Part I
Part II
72 Thoughts to “Deane’s ‘Illegal Immigration’ Update”
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Blogroll
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- Bacons' Rebellion Blogspot
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- Citizen Tom
- Counts of Monte Cristo. The
- Derecho, The
- Dixie Pig, The
- My Side of the Fence
- My Star Journey
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- New Dominion Project
- Nova Common Sense
- NovaTownHall Blog
- One Libertarians's Point of View by Al Alborn
- Pete Candland's Blog
- Potomac Local
- Prince William Muckraker
- PW Conservation Alliance
- PWC Moms
- PWCPolitics.com
- PWCPolitics.com
- Red NoVA
- Shad Plank, The
- She the People
- State of NoVA, the
- The Jeffersoniad
- Townhall
- VEA Daily Reports
- VivianPaige
- WDGolden.com
- You, Me and the Lamp Post
lOOKS LIKE A PRETTY TOUGH CRACKDOWN TO ME. (SORRY ABOUT CAPS)
Thanks for posting the video. Now I can sit back and watch as folks here start twisting the actual words that were forever captured, and can’t be denied. This should at least quell further speculation about the policy. Now if only the illegals had internet access, and could understand English! Unfortunately this will probably be relayed to them through an interpreter with a different agenda.
Chief Deane is a true professional. I have a lot of respect for him. And I understand what he is saying: if you get arrested, then you will get your status checked, no matter who you are. If you are driving without a license, same thing. If you go to jail, same thing. Hey, that is fair and clearly stated now—no mandate from the BOCS telling cops how to do their jobs.
But the irony, is we never needed to spend this much money so the cops could do their jobs! And now the cops have to run community meetings all over again. Meanwhile, programs Manassas Day Care for the elderly are getting axed. Come on. There has to be a little government accountability here.
Sounds like both sides are happy,so I completely agree with KG that it is fair and clearly stated now.
As long as both sides are okay with what was passed, isn’t that a good thing? I certainly hope we don’t go into the “they are just faking happiness because they are mad they lost and trying to save face” stuff again.
Frankly both sides are so passionate about this issue, I can’t see either side “faking” just so they can say they won. Both sides would be hoppin mad if they thought the end solution was unworkable. And neither group is shy about sharing their view.
Maybe with Chief Deane’s clarification, we can cease to be two sides, and instead come together to make PWC a great place to live!
Great! We finally have the right policy in place.
Those who are here ILLEGALLY will be noted when caught, and face real threat of deportation. That’s all most of us ever wanted.
Now we just have to keep amnesty as the third rail of American politics, by letting our elitist scumbag representatives know how we feel about it every time they raise the possibility.
This problem is not intractible and was always solvable.
I agree that Chief Deane is a professional and I also have a lot of respect for him. I believe this is what he said all along. If one gets arrested, is driving without a license then status will be checked, no matter who you are. If you go to jail the ADC will check status.
I agree with kgotthardt the Co did not need to spend so much money on this initiative. As far as I kow the police were doing their job all along. They have been and will continue to arrest criminals.
I still do not understand why the Manassas Day Care for the elderly is getting cut. $150,000 is chump change in the scheme of things. Can someone tell me if it is a done deal or will the BOCS reconsider and find $150,000?
Agreed that the policy sounds good. But I beg to differ that in the past (before the resolution was passed) those driving without a license were arrested and had their status checked. From what I read that wasn’t true, they were just issued citations and went to court (assuming they showed up there) and were fined (I don’t believe there’s any kind of mandatory jail sentence for driving without a license). I’ve read too many stories about people being in car accidents with unlicensed and uninsured drivers, and it never seemed that there was much consequences to the unlicensed/uninsured drivers. So I’m glad the policy makes that clear – that if caught doing that, your status will be checked.
Anon, I’m not sure that much will change. A person’s status may be checked and perhaps someone wanted on a serious charge will be picked up, but I’d guess that most people who would have been released with just a citation will continue to be released. As I said in another thread, ICE has limited resources; the ADC has limited space; PWC has limited funds to farm out prisoners; and as more localities use the 287(g) program, resources will be further strained. I suspect most people not guilty of serious offenses will be released and told to get their paperwork in order. If anyone is expecting to see massive deportations, he/she will be sorely disappointed.
I’m happy and I’ll be happier when I see more flop houses vacated. Also, I haven’t seen a hit and run in months. Just a year ago I was seeing at least 1 car every couple of weeks parked on the street get creamed overnight. Obviously, I couldn’t tell you whether or not the perp was an illegal alien as the perp is never there in the morning. But, again, I haven’t seen one in months. The last casualty I’ve witnessed was the tree in my front yard and the assortment of broken car parts in front of it the drunk driver fairy left for me. That was months ago. The really bad element in the two flop houses in front of me have left. My fiance and daughter feel safer in the front yard. Things are looking up.
I’m not surprised that the Anti-Immigrant Clones are so easily manipulated, but I thought I remembered there were some intelligent people on this blog also towing the Anti-Immigrant Lobby line. So much for that idea.
Please tell us more about how the repeal of “Probable Cause” is such a great victory for The Greg&Corey Show. The sequel is even more entertaining than the original!
No one who is on the side of justice will be faking that we have “won.”
Entire families have fled the county just because an aunt or uncle was still waiting for papers to come through. An entire community has been chased away and many of those who remain now think it is acceptable to be racist, as long as Hispanics are the target. Our economy and our housing market have been destroyed, especially in contrast to neighboring counties who will all recover faster than the county whose reputation has sunk to the point that people outside the bubble make faces, roll their eyes, and groan at the mention of the words “Prince William County.” No, we will not be claiming victory for a long time. We will be working toward it though.
The “just faking happiness because they are mad they lost and trying to save face” topic comes up, Inon, because the Greg&Corey Show is orchestrating a charade. You don’t have to read my posts to know this. You just have to look at the recent statements the two have made. They have alternated between “this change is horrible we must change it”
http://www.nbc4.com/news/16331778/detail.html
and “this change is great, we love it, don’t pay any attention to what I said yesterday.”
I’m not complaining about this. I’m just observing. It’s fun to watch them squirm.
Whatever. As long as the illegals leave. Which is happening.
Censored – you may indeed be right – but my point was before the resolution, someone driving without a license didn’t even have their status checked. At least that’s a step in the right direction, and MIGHT get some of these people to at least become lawful residents. I’m sure anyone who’s been in an auto accident with an uninsured/unlicensed drive knows what a horrible thing it is – there’s no collecting any money from that person, obviously (not from insurance) and good luck suing them – they probably don’t have any money anyway! So to me that’s a step in the right direction. I know someone who got hit by an illegal alien who had no insurance/driver’s license, and had huge hospital bills and had to fight with their own insurance company to pay them – as there was no other insurance company to sue since the other person was uninsured and had no driver’s license! OK, we don’t know if he was an illegal alien as this happened 2 years ago, but I would highly suspect he was – or else why was he driving around uninsured and unlicensed?
Mando – I’m glad in your neigbhborhood the flophouses are being vacated. Wish I could say the same in mine – or at least the one on one side of my townhouse. While some residents may have changed – that is nothing new – they come and go and from one month to the next I can’t keep track of who’s there.
Actually, my townhouse will be up for rent for $1350/month come November 1 most likely. Any takers who’d like to live in it? I keep reading how people think the kinds of problems in my neighborhood could easily be recitified by simple outreach! Not with flophouses – maybe with some other more traditional FAMILIES of immigrants, which sadly don’t seem to be the kind of immigrants settling in my neighborhood any more (they once were – and they seemed to be perfexctly fine but that was 5 years ago or so).
“I’m not surprised that the Anti-Immigrant Clones are so easily manipulated, but I thought I remembered there were some intelligent people on this blog also towing the Anti-Immigrant Lobby line. So much for that idea.”
Thanks for reaffirming for me there really is no hope for this blog. Saves me alot of time and headache.
Flophouses…what is your county/city doing about them? Give us an update. What happens when you call in a complaint several times? And whom are you speaking to? Have you gone over their heads? You should if you don’t get results if indeed these really are flop-houses and as bad as you say they are.
With or without Probable Cause, the Greg&Corey Show would have gone down in history as the cabal that destroyed a county, and damaged the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people for years if not decades to come.
What the repeal of Probable Cause ACTUALLY means, is that the general public will come to this consensus a lot sooner. That’s what this spin war is about.
With the repeal of Probable Cause, we have a historical record that five Board members realized they’d made a horrible mistake and began trying to correct it almost immediately, including the 8-0 unanimous vote to repeal Probable Cause.
The responsible members of the Board of Supervisors will continue trying to dig us out of the whole the Greg&Corey Show has created. This is only the beginning. More measures will follow I assure you. When the humiliation becomes too much to bear, Gospel Greg will move on to poison some other town like the sick circus act he is. But Corey Stewart is stuck in this position where he has no future in higher office, where he wants to resign, but he can’t. He can’t because over the next three years, he’ll be using every ounce of power he’s got… just to limit the embarrassment of taking responsibility for what he’s done.
That’s what this spin war is about. And it’s just the beginning.
kgotthardt – I think I’ve commented on the flophouses before. The City of Manassas is EXTREMELY reticent now to enforce any kind of restrictions on them thanks to the lawsuits over their definition of family. I know I discussed this earlier. And I know people disagreed with me. However, I have tried to get things resolved with the flophouse next to me, and for awhile was succeeding (for periods of times 1 or 2 years back) but then of course came the lawsuit. Now, the city told me they need to do a LOT of investigation – 6 months or so – before they would cite any house for violations. Yes, the process IS undergoing for the one next to me – but in the past (multiple times) when I complained, the city acted right away. That is why (and I know others on this blog will vehemently disagree with the following statement): it angers me that the city’s attempt to handle flophouses by defining numbers of people in a family who could live together, was defeated by people who probably NEVER EVER had to suffer with what I have had to endure. I blame THEM for what I’ve personally had to endure – the crime that I’ve well documented on here.
Anyway, sorry, it just gets me very “spun up” every time I think about it. I’d like to file a lawsuit and sue the people who made these lawsuits, for all the money it cost me (LOTS) from what happened with the break-in to my townhouse by a person living in the flophouse next to me. It has raised my homeowner’s insurance rate by 20%, as well as I lost the $500 in deductible for theft that my policy provides. Not to mention just the pure personal discomfort of having one’s home broken into and sense of security invaded.
Anyway, I’m just repeating other posts I’ve made and kind of get tired of repeating myself. It is an issue I’m very opinionated on, and I resent other people who filed these lawsuits, who probably wouldn’t recognize a flophouse if they walked inside the front door of one!
Sorry, this is an issue I feel very strongly about – and I know in the past I’ve been told it was perfectly right for these lawsuits to happen against the City! Sorry, I beg to disagree. Do you know how many people can live in a 3 bedroom 3 story townhouse and NOT violate fire/safety ordinances? The number is 9 people – believe it or not!
Those lawsuits were backed up by the Department of Justice. The rich get richer and this President’s administration is very committed to seeing that happen. At the cost of law and order and our neighborhoods.
And believe me, I’ve gone way up in the City government and it is the old saying “You can’t fight City Hall”. And quite frankly, I’m not interested in spending inordinant amounts of time trying to get the issue resolved with the city. Why should I? I believe in picking my battles, and I’ve concluded thanks to the kind folks who inundated the city with lawsuits over this issue, this is one battle that is not winnable. I’m not interested in investing my time and energy in it – I’ve invested far too much already and feel like I’m up against a brick wall. Anyway, in the past when the city addressed that townhouse, they cleared out for 2-3 months and just came back. Believe me, I reported that townhouse 5 different occaisions starting about 2 1/2 years back. It is a truly unwinnable battle, when you have law breakers who purposely vacate for a few months, and then come back. So it isn’t just the city that’s to blame – it is the people who think after a few months they can “sneak back in” and turn it right back into the flophouse it was 2-3 months ago.
Again, I think a lot of people here seem to think a magic wand will be waived, and a flophouse will cease to exist. It is like a cancer, that you can treat with chemotherapy, but keeps coming back again and again! And unfortunately, due to that cancer not being eradicated next to me, I personally suffered the consequences.
Rick – definitely agree with your comment. It is a very sad commentary on our society, unfortunately. The people who filed these lawsuits were very far removed from having to live next to flophouses, yet they decided the issue for those of us who deal with them on a daily basis. How is that fair? But that’s the way out society works, and I’ve learned to just accept it. I’m a realist, and there are some things I dislike, but have learned they just aren’t going to change. The City of Manassas will never be able to address flophouses properly now, thanks to those lawsuits.
And just to deflect the inveitable “why don’t you get more involved in the Manassas City government” – I’ve chosen a better path – moving the heck out of there and away from the flophouse next to me which I’ve decided isn’t going to go away, if it hasn’t after 2 1/2 years of it being an off and on flophouse. So I will cease to be a city resident, and actually become a Prince William County resident – so I’m sure I’ll get frustrated with the Prince Wiliam County gov’t too. But I’m moving to a fairly brand new neighborhood – which it might shock some when I say I do see some nice looking Hispanic families walking around and about on the weekends – but I have absolutely no problem with that. What I don’t see there are flophouses, busted up beer bottles and other debris, and loud music playing (even during the daytime it is nice and quiet there). Believe me, I spent a lot of time investigating this neighborhood at all hours of the day and night. Of course might it degrade in 5 or 10 years from now? Possibly, but hopefully not – guess time will tell. Anyway, at least for the forseeable future I’ll have some peace and quiet, which I lack in my current situation. If you were constantly sleep deprived from loud music in the house next to you all hours of the night – and tired of calling the police to stop it (as soon as the police leaves it starts up again) you’d be pretty cranky too! From a quality of life point of view, the only thing keeping me sane is seeing the day I move to the new house inch ever closer and closer!
anon I feel for you. If had the money, I would have moved out of my neighborhood a year or so ago.
But, in PWC, it’s better now and I’m content. So yeah my house isn’t worth the biggest dollar amount 15 illegal aliens can afford on a guaranteed government loan, anymore. I’m still much happier.
So much more of this urban flight has gone on than anyone seems to realize or report on. The WaPo and many people are conditioned to believe that were it not for an influx of immigrants no one would buy homes here.
I personally know several people who moved out of my neighborhood because of what was happening to it.
If the exodus of an undesirable population is your primary interest, well then, yes, you should have celebrated a few months ago when the houses emptied and the stores closed down. The lack of brown faces at the bus stop must have delighted you too. But, if you have any ability to see a forest in a all these fallen trees, you will one day be ashamed to admit you advocated for this catastrophe… incognito … on a blog.
Rick – I stupidly hung in there even when I really did have the money – I should have moved out 3 years ago when I saw the downhill trend starting. Then again, I think I’ve gotten a good deal on a new house – and while I will rent this house out for a few years rather than sell it at a ridiculously low price (I’ve got two foreclosures sitting directly across the street from me that were former flophouses – but ceased to be around last September). In a few years I hope to sell and get out of this neighborhood completely. Then, maybe in the long run I’ll have been lucky, as I think I’m buying sort of at the bottom and with interest rates relatively low, and if I can sell once prices recover and all the foreclosures are off the books, maybe it will somehow work to my advantage in the long run. I don’t like having to rent out my current house – I’d rather just sell it and walk away from it – but even though right now I’d be selling and making a profit, I just hate to sell it for such a ridiculously low price. And there’s the added risk that I might not be able to sell by mid-to-late October – and there’s no way I can afford the new house without either selling the current one or renting it out. Fortunately the builder has a guaranteed lease program so that’s the route I’ve decided to go, rather than trying to put it up for sale. I have no idea when those foreclosures are going to be snapped up – and also it is hard to sell my house with the flophouse next door – they put a huge amount of their furniture out on the deck (yes, I’m waiting for it to collapse under the weight) – because I guess they didn’t have room for it with all the occupants. So it is a real eyesore, and would make my house even harder to sell. I’m talking about an entire dining room set (not just the table but the rest of it too!) out there on their deck. It’s an old one obviously, but is even getting more and more weathered looking – I guess the logic is it is so old, why not stick it out on the deck so there can be more space for even more “bunkers” in the flophouse!
To WHWN: If your comment was directed at me: Here we go again – same old rhetoric. I’ll celebrate the day when the flophouse next to me empties – along with the criminals in it that broke in and stole from my house. While only one resident was positively identified by a neighbor, I’m sure others in that flophouse participated in the break-in. I’m sure others in my neighborhood (including the neighbor who happened to see the break-in in progress, called the police, and has had retaliation in the form of rocks thrown against his house in the middle of the night) will celebrate too, if that flophouse ever vacates. Then again, that flophouse is like a cancer that you can’t make go away – report it to the city – they get it fixed, then it comes back 2 months later. Then, the city gets sued for the definition of family, and now they won’t make much of a move against it.
Some people here just don’t get it – or they don’t have to deal with the flophouses and the resulting crime and neighborhood problems that come with it.
I guess it is convenient for them to make ridiculous statements like “If the exodus of an undesirable population is your primary interest, well then, yes, you should have celebrated a few months ago when the houses emptied and the stores closed down. The lack of brown faces at the bus stop must have delighted you too.” More of this hateful rhetoric that is continually spewed forth on this website, and trying to lump some of us who are justifyably angered at what is happening in our neighborhoods – with Greg and the BVBL stuff.
And in case anyone claims the two former flophouses were vacated as a result of the resolution:
1. First of all they are in the City of Manassas.
2. Second, a review of the City of Manassas Tax Assessment website shows they were both bought at ridiculously high prices about 2 1/2 years ago (townhouses bought for $350,000 and $360,000 respectively) by owners with Hispanic surnames. Nothing against that, but I don’t even know if the people who bought them ever lived in them or just turned them into flophouses for other Hispanics. Given who was living there – it is doubtful they could have afforded a $350,000 mortgage – they mostly seemed to work for some concrete company that would pick them up at the crack of dawn (5:30 AM in the morning when I was getting ready to go to work). I think simple economics drove those flophouses into foreclosure – they were probably bought on adjustable rate mortgages and the rate skyrocketed such that the buyer could no longer afford the mortgage. Guess what those houses are going for now under foreclosure: both are listed at $170,000! So I’d have to price my house like those to sell them, and while I bought it for much less in 1985 when it was new, I’m loathe to sell it for such a low price as $170,000 when I could have sold it for $350K 2 years ago. I don’t expect it to ever get back to $350K – but hope in a few years I can sell it for something above $200K and then I’d be happy.
Anon, no I wasn’t talking about you. I can see you’re interested in distancing yourself from the Greg Letiecq crowd, that’s great. I value you perspective. Please continue to be outspoken, even more than you are now if possible. We will all benefit if we can marginalize the the Anti-Immigrant Lobby. The majority of us who oppose illegal immigration and/or wish to solve neighborhood problems (that may or may not be related to illegal immigration). The problem is this Lobby has hijacked our sentiment and used it for the purposes of the Immigration laboratory experiment under which we are suffering now.
After the Republican defeats of 2006, some crafty lobbyists convinced a heck of a lot of people that the only way for Republicans to win in 2008 was to stir up hatred based on the immigration issue. Those who bought into this totally immersed themselves in outrageously false rhetoric (we’re being invaded, they don’t pay taxes, they are all criminals, their children are parasites not children, they drain our social services, they don’t learn English, etc.).
Now that it turns out Republicans DON’T need anti-immigrant hate to win the White House, but some of the blindly converted are unable to let go. These are the people I’m speaking to. And you, Anon, can help me reach them.
People like you who became interested in the PWC Immigration Resolution because of neighborhood issues are well-intentioned, and probably never imagined they would be getting mixed up with racists and nativists. Essentially, you and me, and many others were taken advantage of by political opportunist. Many of us now see the consequences and regret what has happened. Even if you think the emptying of a “flop house” next door is worth the economic disaster this policy has caused, if you never were motivated by hate, then the time is now to speak out against those who were.
Hi All,
Please forgive the length of this post. I called the DMV to inquire about this new law and drivers licenses and they sent me over to the PWC police. I reached someone at PWC police and they sent me to their ‘Desk Officer’. Then this ‘Desk Officer’ sent me to another officer who I could finally answer my questions, or so I thought.
I asked him many questions about the current situation and we got to the point where I thought I had established the following:
If you are jogging down the street and you left your ID at home, and you cross the street improperly and commit jaywalking, the police can stop you and ask for ID. If you don’t have ID on you and you give your name and DOB and the officer can’t prove who you are by checking his system, he can detain you and take you to the station where they run you through a system called the livescan system that checks your fingerprints (if you’re driving and commit a violation, your car is impounded and you are pay for the impoundment). If the system can’t prove who you are, then you are under arrest and referred to the magistrate who can keep you locked up indefinitely. The magistrate is supposed to give you a time to be brought before a judge at the first available day. Usually this is in 1 day. However, this is still at the magistrate’s discretion. So theoretically, you could be in prison for weeks or months for jaywalking. Let’s say the police know you because you’ve been asking many questions about the details of the immigration law. As citizens we are supposed to know what the law is. Remember ignorance of the law is no defense in court. Let’s say the police don’t like you because you’ve been asking so many questions. Do you think perhaps the magistrate may choose to incarcerate you for a month just to punish you? What happens to your job and, consequently, your ability to protect, feed, and provide medical care for your children when you’re in jail for a month or more for jaywalking?
If you think this is just a joke, it happens to real people who exercise their rights. Check here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbgR7L0nYA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xndEhn8EUdc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY3BTYnf8FM&feature=user
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oYysrzLsnM&feature=related
I started to ask him about how the new immigration laws might affect the jaywalking situation we were talking about. I asked him a few questions and then I paraphrased what I thought the Officer had said to me and said it back to him. I wanted to make sure he heard what I was hearing.
What I was hearing, was that if you don’t have ID and you tell the Officer your name and DOB but refuse to answer the immigration status questions, you can be arrested. When I said this back to the Officer, he became very upset. He said that’s not what he said. He refused to explain further to clear up the confusion. Then he began to berate me for asking so many questions. He said If I’m a reporter I can talk to someone else. I told him I wasn’t a reporter. He angrily asked for my name. I asked for his name. He gave his name (I won’t post it) then he said he would hang up unless I gave him my name. I asked him to please spell his last name. He refused. I asked him to please give me his badge number. He refused. Then he hung up while I asked for his badge number again.
Remember, you are liable in court, if you don’t know what the law is. Ignorance of the law is no defense. However, if you dare to ask questions, so that you may know exactly what the law is, this particular officer will hang up on you. If police officers refuse to tell you what the law is, how can you know if you’re obeying the law or violating it?
And why do you think he asked my name? Could it be, that from that point forward i would be a person of ‘special interest’ and receive ‘special attention’ anytime I interacted with the PWCPD?
A few years ago, I would have told him my name immediately, thinking that there wouldn’t be repercussions for just asking questions about the details of the law. Since then I’ve learned that there are repercussions if you try to protect yourself against police abuse. Anonymity is your first line of defense when it comes to protecting your freedom. It really sucks, but this is the truth.
You guys confused yet???
Confusion breeds fear doesn’t it…
Please share your thoughts. All I did was ask questions.
“But the irony, is we never needed to spend this much money so the cops could do their jobs!”
How much money was spent?
Anon, I think you and Rick both have very valid reasons to be angry. The situation affects your quality of life and it has cost you thousands of dollars. I honestly believe you would be just as angry if the faces were purple. I am not sure there is an answer.
Many things came together at the same time to create some really horrible situations.
Is your HOA the least bit responsible?
——————————————————————————————————–
What on earth is wrong over in Point of Woods? There appears to be trash bags that aren’t being picked up. The place looks like hell when you drive through on the main drag. I hate to think what it looks like if you drive off Liberia.
Lots of money was spent. Its not cheap to train 500+ officers within a two or three month period. Every hour spent in the class room is salaried and they are not out doing what they are hired to do.
1) 8 hours of training X 500 hours = 4000 hours of training. Take into account the average salary (the mean of the department) and the cost is $200,000.00
2) Hiring of 6 for the Criminal Alien Unit – Approximately (salaries only) = $240,000.00
3) 4 weeks of salary while the CAU officers were trained out of State = $23,800.00
TOTAL = $463,800.00 of taxpayer money.
Now these costs are ballpark but they are pretty close. These expenses DO NOT include the hiring of a Civilian Crime Analyst for the Criminal Alien Unit NOR do they include any of the overtime costs to supplement the Patrol Squads for Immigration enforcement so there would be enough officers to meet minimum staffing and answer calls for service. These two items are high money investments and I don’t have those figures – yet. But I’ll get them.
That enough for you Anony?
WHWN: Actually I’ve never associated myself with Greg, although on here I was labeled from day one as a “Greg clone” and somehow from day one I’ve for whatever reason had to constantly make statements like “I do not agree with what Greg says” or “I am not a member of HSM”, etc. etc. So this is nothing new – and it is kind of sad that I have to keep making those claims.
Moon-howler: I live in Point of Woods (now you understand my frustration). The trash bags are actually efforts to clean the place up with all the broken bottles and junk strewn about – but for whatever reason the City won’t collect them. I was one of those trying to do that, but long ago gave up, but other residents are. They are probably like me – they refuse to put the trash bags on their own properties as part of their trash out for collection!
Anyway, Point of Woods is a DISGRACE – and now you see why I’m moving out of there. My new house will be ready mid-October at the soonest, and it can’t come fast enough for me. And yes, I live off of Liberia (actually off of Stonewall Road near the woods with Stonewall Park behind me) and where I live is a total disgrace. It is a minefield of broken beer bottles, paper trash, discarded food, and so on. Unfortunately much of it is on city property (Stonewall Park) and I’ve made repeated calls to the city to try and get it cleaned up. I used to like to walk my dog down there, but now it is too dangerous as there is nowhere to walk her where there isn’t broken pieces of glass. Not only is Point of Woods a disgrace, Stonewall Park is too. And usually during the day there’s lots of people blaring loud music in their cars parked there – which is easily heard from inside my townhouse even with the windows shut. It used to be a very nice place to live, but has been overrun by people who seem to not take any pride in it. The police will sometimes come down there and get people to shut down the loud music emanating from their cars, but rarely do they catch anyone in the act of breaking beer bottles and things like that. And unfortunately behind my townhouse is a path that people use to get to the park, and it too is strewn with litter and debris. There’s nothing like rotting food to help bring all kinds of disease and stuff – but for whatever reason all kinds of leftover food is discarded in the woods and the path behind my townhouse. Some of the perpretrators are the nice folks in the flophouse next to me, but others are just people who come to the park and apparently have no regard for trashing it. They may be enjoying the park, but why do they have to toss their empty beer bottles in the street and the sidewalks, toss discarded food wrappers and so on, and even just paper trash.
Well, I agree with your comment on Point of Woods, and I’m personally embarrassed to be a resident there, which I won’t be for long!
And yes I forgot to say that I agree with you Moon-howler – I’d be just as angry no matter what the ethnicity were of the perpretators. But unfortunately, the great majority of them appear to be Hispanic.
And forget Point of Woods HOA – I wouldn’t give them the dignity by even calling them a responsible organization. They ignore the stuff happening in the neighborhood, and their meetings – the few I’ve attended, were such a joke. Then again, the complaints they had to put up with at the meetings from people who wanted to be granted extra parking spaces for their many cars, and other exceptions and special privelidges – I could not deal with – which is why there’s no way I’d want to get involved with being on the homeowner’s association board. I guess that makes me apathetic, but really – I see no turning around Point of Woods, as there are a bunch of residents that are generally not interested in following any kind of social norms – as otherwise they wouldn’t be trashing up the place like is being done. The one playground that got completely destroyed recently and plastered with gang symbols is an excellent example. It would not surprise me if those who did it were residents of Point of Woods getting some kind of sick pleasure out of trashing the playground. They trash the neighborhood too with the broken beer bottles and stuff, so to me I don’t see it much of a stretch to think they trashed the playground too.
Anyway, Point of Woods hasn’t been a pleasant place to live for about 3 years now, and I kind of ask myself from time to time why I was so stupid to stay so long there – I would have been smarter to have left 3 years ago when it started going downhill. Anyway, I’m glad I’ll be exiting there in hopefully 4 1/2 months (starting to count down the days) although I’ll still have a toe in there since I’ll be renting my house out, unfortunately for the near term (or more realistically another few years until prices hopefully recover, providing the neighborhood hasn’t completely degenerated by then and the prices fallen even more!).
Anon, I helped do a spring cleanup in Point of Woods near Stonewall Park last April — just a spontaneous neighbors helping neighbors thing and we were pulling used motor oil, tires, beer bottles and worse out of the streambeds there. I’ve been cleaning up trash on Liberia, Kirby St, Artillery, Cavalry, Landgreen and Weems almost daily since then and sometimes it is depressing, but it looks better than it did back in July 2007 when I first started. I have more hope. I think there are answers, we just need to take a few action steps and see what happens.
Here’s an opportunity to say what you think:
Prince William Study Circles on Immigration
You are invited to a kick-off meeting for Prince William Study Circles on Immigration at the George Mason University Prince William campus. It will take place on Tuesday June 10, from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm. We will meet in the Occoquan Building’s Verizon Auditorium. Links to a map and directions are on http://www.cvdnva.org. Register on the website.
The purpose of Study Circles is to help a community find ways for all kinds of people to think, talk and work together to solve problems. At our kick-off meeting we will conduct a mock study circle to provide you with first-hand experience. We will then plan a pilot circle, which will be conducted in either six weekly two-hour sessions, or on a single Saturday. The goal for the pilot will be to attract a diverse group of Prince William County participants, i.e., one that includes people who have concerns about the problems of immigration from the immigrant and non-immigrant sides, and who seek a way to discuss and do something about those problems.
The kick-off meeting is open to the public. We hope you will come, and that you will help us to recruit a diverse group from the Prince William County community. Those who will attend are asked to rsvp by e-mail (to [email protected]) or, by calling 703-927-0531.
Charvis Campbell of George Mason University and Beth Offenbacker and Bill Corbett of the Center for Voter Deliberation of Northern Virginia will co-convene this event with the support of Everyday Democracy. Everyday Democracy was created as the Study Circles Resource Center in 1989 by The Paul J. Aicher Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Since then it has worked with more than 550 communities across the United States on many different public issues. John Landesman of Everyday Democracy will facilitate the meeting.
I went to the preliminary forum a few weeks ago and it was very interesting, eye opening, but also a chance to vent.
Cindy B: OK, glad to hear that. I did something similar back in 2006, but things quickly returned to the way they are now. I know what you mean about what is down by the stream in the woods between the townhouses and the park (and actually that technically is part of Stonewall Park – at least by my definition of it). Kind of amazing what is tossed down there. Unfortunately my townhouse – the back of it faces those woods and the stream isn’t too far from it. Actually just in the woods there is a huge amount of trash – even trash bags that weren’t tied up and for whatever reason dumped back there. (Why someone goes to that length to dump trash – when it is much easier to just put it in front of one’s house for pickup – is beyond me).
At one point about half a year ago someone unloaded an old refrigerator back there which I could see from my townhouse through the woods (it was winter time and the leaves were off the trees). I did get the city to come and remove it, as it was really an eyesore. It is part of why I finally decided it was time to leave Point of Woods – the view out my living room which overlooks the woods used to be very pretty, and the reason I bought my townhouse as I liked the view. Now, it is kind of a view of a trash dump, unfortunately. Fairly depressing, and I really don’t see it turning around – anytime it is cleaned up within months it is right back the way it was. The city even posted huge No Littering signs and put up small trash cans and that didn’t seem to make a dent in the trash.
Glad to hear you are cleaning up trash daily on some of the other streets further down Liberia. I used to try and pick up trash from my house down to the park while I was walking the dog, but started to feel I was fighting a losing battle so sort of gave up maybe 2 years ago when it seemed to really ramp up and just come back in even larger amounts after being cleaned up. Really, I don’t walk down to the park anymore – it is a debris field of busted glass and other things – it used to be a very nice place to walk the dog but now it just is impossible to find a path that doesn’t have pieces of glass in it. Also too many scattered bits of discarded food, which my dog likes to lunge after – and don’t want her picking up that stuff and trying to eat it. Again, the whole thing is depressing, when it comes down to it.
Your invitation to the Prince William Study Circle sounds interesting. Unfortunately this next week is quite a bad week for me – I have a major test event here next Monday-Friday at work for the system I’m the software lead on, and I expect it to be long days as a team of gov’t personnel are coming here for the test. So the timing is a bit unfortunate, and I doubt I’ll make it. Maybe a future time though since that is just the kickoff meeting. In fact I’m still at work as I type this – as this week has been long hours too doing final checkout/testing for this system.
Anyway, it is good to hear from another concerned resident of the Point of Woods area. Although as I said, I already reached the breaking point and 3 weeks ago signed a contract for a new house to be built out in Gainesville. Although I will be renting my townhouse out so still will have some interest in Point of Woods – however my hope is to sell in 2 or 3 years when prices recover a bit. As I said, right now I’d be competing with 2 foreclosures across the street from me priced at $170K, and also have the pressure of trying to sell in about a 4 month timeframe – so decided not to add that much stress to the whole housebuying thing.
SA,
Many Hispanics do have internet access and most of their children speak excellent English. Just an observation.
Junkyard,
That’s good. So maybe they’ll tell it like it is before MWB or other such groups fill their heads with misinformation.
Anon,
My sympathies. Point of Woods is looking bad. I have had to go through there on a daily basis recently and each day it seems to look crappier. Mowing that appears to be common green area looks like a blind man got in there with a mower. There are bags of trash set out on curbs and there is even furniture.
My question is, where is the city? Why don’t city inspectors come along and see this stuff? I am not talking about more remote areas. I am talking about driving long Liberia. I almost called the city the other day just to ask them why they didn’t get their contract folks over there. Doesn’t the city have municipal trash disposal?
The city is going to have to pony up and clean up some of these places. Good grief.
Anon, I don’t blame you for being majorly pissed off. I think my anger would be at the HOA and the City though.
anony and LuckyDuck
regarding cost, let’s not forget all the staff time associated with the analysis and preparation of the resolution; police coverage of the public hearings; set up of the McCoart atrium to handle the overflow, etc. etc.
Moon-howler – some of that furniture is from my neighbors in the townhouse to the left of me, who apparently ran out of room in their house for all the tenants. They also have an entire dining room set out on their back deck! They seem to have thrown their furniture everywhere. And I highly suspect they were the ones that dumped a broken refrigerator in the woods behind my set of townhouses. They are too lazy to call the bulk trash removal people I guess.
Yes, the City has regular municipal trash collection. However, they seem to not like picking up trash set out on curbs for whatever reason. You make a good point about the city inspectors – who knows what they do – I suppose they have blinders on when they drive down Liberia as I agree with you about the condition of it. And the City park people similarly have blinders on when they drive down to Stonewall Park on the part of Stonewall Road that goes from the edge of Point of Woods down to the park. At times, I’m surprised people don’t get flat tires – although most of the glass and debris is along the sides of the road and on the sidewalks and on the grass – on the part of Stonewall Road going down to the park. A long time ago I once as an experiment went down there and swept up all the glass along the sides of the road. Wouldn’t you know within 2 weeks it was right back there and looked like I never touched it. That’s when I realized it was a fruitless effort and kind of like tilting windmills!
I sometimes walk my dog down the center of Stonewall Road leading down to the park – as there isn’t that much traffic and it is the only safe place to walk a dog such that the dog doesn’t step on pieces of broken glass! But I’ve taken to not even doing that – as it is too depressing to see all that stuff, along with boxes from food, even discarded bits of actual food, etc! Anyway, it used to be a very pretty place to walk along – but now I just find it depressing and it does nothing to relax me.
So now you know what I’ve been dealing with. I personally am embarrassed to say I live in Point of Woods, and as I’ve said the only thing keeping me sane is knowing I’ll be moving out of here sometime between mid-October and mid-December (hopefully mid-October – will know more once work on our lot gets underway).
And yes, a good deal of my anger is at the HOA and the city. Although the HOA here has not been good for many years, and I am partly to blame for that for being rather uninterested in taking an active role in it. As I said in an earlier post (maybe in another thread), I attended some meetings, and couldn’t believe some of the nonsense discussed there. I have a very low tolerance threshold for fools, and what I saw were a bunch of fools, in my own opinion!
As far as the City, I have been frustrated with what now is their very tedious approach to addressing overcrowding issues. They need to investigate for 6 months before taking ANY action. And in the past, whenever they did take action in regards to the house next to me – it would clear out for a month and then return and they wouldn’t count that as the same case, but want to start all over again like it was a brand new case. That was before the lawsuits, and now of course it is next to impossible to get them to do anything about an overcrowded townhouse.
And as far as the maintenance (or lack thereof) of Stonewall Park – indeed they should be ashamed of it. I’ve called those in charge of the city parks and told them they need to be making daily “garbage sweeps” of Stonewall Road leading down to the park, as well as the sidewalks on both sides, but nothing ever happens. And believe me, I’ve contacted the City Council too.
Anyway, as I won’t be a resident of the city for much longer (at the worst case maybe 6 1/2 months) I will sort of cease to care – at least about Stonewall Park. I sort of will still care what happens to Point of Wood since I will still own property there – but really as I said I hope to unload the house in 2 or 3 years. In fact, if I was certain I could sell it by mid-October – when there is a potential the new house would be ready – I would even at the ridiculously low prices, as I’d still be making a good profit on it since i bought it back in 1985 so paid a very low price for it (even compared to the current low prices). But, I fear with two foreclosures right across the street from me, and numerous ones throughout the neighborhood (I haven’t surveyed that as much as my wife has walking around during the daytime while I’ve been at work – and she counted quite a few). So I don’t see it being easy to sell our house in such a short time frame – potentially as short as 4 1/2 months now. What I’m getting at is I’d really love to walk away completely from this neighborhood when I move out of here, but due to circumstances of the real estate market and the foreclosures, I’m going to have to settle for still being a property owner here. At least though I won’t be living here, and that will be a HUGE relief. I find living here quite stressful lately – and the quality of my life here in Point of Woods is not good. It makes me very happy to think that my time living here is coming to an end. It was a great place to live for many years – I’ve been a resident since 1985 believe it or not when my townhouse was brand new – but I’d say in the last 3 or 4 years has really degraded fast. I hope the neighborhood turns around, but I’m not very optimistic.
Moon-howler the HOAs can’t do anything to address overcrowding. They can address the usual stuff about the exterior of houses and that’s about it. Something like noise or mysterious people hanging around or anon’s situation of burglars next door is a police matter.
No one in Particular…you whole theory has a very large hole in it…if you are detained by the Magistrate for ANY reason you have a mandatory court appearance the next morning at 8:30 AM. Under NO circumstances can a Magistrate have you held for longer than 1 (one) business day without an appearance before a Judge who will review your circumstances and your bail/bond or lack there of. No Magistrate in the Commonwealth of Virginia can do anything different. It is Virginia State law.
The manner in which you become involved in the court system is if you commit a crime (traffic violation, larceny or an event where you can be released on a summons) is you do the violation and have no way or method to prove to either the Officer or the Magistrate who you actually are. The Officer, upon such circumstances, will bring you to the Magistrate. The Magistrate will attempt to establish your ties to the community. Such things as are you a resident of Virginia? Do you have a residence here? Do you have a job here? Such factors tend to make a person appear in court for their hearing – which is the principle reason of the questioning. If you can’t substaniate your ties, you get a bond or no bond from the Magistrate and you appear before the Judge the next morning at 8:30 AM.
I hope this clears it up for you.
Anon, when your human voice comes out from behind the “Anon,” I feel regret that I have ever offended you. I’m glad you are able to move houses and walk your dog in a safe place. I’m a dog person too. My neighborhood has not suffered as yours has. I wish I’d done something to help you and others like you two years ago when Jackson Miller started all this conflict and recruited Gospel Greg to be his hatchet man. Gospel Greg’s rhetoric and that pulsating vein in Mr. Miller’s head had me convinced there was more than “neighborhood issues” at stake for them. Be that as it may, there were real people depending on them to find solutions to their problems. Rather than dismissing their efforts (and your concerns) as the “Redefine the Family to Get Rid of Hispanic Families” Ordinance, I wish I had offered alternatives that could have solved your problems instead of exploiting them, and you, for the purposes of demagoguing or electioneering.
If you believe in a basic American ideal that all human beings are equal, these problems can be solved without using any hate-mongering or fierce rivalry to get people’s attention.
For my part, I would have been much MORE sympathetic to the problems of people in neighborhoods like Point of Woods if political opportunists like Miller and Letiecq hadn’t used them for their purposes, and if they hadn’t seemed so willing to let them do so.
The fact that you had these concerns, and yet resisted the urge to line up behind them and others like them is commendable. The fact that you associate your problems with Hispanics, while sensing and acknowledging that there are tremendous legal, ethical, and moral problems with seeking to rid a neighborhood or a county of Hispanics, sets you apart from those whom I refer to as clones.
Admin,
Just curious–am I in moderation for some reason? My comments aren’t showing up.
Weird–sorry,just wasn’t working on another thread, I guess. Anyway, off topic, but I hope the usual posters here are safe in their homes tonight–terrible commute with lots of trees down/power outages this evening. Glad to be home.
Thanks WhyHereWhyNow – your comments in your above post are very much appreciated and glad that we can “bury the hatchet” so to speak! While the debate may get a bit heated at times I am glad to see we can at least understand each other’s point of view, and it does give me hope that there can be a reasonable dialog on this board. Certainly I’ve been enlightened on some things, as I really did come into this whole thing kind of late – as in around February – and really being a city resident didn’t know all the details of the origins of the resolution. And of course I definitely agree that extremists like Greg and others are “way out there” in many ways, and I find a lot of what they say and appear to stand for distasteful and appalling. Actually Jackson Miller is a new name to me, but then again so was Robert (or Richard?) Duecaster just a few days ago. So as you can see I’m on a learning curve here – and am rather appalled at the video I was pointed at with Duecaster and his angry rhetoric.
Anyway, at least all of us are learning about both sides of the issue, and that’s definitely great progress in my opinion! I think if we can not get overwhelmed by the extremists on both sides there is a lot of room for common agreement and at least thoughtful, rational debate.
And regarding dog walking – one of the things I like about the new neighborhood is that it appeared to be full of dogs (Point of Woods used to be but seems much less so in recent years – not sure exactly why). It also features a large park attached to it, that is more of a nature preserve with paved trails, and not a hint of glass/garbage/debris what have you. In fact, we took our dog there and walked it, as well as a lot of the neighborhood – during the process of deciding that indeed, this was a place that we thought we could have a good quality of life. I kind of think Point of Woods has sort of caused me to reach “burnout” much like one might get “job burnout” I have “neighborhood burnout” or some such thing. Maybe someday I could be a case study for a new form of stress! Anyway, the fact that I can make light of this is a good thing – a few months ago when I hadn’t decided to move out of here – I was not in a mood where such joking would be a possibility.
I do feel bad for the honest, law abiding residents of Point of Woods – having to see what has happened to it. A person a few doors down from me who has been a long term resident – about 2 weeks we were both kind of sharing our misery over what has happened to the neighborhood – and both of us were looking foward to our exit from here – as she is retiring in a year or two and at that point will be moving to North Carolina to be near her daughter, and I of course am moving out of here. We were both kind of commiserating over the situation.