Manassas City Council: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Today is the Fall Festival in Old Town Manassas.  It is an annual event that brings tourists into the heart of the City from all over the surrounding area.  It is a day for the City to show off what a cool place it is and also a day for the merchants to bring in the bucks. 

Bringing in the bucks is never a bad thing, especially in this economy.  Many local shop keepers in the City and PWC have been hit hard by the recession and some have had to close their doors, as is evidenced by empty stores in and around the area.  I hope that today is a great day for those merchants in Old Town.  The weather is fabulous and it more or less defines what an October day should be like.  Hopefully no one’s political agenda will mar the event.

The Manassas City Council has been placed in a position by residents and non residents that really leaves them between a rock and a hard place.  For the most part, the council members are nice people who run for election, don’t get paid much for serving, and who are giving  their time to make their small city and community a better place.  They turn out for events and keep the public informed.  The thing I have noticed the most about them is their unwavering dedication to the City and its residents and their never-ending championing of their home turf.  This is a good thing and the good people of the City of Manassas have elected some mighty fine representatives. 

During the past month, these council members have gotten crushed in a political debate that really has gone too far.  It all started when someone noticed the store front window of KK Temptations, a soon-to-be adult boutique.  The alarm was sounded and local “anti- porn” groups sprung to life.   Several local delegates got involved and so did this blog.  We supported the right of KK Temptations to exist, especially since there were already other stores with similar content within the City limits.  Furthermore, KK Temptations had been approved for business according to City regulations. 

The City Council got to sit through what can only be described as a marathon citizens’ time.  Meanwhile, they got bombarded with requests to regulate the long standing women’s clinic that is an abortion provider.  The Religious Right was on a real roll.  No one wants to look like they like pornography.  Delegate Miller did the Council no favors coming into their bailiwick and stirring the pot.  He immediately defined the store as a “porno store.”  That set the tone and allowed all reasonable and logical discussion to be overruled by a name. 

To cause such a stink over location paints the City, and continues to paint the City as elitist.   No one worried at all that MVC is a block over from the library, Parkside or Kindercare or that Fashion Fantasy is right there on route 28 for all to see as they enter the City from that approach.  Some of those stores have been there for decades.  However, because of the way KK Temptations was defined, the City Council has been placed in the position of spending money that they probably don’t have to handle something, that in all probability, won’t be a problem. 

No elected official wants to appear to support pornography aka obscenities.  Doing so can be a real deal breaker come election day.  They also don’t want to be seen as being old fogies, so they walk a tight rope.  The can-can girls perform in Harris Pavilion and the mothers’ march on a legitimate business goes on up the street.  The Council walks a tight rope and hopes that none of the warring factions drops another lawsuit on their desk. 

I nominate the Manssas City Council for the ‘I wouldn’t want to be them’ award.  They have been put in the position that many PWC supervisors found themselves in in 2007 over immigration–between a rock and a hard place.