91 Thoughts to “9500Liberty: Chairman vs. Chief on PWC Immigration Policy”

  1. DiversityGal

    I LOVE the cut of this footage. It makes things very easy to understand!

  2. Elena

    Excellent footage! I wonder, on what basis do citizens challenge Chief Deane on his desire to protect citizens. On some level, there has been an orhestrated campaign to marginalize his career and I have been personally disgusted with the tactics of Greg. I am shocked that anyone would knowingly continue to associate with him after he accused the Chief of Police of treading on the edge of committing treason.

  3. Censored bybvbl

    I think Greg is ticked because he believes the federal law mentioned gives Chief Deane the ability to push immigration arrests to the maximum. He wants Chief Deane to go out there and hunt down all the “illegals”! Chief Deane isn’t marching to Gospel Greg’s tune so Gospel Greg has a vendetta.

  4. Juturna

    Chief Deane is nationally recognized as one of the premier Police Chiefs in the USA. All you have to do is pick up any publication associated with ICMA, PERF, Virginia Chiefs, issues of Governing or Police Chief magazine. Contact any Police Chief in Virginia, Maryland – Contact the FBI, DOJ, contact the White House.

    If you want to take him on, he is game. But know what you are talking about. Thirty years of community service gives him the edge over those who do not have enough altruism to even fake it. Those that have attempted to defame him used the old if you can’t beat him beat him up tactic. Plain and simple. His brand of community service is not self serving. That is the difference.

    Finally, he is gracious in victory. Watch him withthe BoS. He is a gentlemen. Greg is not and has demonstrated he is clearly incapable of ever being one.

  5. Elena

    Hi Everyone,
    Eric and/or Annabel will be available to anwers questions, after you have watched the clips, later this evening. Think of it as our first “live blog” interaction!

  6. That guy at the beginning of the HSM meeting saying that the citizens were fed up didn’t seem to understand the difference between local and federal government.

    Did anyone else notice the miniature police officer Chief Deane had on his desk at the 1:02 mark of the second video? For some reason, the contrast between that little guy standing there next to Chief Deane gave me a chuckle.

  7. DiversityGal

    Mackie,

    hee hee! I had to go back and look for that one:)

  8. Elena

    Juturna, 23. July 2008, 16:12

    Excellent post!

  9. Moon-howler

    What time does the live question and answer start tonight? Tell me more.

  10. We’ll check in every hour tonight and all day tomorrow to answer questions or respond to comments addressed to us.

    We really appreciate the interest and support from everyone on antibvbl. We are really excited about our screening on Friday at Trinity Church. We anticipate some surprise guests.

    Elena and Alanna, thanks for posting our videos!

  11. NotGregLetiecq

    I would like to know how Chief Deane answered The Duecaster Disaster at the Help Save Manassas campaign rally, woops I mean gripe fest. Oddly enough, Duecaster is right in a lot of ways. Is he a lawyer or something? Or does he just really hate Latinos?

  12. Chris

    Juturna, 23. July 2008, 16:12

    Well said! This was what I was saying the other day. Chief Deane has lived in and served our county for decades. Yet, there are those that have only been in the community for less than a decade wishing to bash him. This is UFB!! I’m sure he will be here long after those just passing through our county. Some really do need to get over themselves. imho

  13. Moon-howler

    NotGregLetiecq, I would like to know also. I guess we will just have to wait until Friday night. I hope you plan to be there.

    I think the average person would be shocked to see what has transpired within their county. I sure hope the video will be available on dvd so I can share. Elena said it best about having to see the video to even be able to carry on a discussion of local politics. (sorry Elena, I know you said it much better than I said it)

  14. Some questions for 9500Liberty:

    1. Do you know when and where is the next meeting Chief Deane will hold?

    2. What did HSM people in their meetings say about Sharon Pandak and her approach of focusing on resolving quality of life issues as opposed to exiling a whole community?

    3. The HSM people claim that you approached them as politically-neutral documentarians who were only interested in telling both sides of the story. Now they say you deceived them and pretended to be politically neutral so that they would open up and give you footage you could use against them. Is there any truth to this? If not, why would they say you fooled them? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with approaching a story with a predisposed point of view. On the other hand, there is something disturbing about pretending to be politically neutral if you’re not.

    4. Much of what HSM stands for is reprehensible. However, when working class people say it’s unfair to compete with undocumented for work, or they complain about abuses of zoning violations, I think they have identified a legitimate gripe but have misidentified the root cause of the problem. Even though HSM is wrong to blame undocumented workers, that doesn’t change the fact that they might have some legitimate gripes about quality of life issues. Have you guys made any videos addressing these legitimate gripes? If not, why not?

  15. Chief Deane’s answer isn’t in the cut, Moon-howler, sorry to disappoint you. What he said was something to the effect of, “Don’t worry, our officers are good people and they are well trained, but I do see your point.” And then he went into something that more directly addressed the question before, from Jason Compton, part of which is shown at the top of the video.

    For what the video was trying to say, I thought it was more important to directly address Robert Duecaster’s question, which was “why did you put Probable Cause in my immigration resolution?” Implying it was more legally defensable before. Chief Deane didn’t really answer that question, so, several months later, I asked the County Executive and got a very good answer.

    It was an editorial decision to omit the Chief’s answer to save you time as viewers and also keep the flow of information simple enough to follow.

  16. Mackie,

    I’ll tackle question 1. Members of the police department, often with Chief Deane, participated in over 70 information sessions about the previous Resolution. From what I understand, the sessions were always organized by others and the Chief was invited, requested to speak. Since the modified resolution passed at the end of April, they haven’t received any invitations to forums. I suggest that people invite him to come to an organized forum.

  17. Quickly on Makie #2: Sharon Pandak was hardly mentioned at the two HSM meetings prior to the election. I have to go edit new chapters for Friday. But Annabel is working on 3, and 4.

  18. It should be clear to any sentient Republican that the party cannot afford to be branded by anti-immigrant extremists, or those who pander to them. If he isn’t stopped, Corey Stewart will set the Virginia GOP back 40 years and ensure resounding defeats for a generation.

    These clips are great but only the tip of the ice berg. Why not put the entire hour on You Tube?

  19. Chris

    Mackie,
    Great questions. I look forward to seeing the answers to #3 & #4.

  20. annabel

    Mackie,

    Answer to #3: This is a question that deserves a full answer. I have a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is that Eric and I have learned a lot in our year-long journey and our initial (somewhat naive) approach to the documentary has changed in response to what we have learned. Essentially, Eric and I are committed to telling a truthful story in all the projects that we do. As far as I know we have stuck to that commitment and there isn’t anything false in our videos.

    It’s difficult to address the criticism of bias because every story that is told by a human being has a perspective. We can address the criticism of falsehood. If there is anything false in our videos, we’d like people to tell us about it. So far, we’ve only had to make one correction. We misidentified Duecaster as the President of Help Save Virginia in our videos. It’s been corrected. He is a member of Help Save Manassas and the co-author of the June 26th resolution that was introduced by John Stirrup.

    The long answer: When we first contacted Greg at the end of August about the project, Eric told Greg that we had volunteered for the Webb campaign but that we would do our best to tell both sides of the story.

    When we began our project 11 months ago, Eric and I knew little about the immigration debate. So it’s true that we didn’t feel as if we were on any side of the issue. At the beginning, we mistakenly thought that the story was about a political fight over the immigration issue with two sides — Help Save Manassas on one side and Mexicans Without Borders on the other — and since we didn’t identify readily with either, we thought it would be easy to be “neutral.”

    After five weeks of researching, documenting and interviewing people, we concluded that there were serious communication problems and culture clashes snowballing into an irrevocable political showdown (October 16th vote). We got very focused on trying to create constructive dialogue in the community because we were concerned about the rising level of fear and hatred. We thought that if people could just talk to each other as neighbors instead of enemies, the residents of the county would stop the fighting. We hoped that our videos would help people become more informed and help communicate with each other. We started posting videos on October 9th.

    Once we started posting videos, we got a lot of hateful, racist comments about Latinos. These comments were coming from all over the country. We began to see what was happening in Prince William in the larger context of an anti-immigrant, anti-Latino movement.

    Over many more months of documenting, researching, investigating, and conducting interviews with relevant players, we discovered that there were activists and politicians politicizing a complex issue in the context of a heated election. It became more apparent as we got closer to the election. In November and December we learned about FAIR’s tactics and FAIR’s involvement in Help Save Manassas.

    Somewhere in our journey, the focus of our documentary shifted from the political fight over the immigration issue with two sides to a singular phenomenon, the politicization of the immigration issue.

  21. annabel

    Mackie,

    Answer to #4: We would like to find a way to address the issue about Americans competing for work with undocumented workers, zoning violations, etc. We haven’t figured out quite how to do it. There are some logistical issues.

    1) We don’t know who is documented or undocumented. So take the example of the people violating zoning laws at a particular house in Manassas. How do we know they are undocumented without asking them? And, if we did ask, would they tell us the truth about their status? We didn’t want to fall into the trap of making assumptions about people’s status because they “looked” undocumented.

    2) There is almost no hard data to be found about these complaints other than anecdotes. For instance, the work competition issue is very challenging because there is scant data about how many and whose jobs are lost to undocumented workers.

    3) It’s difficult to film undocumented workers because they don’t want to be identified for obvious reasons. To blur, film from neck down, silhouette, most often have the effect of dehumanizing the subjects. It’s quite a quandary.

    Given these and some other more minor challenges, we’d be interested in hearing suggestions from you, Chris and others about how to make videos that address the complaints. Perhaps you or Chris could take on a producer role on it and help us figure out what to film, who to interview, etc.

  22. Moon-howler

    Interesting answer, Annabel. Did you find that the more you dealt with hate the more you were pushed to see the other side of the issue? I have found the more rhetoric and sound bites I have had to endure the more centrist I have become. I can only view this issue in human terms.

    I see a girl named Lupe who, if things continue on their current path, she will never belong anywhere. She was brought here illegally as a baby. How will she ever fit in? She doesn’t know her country of origin and has never been there. She does not have legal status and won’t when she turns 18 which will be soon.

    I see a man like Rick (yes our Rick) who feels his family is threatened by bad neighbors and his investment has decreased in value. I don’t think Rick sees a way out and he feels the deck is stacked against him. Rick has generalized and broad brushed everyone hispanic into being an ‘illegal’ I think. No, Rick shouldn’t have to endure the things he has told us about.

    So, where is the solution? Does a resolution make Rick’s problems go away? I don’t think so. Stricter zoning laws and more neighborhood agents might. Will an immigration reform bill offer hope to Lupe? I sure hope so.

    I think the people of Prince William needed to talk– Maybe even shout at each other. But they needed to communicate rather than be railroaded with a ‘resolution’ that cost millions and that was only endorsed by a few. I think we needed public hearings.

  23. Moon-howler

    Annabel, Ask Rick. I know Rick is mighty angry. I think he deserves to be heard. SA also has some pretty strong feelings on this subject. While you can’t confirm who is and who is not undocumented, you could film things from the way Rick (or one of the others) sees them and qualify it as such.

    Additionally, could the county share some of the neighborhood problems they deal with? Could you ride with a neighborhood services agent for a day?

    I don’t think anyone here is denying there is a problem, I think it is how some discuss the problem that so many of us find objectionable.

  24. Moon-howler

    Mackie, how would you address # 4 and the problems described by Annabel? You asked some great questions.

  25. annabel

    Moon-howler,
    First of all, I am a big fan of yours. Secondly, thanks for your comments. I like your suggestion about doing a video with Rick. In the past, we approached a number of people to create exactly the kind of perspective video you are suggesting. We’ve been turned down by everyone.

    Rick and SecondAlamo,
    Please let me know if you’d be interested.

  26. More excellent work from Annabel and Eric,

    I wish we could have a pair of them in every county in the U.S.

  27. Chris

    Annabel/Eric,
    It is unfortunate you’ve been turndowned by everyone. The neighborhood issues do need to be addressed. Neighborhood issues effect ALL. I’m busy this mornining. I’ll be back later with more thoughts.
    Thank you both for your answers to Mackie’s questions.

  28. All I can say about angry people turning down the offer to go public with their issues is they must not really want them solved—they would rather hang on to their anger or hatred for whatever reason.

    I dare you to prove me wrong 😉

  29. Cindy B

    Annabel and Eric, I like Moon-howler’s suggestion that you ride along with a Neighborhood Services person and see what they see through their eyes.

    Also, Neighborhood Watch has its annual (this year 25th anniversary) Night Out on Tuesday, August 5 (though the county is doing it’s big event on August 2). But if you contacted the county police and found some smaller Neighborhood Watch groups that will be walking their neighborhoods on Aug 2 or Aug 5, you could go along and get their viewpoints, and the viewpoints of the people they encounter along the way.

  30. Alanna

    Cindy B,
    I forgot the Study Circle call last evening. Did you participate? If so, how did it go?

  31. Rick Bentley

    “Much of what HSM stands for is reprehensible.”

    I, the undersigned apply for membership in Help Save Manassas and certify the following:
    • That I am a U. S. Citizen or legal resident residing in the Greater Manassas Area,
    • That I am in accord with the principles and objectives of Help Save Manassas,
    • That I will not employ illegal aliens, nor do business with entities that employ illegal
    aliens, or otherwise contribute to conditions which may encourage the presence
    of illegal aliens within our communities, and,
    • That I will endeavor to responsibly engage in the ongoing public dialog regarding
    issues related to illegal immigration

  32. Rick Bentley

    If it is true that the problems caused by illegal immigration can be handled throuigh increased zoning enforcement and so forth, then Fairfax will be having no particular problem absorbing those of our ielgals who are moving there.

    The increasing crime rate and 340 million dollar schools shortfall in fairfax must be coincidences.

  33. Rick Bentley

    Help Save Manassas
    Charter and By-Laws
    ARTICLE 1: Name.
    The name of this organization will be Help Save Manassas. It shall
    also be known by it’s acronym HSM.
    ARTICLE 2: Purpose.
    The purposes of HSM will be:
    To promote the preservation of our community,
    To foster public awareness of the negative effects of illegal
    immigration on our community,
    To facilitate effective engagement by citizens in the legislative process
    on issues which regard illegal immigration, and,
    To provide an effective voice for citizens concerned about the effects
    of illegal immigration on our community.

  34. Jorge Pollo

    Rick-
    I thought your weren’t a member of HSM. You sure are posting a quite a bit of information on them. Are you a non-member of the choir? Sure looks that way.

  35. Alanna

    Rick,
    Now that one takes the cake. The supposed $6 million savings that Stewart touts as a reduction from ESL students, now translates into a $340 million loss for Fairfax schools!

  36. Moon-howler

    Cindy B,

    We have had a problem over here in the county with Neighborhood Watch thinking they were an adjunct of neighborhood services. Some clown was going around here turning in 10-15 houses each night for minor violations that no one would even think about. Outside storage became garden tools visible etc. This kind of behavior taxes an already stressed local government system. There are real problems in the county. Sofas in front yards, etc. A misplaced (in the eyes of one person) shovel should not be a zoning violation in an area without an HOA.

  37. Moon-howler

    Thanks for posting the rules of HSM, Rick. I didn’t think you were a member either.
    The following section:

    That I will endeavor to responsibly engage in the ongoing public dialog regarding
    issues related to illegal immigration

    is the part where I feel HSM has failed so miserably. Using weasel words to attempt to destroy politicians is not responsible. Tearing into a man with a 30 year professional career is not responsible, especially when words like ‘treason’ are used.

    In my eyes, and in the eyes of many, any good HSM might have generated in the neighborhood was cancelled out by this one witch-hunt. I feel the self appointed patrolling at the 7-11 is also out of line. It is getting a little too close to vigilanteeism to suit me.

    It is all about intent. And using Intent as a gauge, HSM fails the test, in my opinion.

  38. andy

    Like calling Corey Stewart a racist and other hateful terms is OK, which was done frequently on another thread. Seems like it is OK when done here, apparently – as one thread in particular had many times Stewart was called hateful things, and no one seemed to complain about that.

  39. andy

    Oh, and let’s not forget the implication that Corey (and Greg) were homosexuals!

  40. Casual Observer

    Do not be distracted by Andy’s shiny objects. 🙂

  41. anon-100

    “Nationally, however, Prince William is ranked among the most economically desirable counties and viewed as a booming suburb of Washington , she said.”
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/23/AR2008072300083.html
    Perception is reality

  42. Moon-howler

    Andy, I don’t know why you are spreading rumors about Corey and Greg and I don’t believe anyone here has said that. I know the old trick. No one here believes that.

    Is racist a hateful term? You tell me. Is calling someone vermin, dog food or a cucaracha a hateful term? Is calling an appointed official a traitor hateful?

    Your argument falls on deaf ears, Andy, or whoever you are. You sound like one of the epigones to me.

  43. Moon-howler

    A population that knows about all the assets and opportunities of the Prince William County area?

    Che . . . well, not quite, say some business professionals in the community.

    Prince William, once seen as an up-and-coming region south of the Capital Beltway, has taken a beating recently as people focus on negative press about the illegal immigration issue and ignore the statistics and attractions that indicate the area is very much alive, local business leaders say.

    That seems to be the outside perception of the county.

    Laurie C. Wieder, president of the Prince William Regional Chamber of Commerce should be saying good things about the county, such as

    “Nationally, however, Prince William is ranked among the most economically desirable counties and viewed as a booming suburb of Washington , she said.”

    Yes, perception is reality. Lets hope the rest of the region and nation believe Ms. Weider.

  44. Rick Bentley

    I am proud to be a member of HSM.

  45. Rick Bentley

    Before Stewart and Stirrup were engaged on this issue, when i was jonesing to move out of my neighborhood away from this area for my family’s sake, when my neighborhood was becoming a Spanish ghetto, HSM came into being and thankfully managed to change the local political equation.

  46. andy

    Moon-howler: Nice try, but the posts are there and it was one of your regular posters that talked about Greg & Corey’s alleged late night meetings, being in the parking lot together, and then several people chimed in about them possibly having a gay affair, and perhaps being in the closet, etc. You can pretend it didn’t happen on this board if you want to, but the posts are there in the archives.

  47. Rick Bentley

    I see myself in the HSM footage … I don’t remember giving anyone permission to film me …

    Don’t I have the right not to be filmed?

  48. I contributed to the “gay” thing and I’m sorry. Emma, if she made one good point on this blog, said that by insinuating that Greg and Corey are more than friends, you are actually disparaging the gay community. Right? Because one could infer that if indeed they were gay lovers that my opinion of them would be more negative than it is.

    Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course. I would have more sympathy for Greg, for instance, if I learned that he was a closeted gay and that the hate and vitriol that he spews on his blogs and at public meetings is really misdirected self-loathing because he is ashamed of who he is. That would be sad, and would humanize the man in my eyes.

    But I didn’t write that because I thought it was true. And I didn’t write it to disparage the gay community or Greg, or Corey. I was just pointing out that it is often true that men who outwardly display homophobia are actually trying to overcompensate from the fear or suspicion that they could have homosexual tendencies.

    It was really intended to call the man a hypocrite, not a gay.

    But, Emma’s criticism has sunk in on me. And Greg’s favorite slogan “perception is reality” can often be true. So, I apologize to the gay community and to Greg for making an observation that implied something I had no reason to believe was true.

  49. Red Dawn

    Rick,

    Apparently NOT in a PUBLIC place…..sucks huh? 😉

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