Foreclosure Phenomenon in Prince William County

Alanna

Prince William County Supervisors need to account for this phenomenon. What is the difference between the Counties? What accounts for this horrific occurrence of foreclosures which will most likely have lingering effects for a decade? Plain and simple, it’s the immigration resolution. The sooner Supervisors recognize this fact the faster we could turn this thing around. They have the power to stop the hemorrhaging but will they act on it? Do they prefer to see property values decline, real estate assessments plummet and the County’s budget completely destroyed? Perhaps so.

In my opinion, a more prudent course of action would be to not give anybody further reason to abandon a home. There’s never been a complete cost benefit analysis and it’s becoming pretty evident that any perceived savings from drops in ESoL enrollment have been more than off-set by devastating losses in our residential real estate market. These losses are causing extreme economic hardship among home owners who planned to use their home equity to finance their kid’s education, retirement or financing for business operations. Eventually, we will hit rock bottom but at what cost?

BOCS Halloween Retreat: October 31, 2008

MoonHowler

The BOCS agenda contains some very sobering cuts in the way the county does business. It is painful to read and if the budget shortfall is the worst case scenario, services in Prince William County will be severely curtailed.

Examples of a 33% cut would be no proactive police patrols. There would only be officers to react to serious crime. Forget that ounce of prevention adage that Chief Deane has always subscribed to. To put it bluntly, we won’t have enough police officers on the street. Period.

Fire and rescue fares no better. Promises were made to this department after the death of one of their firemen. It doesn’t look like those promises will be kept. There simply isn’t enough money to fund what was promised.

This agenda contains some heavy duty reading and it isn’t always easy to understand the implications without explanation. It would behoove all citizens of Prince William to familiarize them with the belt strangling situation we are in.

It appears that worst case scenario was created for each of the departments. Now, will all departments lose 30% of their revenue? Probably not. Historically, the more critical areas like police, fire and rescue, and other agencies that deal with public safety would take less of a hit than other departments that might be considered more of a luxury.

On the other hand, about a month ago, we lost 5 police positions due to an earlier budget cut and no one even batted an eye. The supervisors didn’t so much as blink and I only saw one letter to the editor about it. It seems bizarre that a community that was once ready to have its police force out nabbing ‘illegal aliens’ somehow didn’t seem to care that we were not replacing officers. There was no community hue and cry.

The link to the financial retreat agenda is above. When you get to the supervisor page, click right after CURRENT AGENDA. Scary stuff folks. The second ‘view’ is easier to read because it is from a power point presentation.

The McCain/Palin Rift Continues

MoonHowler

You don’t have to be a Republican to feel the internal strife between the McCain people and the Palin people. Many blogs around the nation are commenting on the rising tensions between the 2 encampments.

The McCainites feel Palin is a loose cannon and want to rein her in. The Palinites feel that she was sabotaged at every turn, from her initial introduction to the shopping spree that she had nothing to do with, according to her.

From the Washington Post (E. J. Dionne’ Blog):

It’s hard to believe that the infighting in the Republican camp is so fierce with a week still left to go until Election Day. The battle between the camps of John McCain and Sarah Palin is something to behold. McCain’s loyalists are clearly trying to shift some of the blame for the ticket’s troubles to Palin, and Palin’s people are fighting back. In today’s Post, Dana Milbank cites this astonishing quotation that a McCain adviser offered CNN: “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.” The McCain adviser also described Palin as “a diva.” Palin in the meantime is reported to be furious about how the McCain campaign botched the roll-out of her candidacy. She feels a need to defend herself, particularly against charges stemming from the Republican National Committee’s high-end shopping spree on her behalf. Since I thought from the beginning that the choice of Palin was a mistake I’m not surprised that it’s all come to grief for both of them. Palin is certainly right that the McCain campaign’s too obvious fear of letting her off on her own did her image no good….

Now it’s your turn. Who is to blame? Has Palin been short-changed or is she a prima donna? Has McCain been set back by Palin? Has she hurt or helped the ticket?

What do the folks on Anti think?