools are mainly funded through real estate assessment taxes, only time will tell.

State education aid is distributed to school systems according to poverty and enrollment data and provides nearly half of Prince William’s annual school funding. When students leave a school system, so does state funding. David S. Cline, director of financial services for Prince William schools, estimated that the reduction in state funding this school year because of the ESOL student exodus totaled $2 million. But the school system was unable to reduce spending accordingly because students left from many schools. Officials could not reduce teaching staff, for example, or send back textbooks.

The Washington Post has a front page story about a legal immigrant who was picked up by Immigration Customs Enforcement officials for a decade old conviction of buying stolen jewelry. She now sits in a detention facility thousands of miles from her family and is not receiving medical treatment for a cancer that she fears has returned. This seems to be yet another example of an immigration system gone awry, begging for some sanitiy.

According to WTOP,

Tighter security on Prince William County buses
May 11, 2008 – 6:44pm

WASHINGTON– If you ride the bus in Prince William County, you may notice tighter security Monday.
Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission, the agency, that operates buses in Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park has been on heightened alert since Saturday night.

Police say they received a call from somebody who made threatening references to the buses and the President of the United States. The caller mentioned something happening on Monday.

“Although the threat was non-specific and the police described the call as kind of rambling it did specifically mention PRTC buses,” says Christine Rodrigo of the agency.

She says the agency and police are taking the threat very seriously.

PRTC averages almost a daily ridership of 7,279 on its commuter bus services and an average daily ridership of 3,700 on its weekday local bus services.

Officials say bus services will operate as normal on Monday.

Police will be at the main transit center and bus drivers have been told to be extra observant on their routes tomorrow.

(Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

According to the InsideNova, as of late April, O’Meara’s Old Town Manassas Restaurant closed their doors after 5 years in business. Equally as shocking to learn was the radio duo of Don & Mike has ceased to exist. From what I’ve read Mike Source aka Don Geronimo has taken an early retirement. Some of you might be aware that Don’s wife was killed in an automobile accident a few years back and apparently has decided it too painful to continue with the show. Mike O’Meara apparently has decided to continue his radio show which can still be heard at 106.7 from 3-7pm.

Honestly, with 4 children – one being a teenager, I rarely get a chance to control the radio dial. We mostly end up listening to the ipod and the sirius satellite radio anyways and only occassionally end up using the regular radio. It’s sad to see an established radio show fold-up and also disappointing that a city restaurant has shutdown.

Kids destroying class projects and another teenager filing a false police report who’s now facing a Class 2 misdemeanor. What’s going on?

As word of the presence of ICE agents in the neighborhood spread, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums rushed over to Esperanza Elementary School, where a number of parents and community members had gathered.

Addressing them, the Mayor called the situation the “the ugly side of government.”

He labeled the ICE actions “inappropriate and unnecessary” and reiterated that children needed education, not harassment. “There should be no raids in Oakland,” he said.

Is this what has become of our great nation? A willingness of our government to intimidate parents through fear tactics in public schools? Have we been reduced to such base behavior? Say what you will about the illegal immigration, but NEVER, let me repeat, NEVER, should any government willingly strike fear within a child who has committed no crime!

http://www.alternet.org/rights/84718/

“How do we remain a country that is both diverse but also has a firm integration policy?”, asked Igor Tymofeyez, director of immigration policy and senior advisor for refugee and asylum affairs at the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. This question of U.S. identity has occurred since the early 20th century. At this time, immigration was based upon a quota system. Immigration from Northern and Western Europe was encouraged, while Jews and Latin Americans were discouraged from coming to the United States. As Stephen Pitt, professor of history and American studies at Yale University noted, “there was a fear of cultural assimilation”. In the 1960’s, with the passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration Bill of 1965, family unifcation became the overriding principal of immigration. This focus continued in the Immigration Reform and Control(IRCA) of 1986, the basis of our current immigration policy.

Panelists argue that IRCA put polices into place that led to the current large population of illegal immigrants in the United States today. While the law offered amnesty to anyone how had resided in the United States since before 1982, it cut off any future flow of legal immigrants. Yet people were still drawn to the United States for jobs that were readily available. The magnet was work says Myers. In addition, political turmoil and revolutions in Central America, massive structural adjustments in Mexican economy, and the increased numbers of foreign owned factories along the U.S. – Mexican border that employ Mexican workers, all acted as “push factors”, driving people into the United States.

Because U.S. immigration policy made it so difficult to gain citizenship, it artificially built up an undocumented population.

These are excerpts from an article on an immigration symposium.  I found the article very informative and truly gained insight into the dynamics of this complicated issue.  What I liked best, was that a need was identified to have an open process regarding immigration a need to flexible.  Immigration policy is not a one time fix, but most be monitored constantly to ascertain, what  policies are working and what is no longer effective. 

http://www.cfr.org/content/meetings/immigration_symposium_summary.pdf

I keep checking all the major networks, certain that the headlines will soon read – Clinton Concedes. However, no matter how many times I reload the page, that headline will simply not appear. In fact, what does jump out at me is that she loaned her campaign somewhere around $6.5 million last month. Yikes! She won’t say ‘Uncle’ no matter how tightly her arm gets twisted but it’s about time that someone calls the match. From all the mark-ups of possible scenarios it now appears impossible that she will catch-up to Obama, so it seems reasonable that she would resign herself to that fact and bow out gracefully. Can someone talk some sense into her, please?

Manassas City

RACE	CANDIDATE	VOTE	VOTE%
Member, City Council (MANASSAS CITY)	Steven S. Smith	1,238	32.93%
	Jonathan L. “Jon” Way	1,199	31.89%
	Mark D. Wolfe	1,234	32.82%
	Write In	88	2.34%

RACE	CANDIDATE	VOTE	VOTE%
Member, School Board (MANASSAS CITY)	Scott M. Albrecht	1,092	20.89%
	Sheryl L. Bass	1,163	22.24%
	Arthur P. Bushnell	1,019	19.49%
	Kermit Holmes Dance	998	19.09%
	Edward W. Pratt, Jr.	910	17.40%
	Write In	45	0.86%

RACE	CANDIDATE	VOTE	VOTE%
Mayor (MANASSAS CITY)	Harry J. “Hal” Parrish II	1,422	95.88%
	Write In	61	4.11%

Herndon

RACE	CANDIDATE	VOTE	VOTE%
Mayor – Herndon (FAIRFAX COUNTY – HERNDON)	Steve J. DeBenedittis	1,313	52.43%
	J. Harlon Reece	940	37.53%
	Jasbinder Singh	250	9.98%
	Write In	1	0.03%

Haymarket

RACE	CANDIDATE	VOTE	VOTE%
Mayor, Town of Haymarket (PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY – HAYMARKET)	Pam E. Stutz	93	75%
	Write In	31	25%

RACE	CANDIDATE	VOTE	VOTE%
Member, Town Council – Haymarket PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY – HAYMARKET)	John C. Cole	84	12.31%
	Susan E. Edwards	85	12.46%
	Bryan A. Garcia	49	7.18%
	Christopher A. Johnson	31	4.54%
	Charles F. King, Jr.	37	5.42%
	David M. Leake	60	8.79%
	Sean Roberts	40	5.86%
	Susan M. Shuryn	67	9.82%
	James E. “Jay” Tobias	31	4.54%
	Oswald Vazquez	69	10.11%
	Robert B. “Bob” Weir	75	10.99%
	Write In	54	7.91%

Occoquan

RACE	CANDIDATE	VOTE	VOTE%
Mayor, Town of Occoquan (PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY – OCCOQUAN)	Earnest W. Porta, Jr.	125	96.89%
	Write In	4	3.10%

Wow, does this read like a horrible deja vu nightmare?!  The similarities are striking:

*Help Save…….Maryland

*Deny services to children by initating legal status confirmation (original resolution laguage written by Robert Duecaster with help of IRLI(FAIR) )

*Citizen concern about overcrowding/neighborhood issues

*Racial profiling concerns

*A Chief of Police who advocates community outreach to immigrant communities

Until now, the county has handled the influx with outreach classes in schools and community policing programs. Chic Hispanic restaurants flourish in downtown Frederick, and working-class Latinos have remained relatively invisible.

Suddenly, however, their presence is igniting a controversy that some fear could escalate into the kind of war over illegal immigration that has torn apart Prince William County. In the past month, the Frederick County sheriff has joined with federal authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants, and county commissioners have proposed legislation to ban free translation of county business and require public schools to track down students who are in the United States illegally.

“The single biggest threat to our country is the immigration problem. We cannot continue to absorb this population or we will end up in collapse like a Third World country,” said Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, whose officers have identified 18 illegal immigrants in the past two weeks after traffic stops or other incidents. “We are not going out in a white van with a big net, but we are getting the criminal element of the illegal population out of Frederick County.”

Local opponents of the measures, including black, white and Hispanic residents, say the crackdown and other proposed actions smack of racism and political grandstanding.

Help Save Maryland, a rapidly growing citizens group that opposes illegal immigration, has supported the crackdown in group e-mails, radio interviews and newspaper columns. The coordinator of the Frederick chapter has accused opponents of “playing the race card.”

Frederick Police Chief Kim Dine, who is white, spent years in Washington’s Latino neighborhoods and is an advocate of police outreach in the community. County Board of Education Chairman Daryl Boffman, who is black, has worked to promote the kind of educational boosts for immigrant students that once helped him get ahead.

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/05/AR2008050502405.html

Herndon holds elections today and all eyes are on the race for Mayor. Harlon Reece looks to be a consensus builder and hopefully if elected will be able to turn around Herndon’s reputation.

As far as I’m concerned, this one is a no-brainer. The next President regardless of whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat, will, at a minimum, need to address these minor children who consider themselves Americans. This will be the third, and I believe succesfull attempt at legislating the “Dream Act.” It is my desire that there will be Comprehensive Immigration Reform and not just a ‘quick fix’ attempt to resolve our immigration problems.

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