Press release:

Manassas Gets First Look at “9500 Liberty”
Award-winning Documentary Recounts 2007-2008 Immigration Culture War

MANASSAS, VA — Jan. 22, 2010
Mid-way through a national tour that has netted two film festival awards and two city proclamations, “9500 Liberty” returns to the place where it began when George Mason University’s Verizon Auditorium hosts a Tuesday 6:30 PM screening on Jan. 26.

This is the first time the feature length documentary has screened in Manassas, home to several of the film’s primary figures, including Greg Letiecq, a blogger and political activist who helped engineer the passage the nation’s most aggressive local ordinance designed to “crack down” on illegal immigration, and Gaudencio Fernandez, a building contractor who protested the law by erecting a series of banners on his property near the Old Town Manassas train station. The film reveals in dramatic detail how and why the controversial “probable cause” mandate for immigration status checks was repealed in April, 2008 by the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
6:30 PM
Verizon Auditorium, Occoquan Building
George Mason University, Prince William Campus
10900 University Boulevard
Manassas, VA 20110-2203
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Directors Eric Byler of Gainesville, VA and Annabel Park of Silver Spring, MD have traveled with the film to ten states in recent months, with a host of upcoming screenings that include Hampden-Sydney, VA, Ohio, Montana, and Nebraska. In February, “9500 Liberty” will be presented to Members of Congress at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

Tuesday’s screening, presented with Spanish subtitles, is the opening night for the Immigration and Human Rights Cinema series, hosted by George Mason University and the local interfaith group Unity in the Community. It will be followed by a Q & A discussion with the filmmakers and representatives of the Prince William County Police Department, including a Spanish speaking Officer.

“9500 Liberty” won Best Documentary at the Charlotte Film Festival last September, and the Audience Award at the St. Louis International Film Festival in November. The Mayor of Austin, Texas and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors both issued proclamations commending the film prior to public screenings. The filmmakers expect to announce a cable television premiere and a DVD release date in coming weeks.

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133 Thoughts to “Manassas Gets First Look at “9500 Liberty” Tuesday Jan. 26”

  1. Well Rick, are you going to listen to Witness too or go see for yourself? I am not sure I agree with Witness too totally. And there is a final version. Part of making the movie was exposure to an audience as it was made.

    Witness too, I think you have broken things down into a binary situation. The film is far more multidimensional, in my opinion. There really are no good and bad guys from the film’s point of view. As I have said, peoplewho go in with their opinion tend to find their own hero. Rick might come away with Greg as the hero.

  2. Lafayette

    I saw NO hero at all in the movie.

  3. Witness Too

    I don’t get it. Did I say anyone was the hero? I just reread what I said and I guess you mean Chief Deane? Well, I do think he is a hero, but that’s not what I meant to get across.

  4. No Witness. I think some of the naysayers have said that the wrong people aka Mr. F end up being heroes in the film.

    I think that in your review you tend to break things down into good or bad, black or white is all. I think that the there are just many more layers.

  5. Witness Too

    Well, you’re right M-H. I’m only expressing my own interpretation and it is a lot more complex. It’s funny how if someone makes an outlandish claim, it makes you want to refute that claim using stronger language than if they just said “what is this movie about?” If a stranger asked me “what is the film about?” I would give a much more nuanced answer. But then again I lived it, so I probably have my own interpretation different from someone who only has the film to judge what happened.

  6. And each of us has our own impression of what went on in reality, Witness too. I agree. My impression might be different than that of someone who lives in Gainesville or Woodbridge or out of the area.

    I was attempting to add to what you said based on the film. Thanks for your contribution.

  7. michael

    I’m back….temporarily

    Every time I get on this blog it makes me sick to my stomach. This film always has and always will completely miss why its a piece of “gutter politics” documentary, and completely misses what is wrong with classifying people by race (by even using the word “Latino”, in it) to identify group attributes and as a result is screaming to an approving crowd words and images of fundamentally flawed racism…

    This issue is about illegal immigrants and non-illegal immigrants and the law to remove illegal immigrants any way possible, but the film does not make that clear distinction and continually misrepresents the real issue by using the image of race and racial separation as a clear theme it promotes and does not renounce as legal and illegal government policy supported racism.

    This film represents the consequences of the explosion of racism and racists issues in America, specifically in PWC, by filling itself with racially aligned images, pro one race and against another, it exploits and image to the public and suggestion that the concept of racism (if you are a minority) can be a good thing (it you are a minority race you can claim privilege and sympathy for your own racial group, laws for your own group and political positions that benefit your group). You can even ignore the law and claim that because you beong to a specific race, you don’t have to follow the law. The film does nothing to stop this image, squelch this image, or change this image, in fact it promotes the image of racisim as a strength, RATHER THAN A SOCIAL WEAKNESS, and guides people in a sympathetic story to justify the exploitation of racial politics in America, justifies the exploitation of race by one race whenever people want to enforce common law, and promotes the idea that if you can identify yourself with a race and make your political issues from the perspective of race, you are then allowed by the politically correct ideolists (like socialists, and other such racially dominated government and political structures) to circle the wagons around your race, oppose others based on race, and gain popular support for your own 1950s style racist agenda. It does not do anything to stop racism, it does not do anything to stop classifying people by race and it does not do anything to identify defining rules and priviliges by race or racial politics as wrong and socially corrupt.

    The day a film comes out that tells everyone to stop identifying themselves by race, then that film is one that will be a positive impact on society and future law.

  8. michael

    If you want to stop racism, (and this film does not do that) stop identifying yourself and others by racial groups and racially based poltics.

    Supremacist, separatist, racist, and hate groups still operate in the United States. The Ku Klux Klan, the National Alliance, National Socialist Movement (United States), Aryan Nations, Westboro Baptist Church, Nation of Islam, League of the South, New Black Panther Party, Nation of Aztlán, Nation of Yahweh, Jewish Task Force, the Jewish Defense League, and the White Order of Thule are among the institutions most commonly identified in this way.

    Common among all of them is identification of themselves by race, and idenfication of others by race, increasing racial seperation and racial tension in America rather than reducing it. Racial tension and racial group self alignment, ultimately leads to racial conflict and racial war.

    Reducing and eliminating racism in America can only be done by eliminating group association by race, political advocacy by race (gender, ethnicity and religion) and denouncing identication of individuals by attributes attributed to racial characteristics (such as promoting “latino” political issues in this movie more than “illegal immigrant and legal immigrant issues”) which is the only seperation by group this movie constantly paits supportive pictures and imagesa of, and does not point out and discuss this objectively, without itself being a racist propaganda movie made by people who don’t objectively see their own racism in the film’s images and stories about “race separation and racial idealism”.

  9. Rick Bentley

    Well, I saw it tonight. I’ll try to work up a detailed review tomorrow – as I do consider myself a capable film critic.

    It wasn’t biased in quite the way I expected – I thought it would work at being Michael Moore-like and ridiculing the people it doesn’t like. There was a bit of that, reducing people to their weakest moments, but that wasn’t the thrust.

    It WAS biased though. It hits the “story” from its preferred angle, and doesn’t have within it the space or time to show the other side of the story in a coherent fashion. To the average viewer, who might reasonably try to figure out what was going on here, it is not a coherent story. The resolution is the work of a coterie of madmen and it will cause disaster and most of the supervisors know it and – it passes 9-0? The bad guys win and Nancy Lyall is yelling in a church and – it nakes Fernandez give in to the dark side? And the resolution stands?

    There is some great footage here and there in this movie. But not enough effective context to make this an effective documentary.

    I think that the filmmakers worked to show the world as they perceived it, but their biases are frankly gigantic, and impeded their ability to make a film that can communicate to the world at large, rather than to people who think exactly as they do.

  10. michael

    This is my entire objection to the film, and always has been. It does not help us, it hurts all of us even putting “race” and any form of racial sympathy on film and spreading it around the nation. The film should only use the words and images of “legal” and “illegal”, then and only then is it capable of creating powerful images without racism and promoting the advantage and disadvantage of race privilege as its core political issue.

    Teaching us to stop promoting and conceptualizing polarized politics by race, now that would have been a good film…

  11. Rick Bentley

    Oh, and showing scribbled penises and scawled “f*** you”s doesn’t qualify as meaningful or representative dialogue.

    One final observation, Greg L – who would probably be a fascinating subject for a documentary in and of himself – great leadership and great immaturity twisted up together in a big colorful swirl – was not ready for his closeup.

  12. Rick Bentley

    Good camera work I will say. Certainly some dramatic, compelling moments – particularly, I recall :

    The “bring it on” guy at Citizens Time and the look on the face of the young girl who stepped up after him (she gets points for poise, obviously)

    Nancy L showing her post-resolution anger in the Church

    The camera following one guy out the door after he speaks at Citizens Time

  13. Rick Bentley

    Alanna and Elena, congratulations, you two came off well in the film. You made your points.

  14. Rick Bentley

    You have some great footage but hardly a ton of it – what kind of movie can you make?

    You need a lot more footage if you want to do a significantly longer movie that explains the issue(s) in more depth. But that dilutes the overall pizazz of the film, and makes it harder to market. (Still, this would be the noble goal).

    Alternately you could focus in on particular people or events, and cover THOSE is some depth. But such a thing – a film about Citzens’ Time, or a film about blogging in Northern Virginia – isn’t what the filmmakers set out to do. They’re would-be political activists whose “hearts are where the bottles are thrown”.

    So, you end up with a product that has strong moments, but is quite scattered in what it shows. No one thing or aspect is covered in any depth. The movie tells you what to feel, but doesn’t allow you the luxury of examining and judging for yourself.

    Just doesn’t work as a whole. I give it a C as cinema. The 5 best scenes in it look like an “A”; without those scenes the whole thing would get an “F”.

  15. Rick I will be interested in hearing what you have to say. Maybe they have a ton of it, it just didn’t make it to the final cut.

  16. Watching the final film with my family, and seeing other families there, and hearing the discussion afterward, provoked a lot of thoughts. It made me think about unreasonable fear, and the willingness of a community to believe and spread fear to the point where they were saying “treason” about a respected police chief, and how it tore apart families, destroyed businesses, closed up homes I thought about how people can use blogs, e-mails, citizen’s time, meetings, newspapers, group marches, signs, documentaries to communicate — and which are effective and factual, and which are manipulations. I thought about how I’ve changed over the past few years because of what happened here in PWC. I used to just vote and trust elected officials to represent me. How can they represent me, if they don’t know what I think and want — whether its developing a rural area or creating a town center that has no true heart to it, or changing a fire ordinance to combine fire and rescue services? I used to not know my neighbors and just trust that it was a safe place where everyone gets along. Now I know if you don’t care and aren’t connected and willing to put in sweat equity, the whole place can deteriorate pretty fast. So I found it thought-provoking.

  17. Witness Too

    Cindy, that is a brilliant post.

    cindy b :
    Watching the final film with my family, and seeing other families there, and hearing the discussion afterward, provoked a lot of thoughts. It made me think about unreasonable fear, and the willingness of a community to believe and spread fear to the point where they were saying “treason” about a respected police chief, and how it tore apart families, destroyed businesses, closed up homes I thought about how people can use blogs, e-mails, citizen’s time, meetings, newspapers, group marches, signs, documentaries to communicate — and which are effective and factual, and which are manipulations. I thought about how I’ve changed over the past few years because of what happened here in PWC. I used to just vote and trust elected officials to represent me. How can they represent me, if they don’t know what I think and want — whether its developing a rural area or creating a town center that has no true heart to it, or changing a fire ordinance to combine fire and rescue services? I used to not know my neighbors and just trust that it was a safe place where everyone gets along. Now I know if you don’t care and aren’t connected and willing to put in sweat equity, the whole place can deteriorate pretty fast. So I found it thought-provoking.

    Rick, I’m glad you watched it. I didn’t feel like the Board knew how disastrous the Resolution would be economically before it was implemented. I think they did it because they thought it was what Help Save Manassas wanted, and in a low turn-out election, the threat of a man with 2000 people on his email list is, well, threatening. It seemed to me that once there were TWO sides with email lists, and TWO sides with a blog, then the Board made the right choice and repealed the insane racial profiling part of the Resolution. Since they had already dropped all the other unconstitutional parts before they voted, what was left was not very much. An Immigration Resolution in Name Only.

    I asked above, after neutering, what is left in the Resolution? We’re basically back to what we had before the Resolution which was 287g. Right?

  18. Witness Too

    Wait, I just realized. Rick you must have walked out after the first half of the film. In the second half of the film, the cooler heads prevail: the silent majority speaks, people get organized, and tell the Board law must be repealed, and it is repealed even though Help Save Manassas members make the exact same argument with exactly the same emotion.

    If we still had probable cause for racial profiling on the books, don’t you think we’d still be in the news? The last time I saw Corey Stewart and immigration on the news was when he threatened to try to reinstate the Resolution. Remember that? He was all bluster on the news saying he was introducing the Immigration Resolution Part 2. Then, and the beginning of the next meeting he said, “oops, nevermind.” I took that to mean his fellow Board members said, “no dice.”

  19. Elena

    Rick,
    Thank you for your thoughtful critique. For me, the film is about the twisting and distorting of democracy and what REAL process should look like, not what WAS implemented in PWC. I think the movie is less about one persons journey but the journey of an entire community. Bad, scary, good, uplifting, depressing……..we all took the journey together.

  20. Witness Too

    Elena, I wonder if the real process “should” look like what we see in the first half OR the second half of the film. I agree with Rick, by the way, you were brilliant in the film, you and Alanna both. But I don’t know. It requires a lot of strength and courage to stomach all the ugliness that rained down on our poor little BOCS. I’m sure they would have preferred the days of yesteryear when a lot more people did what CindyB described:

    I used to just vote and trust elected officials to represent me.

    But then, when a group of far right radical extremists stormed the government and put us on a path to disaster, it seemed like the only way to avoid the disaster was for people to stand up. Elena, I honestly don’t think I could have done what you did. I wonder if seeing this movie makes people more willing to stand up, or less willing. It’s as if hate and democracy are somehow fused, and to engage in one you have to confront the other.

  21. Rick Bentley

    My review. Thanks to the filmmakers and to George Mason for their hospitality. The food looked good too, though I didn’t eat any.

    9500 Liberty – Glimpses From the Illegal Immigration Debate

    “9500 Liberty” aspires to be a documentary about the illegal immigration phenomenon in Prince William County, culminating in the “Rule of Law” resolution adopted in 2007 and revised in 2008, and particularly on the resolution’s effect on Prince William’s immigrant community. It’s an important and timely story, and the filmmakers caught some interesting and at times compelling footage. In the end though this film suffers from a lack of coherence, and from tunnel vision.

    The film’s bias is revealed not so much in what is on the screen, but in what is not on the screen. Particularly, the citizens of the County who supported the resolution (and who wish to discourage illegal immigrants from settling in Prince William) don’t really have a voice here. Their concerns are presented as paranoid and race-based, and the few spokespeople for those concerns who appear here are presented in unflattering contexts. As a resident of Prince William, who saw some very dramatic things happen over time, I know that there’s a reality for many County citizens unaddressed by the filmmakers – mortgage fraud galore, suburban neighborhoods swollen to the gills with overcrowded houses, bombed-out properties, bitterly unhappy neighbors, and flight out of town by many a middle-class taxpayer. Presuming those citizens as racially prejudiced is a brutal simplification to a complex, and unexamined phenomenon.

    The film proceeds down its minority-viewpoint path, that the will of the majority is a tyranny, until it dead-ends in a head-scratching final act that lacks explanation and coherence. Perhaps it would take a longer film to tell the story in a comprehensible way; I have a feeling that it would take a less invested set of filmmakers as well.

    When the film does deign to let people speak for themselves, there is some powerful footage here, and particularly during an all-night “Citizens Time” session that the PWC Board of Supervisors inflicted on itself before the original resolution vote. The anger and the lack of common ground between those on one side who want illegal immigrants treated as criminals, and those on the other who want them treated as humanitarian refugees, is palpable and the divide clearly unbridgeable. Good luck to anyone who wants to craft a “comprehensive solution” that will make either side happy.

    The film introduces, for brief intervals, some players in this drama, none more interesting than anti-illegal immigration blogger/activist/bully/powerbroker Greg Letiecq, who is cast as the Darth Vader in this narrative. Again, more in-depth examination would be needed before a coherent portrait could be drawn.

    So, the film will primarily be of interest to those already familiar with the issues and the people involved, and will fail to provide an accurate or coherent picture of Prince William County to the rest of the world, though it may be considered worthwhile entertainment by a subset of viewers who choose to watch without asking themselves some rather obvious questions. (Questions such as “If the measure is so unpopular, why is it still law?” or “Why were the people in Prince William so angry about a supposedly moderate demographic shift?”). Its primary value is as a flawed framework that holds within it some great documentary footage. My advice to the directors, should they ever endeavor to make more serious documentaries, is to let the camera run more and to not spend so much time trying to work out a contrived narrative structure that tells us what to think. I rate this film as a C-.

  22. Rick Bentley

    for

    “Presuming those citizens as racially prejudiced is a brutal simplification to a complex, and unexamined phenomenon.”

    substitute

    “Presuming those citizens as racially prejudiced is a brutal simplification to a complex and unexamined phenomenon, that to most people has more to do with suburban vs. urban concerns than it does to do with racial prejudice.”

  23. Emma

    That was an excellent review, Rick. Since I have absolutely no intention of being a member of an audience for this film and further feeding the egos of the filmmakers, it’s good to hear a well-thought-out and balanced critique such as yours. I still maintain that this film is entirely self-serving to the creators. While the title is catchy, it is completely inaccurate as to the geographic location of this debate, and gives the scofflaw Mr. Fernandez a degree of legitimacy he in no way deserves. THanks for reaffirming that this film is entirely unworthy of my attention.

  24. Poor Richard

    Thank you for your observations Rick. Nice to read a review by an intelligent,
    fair and objective individual.

  25. It’s like the saying, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” I don’t think the filmmakers are going to find unbiased reviewers in PWC. Google “9500 Liberty movie review” and see what others think.

  26. Emma, I thought you were more open-minded than that. What on earth do you base your opinions on?

    Rick, you have made some interesting observation. Some I agree with, some I don’t. However I top my hat to you for going out and seeing the film. I value your opinion because you are basing it on what you saw, your interpretation rather than gossip.

    On the other hand, I have never known a film that didn’t have some point of view attached to it. I do know that Eric and Annabel made an effort to be fair to various sides.

  27. Elena

    Greg came across exactly as he should have, no editing necessary. You know the old saying, everyone has an opinion! My neighborhood in Centreville changed pretty quickly, you did not see me attempting to drag my entire County into the fray to deal with my neighborhood issues surrounding immigrant issues. How has the law changed? Well, we still have 287 G which was in place at the jails BEFORE the county was torn apart by Greg, FAIR, and self serving politicans. So, actually, nothing has changed except the unintended consequences that Chief Deane talked about to the Board. Probable Cause WAS what we were trying to get repealed AND we succeeded.

    M-H was right, people will get out of the movie what they choose to.

  28. Emma

    I base my opinion on what I see through the lens of some of the true believers here, people who say things like, “But then, when a group of far right radical extremists stormed the government and put us on a path to disaster”–a statement that utterly discounts the reality that many people experienced before the resolution. And Rick is a credible source who confirms the bias of the film.
    Why take valuable time away from my evening? If it becomes available online I might watch, but I’ve seen and heard enough about those two that I have a pretty good idea what I’d be treated to.

  29. Rick Bentley

    I don’t want to discourage anyone from watching it. It is at least somewhat interesting. But a very biased perspective.

  30. Emma, I question using other people’s statements as a realiable backdrop for one’s own opinion. That actually doesn’t sound much like you.

    True believers here? I am insulted. I TRULY believe that this blog is made of people who have varied beliefs. I have worked real hard to make this a blog of varied beliefs rather than continual preaching a 1 person song to the choir. Your words remind me of the friend of my husband who asked him why he left the one true faith.

    Rick, I think you have vacillated between’ its a little biased’ to ‘all biased.’ I did not go Tuesday night I am sorry to say. I have a sick family member. But if memory serves me, did Lafayette not address the core problem? Did she not drive through some of the communities or was that part edited out? I doubt very seriously if there is any film footage of her changing her mind on the state of neighborhoods.

    The problem is, you can’t just go up to someone’s house and start filming undesirable behavior. I am sitting here thinking how some of that ‘this is why people were pissed off’ could have been eye witnessed into the film. I simply don’t know. I have also seen it several times and have seen it evolve. What I saw summer of 2008 probably isn’t what you saw Jan 2010 exactly. Similar but not the same. I know that Eric and Annabel attempted to show many different points of view.

    What I haven’t heard mentioned is that bad policy took a bad situation and made it worse, rather than serving as a solution. If there is bias, and I have seen few films that didn’t have some sort of bias, I would say it screamed bad policy. Creating bad policy did not fix the problem.

    As for why is the resolution still there? I ask, compare and contrast Resolution July 10, 2007 and Resolution Jan 28, 2010. Not much left of the Resolution that captured national attention is there.

  31. Rick Bentley

    It was biased, not a little biased. Which is their right, and that’s one type of movie. The best documentaries IMO hold longer on scenes and show more depth.

    If I was making a documentary circa 2005 I would have looked to include :

    Some type of evidence as to how large the influx was, how many people were here illegally. The film intimates that the County is/was 20% Hispanic, but it seems to me that I live it was more like 50%+ a couple of years ago, and that it was fueled by illegal immigration. Talk to parents or teachers about school registration, talk to emergency room workers, show what was real or at least what these people saw.

    Talk to county executives about the cost associated with illegal immigration, and how our budget went so bad so fast.

    Try to figure out how some guy who can barely speak English has $380,000 to spend on a house. Investigate the world of Spanish-language mortgage brokers. Show the ads in Spanish posted on building walls.

    Talk to realtors about what some of the flophouses look like when they get foreclosed – about what’s going on in those ostensibly single-family houses.

    Talk to local business owners or workers about illegal immigrants displacing citizens in the workplace. Follow a young person trying to get a job at a fast food restaurant.

    Show the prevalence of Spanish in PWC. Just drive through some fast-food places, and walk around some supermarkets.

    The film intimated that there was a slight increase in the Hispanic population, and that the good people of PWC freaked out for reasons of racial prejudice. The filmmakers probably believe that; I don’t. That’s their perspective and it’s the narrative thrust they gave to the film.

  32. Rick Bentley

    To me, after you see a really great documentary, you feel that you know the terrain shown in the movie.

    After I watch “Salesman”, I know what daily life was like for “The Rabbit” and the other Bible salesmen pictured. After I watch a Ken Burns extravaganza, I feel I know what life was like for a Civil War soldier or a 1920’s baseball player. When I watch various documentaries on Watergate, I feel I know what it was like to be in the room with Nixon, Haldeman, Dean, etc.

    After watching this film I would have a very shallow view of what it’s like to live in Prince William County. It seems to be an area where elderly residents freak out at the site of Hispanics and where local politicians stare into cameras, afraid to do “the right thing”. I think that’s what it looks like to Byler and Park.

    The film does mention that the County’s been diverse, but it doesn’t show it, and it intimates that the County’s Hispanic population is at about 20%.

    I live in a different world from Byler and Park I presume. In mine, people work hard all day, and deserve some security that their neighborhoods won’t deteriorate around them into overcrowded ghettos.

    In their world, people are being persecuted for skin color. In mine, this just isn’t so, most of the people around me aren’t bigots, and the question is whether we have to sit and allow our community to become a magnet for illegal immigrants.

  33. Rick Bentley

    “I am sitting here thinking how some of that ‘this is why people were pissed off’ could have been eye witnessed into the film.”

    Booming music. You don’t need to sneak up on people to show booming music coming out of houses, and cars driving through neighborhoods cranking Spanish music.

    Set up a watch outside a house and see how many different people come out during a 24-hour period. You don’t have to film the people coming in and out, just film yourself counting and announce the count.

    Show the side streets full up with parked cars on both sides, when there used to be a handful, because overcrowding was so much more prevalent.

  34. Lafayette

    Rick,
    Your documentary sounds good. It’s too bad things weren’t being documented on film prior to the introduction to the resolution. That’s where the real story is. This way people could see just what went on, and I think most would not want to see their neighborhoods go down hill so rapdily and drastically.

    BTW did you stick around for the discussion afterwards or all of it? I have review that needs to be read of that. I was curious if you may have a review of the q & a after the movie. I understand if you don’t want to answer, as it might give your identity away.

  35. Lafayette

    For those may have forgotten what it looked like around town. Here’s photos of some of the crap we were faced with day in and day out. I really can’t imagine anyone in their right mind would enjoy living around this crap.
    http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/561184047yuacNi

  36. Rick Bentley

    If you’re really brave, go into Principi’s district and film the chicken coops and wooden stoves from a distance.

    If you’re James O’Keefe, tresspass and plant an eavesdropping device on one of the chickens. Or knock on the door, claim you’re from ACORN, and start asking questions.

  37. Rick Bentley

    I didn’t stay for the Q&A. As soon as Annabel insisted on providing Spanish translation for the questions and answers, I got up and left. Not in anger, since i was a guest attending a free screening, but because I anticipated a slow session.

  38. Poor Richard

    Suggest a reading of -The Dixie Pig blog- to understand the outrage of
    not changing the Local Composite Index formula as Virginia has done for
    the last 40+ years. Manassas City schools will be hit for over
    three million and PWC for 22 million. State representatives from
    Loudoun County and Fairfax are all over this while our local delegation seems
    dead in the water.

    Manassas, in part, needs the funding to help educate a still rapidly growing
    number of ESL students which, on average, are 25% more expensive
    to teach per child.

    E- mail your representatives and Gov. McDonnell on this issue – let them know
    what you think. Protect our children’s education!

  39. GainesvilleResident

    Lafayette :
    For those may have forgotten what it looked like around town. Here’s photos of some of the crap we were faced with day in and day out. I really can’t imagine anyone in their right mind would enjoy living around this crap.
    http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/561184047yuacNi

    It is good to remind people of those kinds of pictures.

    In retrospect, if I had thought about it at the time during the 3 years I endured it – should have made a photo collection of the flophouse next to my townhouse, and piles of trash outside in front of it on non-garbage collection days, spilling over into my property usually. The furniture piled on their deck no less, because it could not fit inside the house anymore since it was converted to a flophouse. And the 4 or 5 cars parked all the time in the parking lot, when only 2 cars were allowed, and given a pass by the Point of Woods HOA even when pointed out to them specifically by make, model, license plate, and the fact that most had COUNTERFEIT Point of Woods hangtags on them. They always parked in my numbered reserved parking space and Point of Woods refused to do anything about it, and I should show a printout of the bill I got for having my car towed when it was the ONLY car in the lot, but couldn’t be parked completely in my numbered space – because one of the 4-5 cars of the neighbor’s house was. It was an intentional towing, the car was only 3 days old. That alone cost me $145 right there, which was completely unfair but it was a revenge towing for my constant complaints about the 4-5 cars the house next to me parked in the parking lot all the time, including in my own numbered reserved space.

    And I know from the police that several of the inhabitants of that house, including the suspect who broke into my house and stole thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment, cameras, etc. was not a legal immigrant.

    Very nice neighbors these were. It’s just one example, but it’s my own personal example of what I put up with for more than 3 years of horror. Should have had a tape recording of typical loud music playing at 2 AM in the morning too, which I just gave up on having the police come out night after night after night figuring they had better things to do.

    Things like these, were what angered me and plenty of others. And no, without having my house broken into, I could not have for sure ID’d some of the residents as not being illegal immigrants. The police told me most did not have any identification to present, and that’s why I knew that several of them, including the one neighbors saw running from my house after the break-in, had to not be here legally.

  40. GainesvilleResident

    Oh, and like Laffayette’s pictures, these people never cut their grass. Well, they’d cut it maybe every other month, when it got to be a foot high – some outfit would come and mow it down and the process would start all over again! I could give Laffayette’s pictures a good run for the money if I had pictures of my own, but never thought about document it photographically . Then again, that’s just as well, now I’d like to erase some of those kinds of images from my mind, after putting up with them for 3 long years.

  41. GainesvilleResident

    And, while i have not seen 9500 Liberty, since they say the film will be on cable, and eventually come out on DVD, I’ll definitely catch it then – if it gets on DVD I’m sure it will be available for rental on Netflix.

    I’m not a fan of seeing movies in movie theaters in general – and don’t often really go see regular movies in the theater.

    That’s one reason I have not bothered to go see the film, but do want to see it eventually so I can form my own opinion of it.

    I do want to add to the comments of some, that Rick’s review really seemed well written. He has a second career as a film critic…

  42. GainesvilleResident

    Poor Richard :
    Suggest a reading of -The Dixie Pig blog- to understand the outrage of
    not changing the Local Composite Index formula as Virginia has done for
    the last 40+ years. Manassas City schools will be hit for over
    three million and PWC for 22 million. State representatives from
    Loudoun County and Fairfax are all over this while our local delegation seems
    dead in the water.
    Manassas, in part, needs the funding to help educate a still rapidly growing
    number of ESL students which, on average, are 25% more expensive
    to teach per child.
    E- mail your representatives and Gov. McDonnell on this issue – let them know
    what you think. Protect our children’s education!

    This whole thing sounds like a mess, and I was not really aware of it until PR started posting about it. Does sound like something that needs a lot more attention quickly.

  43. PR, I am looking for information on Local Composite Index formula now. I have a lot of things going on here now. I need to get a concise idea of what should happen, what is not happening, and why northern Virginians are angry.

  44. Rick, I think you have made good points about the neighborhoods and why people were upset. I have always had a great deal of sympathy and empathy for the people who have howled over that aspect. However, it was not the objective of the film to explore that aspect. There are too many privacy issues.

    The objective, I believe, was to look at what happens when bad policy is put into place to solve a problem. The Resolution, which today looks nothing like the Resolution of 7/0/07, really did nothing to fix the immigration issues locally.

    Changes have been because of other issues, mainly the economy. As for the % of illegal immigrants living in PWC, how would you ever determine that number. Your closest estimate would have to come from the school population during that time period. That certainly wouldn’t tell you legal vs illegal either. It also would not take into account the young single adults in the area that did not have children.

    I think many of the families are still here. The young men who were here to work seemed to have moved on.

  45. Poor Richard

    M-H,
    For starters Google “The Dixie Pig blog”, of all places, for a general
    overview.
    Then Google “Gov. Bob McDonnell and the Local Composite Index”.

    Fear Gov. McDonnell, who ran as “From Northern Virginia” and understood
    our problems will simply twist the dagger Kaine put in our back.

  46. Rick Bentley

    “The objective, I believe, was to look at what happens when bad policy is put into place to solve a problem.”

    IT SOLVED MY PROBLEM. It may not have been the only factor, but it was surely a factor.

  47. PR, Am there, trying to get some history. I am having many interruptions which is making me have to go back to square one many times.

    What year did it start? I lose track of these things. Has it been more than 20 years?

  48. Rick, how did it solve your problem? And which resolution? The one that exists now really has no…errr…teeth. Could we have gotten to that point where we are now by another route other than bad policy?

    And when I say bad policy, I mean the first resolution, the many revisions, the empty promises of money to the cops, (which they still dont have), dragging our chief of police through all sorts of muck, accusations that he was a traitor, the chairman giving a local blog owner emails from other board members that ended up posted on the blog and vilifying those board members, a 10-12 hour marathon of speakers who found out that coming out in mass doesn’t do jack, using a blog to wage a war against not only illegal immigrants but anyone who questioned process or method, and finally, using the resolution as a stage to win an election.

    The entire thing sickens me. I doubt if any of those things cleaned up your neighborhood. What changed mine drastically were foreclosures and the housing industry drying up.

  49. Rick Bentley

    By creating the perception, by either resolution (but especially by the first one) that Prince William was not a particularly welcoming place for illegal immigrants to settle in, many of them moved away. Of the 25 units on my block, 12-13 of which were housing Spanish-speaking groups of 7 or more people in 3-bedroom houses, there’s only I think one house left like that now.

    Yes, downturn in contruction had something to do with it. Yes, balloon paytments on mortgages encouraged many to leave. But without the resolution I don’t think many would have left.

    Thing is, the “flophouse” phenomenon is driven by some typically Spanish speaking person choosing to take out an ungodly mortgage, and paying it by letting rooms out to many renters. I think that once PWC identified itself as “unfriendly’ to this, many of those mortgage holders were eager to let the houses go rather than to hold onto the property, becauyse they were afraid that over the long term this creation and maintenence of flophouses full of illegal immigrants was going to be more trouble for them than it was worth. So when the payments started to balloon, whereas with a more welcoming climate they probably would just take in another set of renters and create more cubicles in the basement, they let go of the property.

    The resolution by itself wouldn’t have worked as well, but in conjunction with the other factors, there are less flophouses and the neighborhoods around me are much more citizen-friendly.

  50. Rick Bentley

    it sickens you, but what sickens me is an America where rules are broken if they benefit the wealthy, and only if they benefit the wealthy. Illegal immigration would not be tolerated if it cost the wealthy a dime.

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