The BOCS is learning and we have some new heroes. Mike May, Frank Principi and Marty Nohe simply didn’t allow Corey Stewart to change staff recommendations on the Environmental Chapter of the Comprehensive Plan to favor his developer buddies.
Last Tuesday’s meeting lasted until well after 10 pm. Listening to it was worse than being beaten with whips and chains all while watching paint dry and grass grow. After what seemed like hours of droning by staff and citizens, Stewart wanted to change 3 different areas of impact from what staff recommended. He tried to talk his way around the business end of it. That didn’t work. Staff had just gotten the copy of the proposed changes that afternoon. That didn’t sit well. Perhaps they remember the ripping they got over passing Corey’s ‘attachment’ to the legislative package before they had time to read the attachment, digest the UVA report, or give citizens time for input. They sure didn’t allow him to do it to them or the county again.
Mike May moved to pass everything but the 3 items in question. Those were to be tabled until next week when a side by side comparison would be prepared. Citizens would also have time for input. Congratulations and thanks to Mike May for good governance. Thanks to Supervisors Nohe and Principi for doing good back up. Sunshine is always needed, even in Prince William County.
Moonhowlings is glad to see our supervisors putting a stop to the end runs and antics of the Chairman. He obviously wants to dispense with some of the environmental issues since they get in the way of the developers making a buck. Sneaking in changes late at night when the changes have not been subject to public review is sneaky. Using the excuse that endangered species is a federal issue just isn’t going to fly, Corey. He must think that the migration flight of the butterfly is an example of illegal immigration or something. Geeez.
Note: if other supervisors were part of blocking the end run, it was late, I was bored out of my skull, and I apologize to them.
The vast majority of “citizens” who showed up were nothing more than one of the prearranged stage shows that Corey and his developer pals put on. He did this with Avendale last summer also. The process is to organize many developers and developer supporters well in advance to show up to speak so it will appear that Corey has broad and strong public support for whatever he is trying to do. Don’t inform the public in time for citizens representing taxpayer rights, conservation or sensible development to study the issue and organize their time to be able to speak also.
I can’t say that Corey’s performance last Tuesday was as disgraceful as what he and Wally did with Avendale. In that case, they conned the Gainesville Grizzlies families into joining their developer pals. This Tuesday, however, represented one of the highlights of sleaze in Corey’s career.
I am not a big fan of Marty Nohe – he usually sides with the developers. He is clearly a member of the Gang of Five. However, I will give Marty credit where credit is due. This Stewart fiasco was too much even for Marty. I extend my thanks to Mike, who led the charge, and to Marty and Frank who spoke out also.
Moreover, we should boycott the Chamber of Commerce. I was concerned when the recent merger occurred and my fears have unfortunately proven true. The new director claimed that the Chamber represents 1,800 local businesses. No, they don’t. The Prince William County business community consists of far more than developers, and their interests do not coincide. The new Chamber has been co-opted by development interests and represents them, not the business community.
Corey has to go. I hope Republicans can nominate someone else. However, even as a longtime, loyal Republican, under no circumstances will Corey Stewart ever get another of my votes.
Thank you for your input, NTK and I am sorry you had so much trouble posting. First I had to fish you out of spam, no fault of yours. After I thought I had rescued you, I went looking for your comment and nope…you hadn’t made it up to civilization. So then you ended up in moderation. I have no idea what the problem is. My apologies.
I have never heard so much droning on about things that just have no interest to the average person. I am surprised every last supervisor didn’t fall asleep on the dais. I doubt if any of them knew what most of the comments were about either. Holy cow. By the time I finished listening to all that crap, Elena called and I told her I wanted to pave over the entire county, just so I never had to listen to any of that again.
It was almost worth it to hear Corey get all shameless and desperate. I thought he was going to beg there for a minute when he realized that Marty, Frank and Mike were tackling him to the ground as he feebly tried to hold on to the ball during his end run. He came at them from another angle. He even went so far as to try to flora and fauna on the endangered species list as ….federal govt responsibility. ho ho ho …nice try Cores….try shooting a bald eagle and see what happens.
Yup, pretty shameless. Highlights of Sleaze–totally priceless. Bottle that one, NTK. Nope, no grizzlies. Maybe that was his endangered species list. Those grizzlies will be gandpa grizzlies before those fields go in.
A friend of mine who posts here periodically had a freaking pond on the lot next door to him. That is the kind of crap this county pulls. Obviously there were underground springs that kept the pond covering most of the lot. He complained and the calvalry came.
Next thing he knew his developer started building the house on the lot. Well, that took care of the pond but…..there are big gapping spaces in the driveway, along outdoor stairs etc. Building over a natural spring is not going to make it go away.
Just another highlight of sleaze I guess. The developers want to eek every ounce of land out of a situation. They don’t care. I hope the developers get sued, in this case. That person will recognize the story and can add to it.
Moonhowler,
I am very impressed, what a great post. You broke it down and demonstrated that their are heros on our BOCS. Good job Mike et all for not letting Corey bully the Board.
On one hand Corey is mewling about doing the “will of the community” when it came to Finley and yet when it comes to the environment he is all about what the developers want? What a hypocrite!
NTK, Love the highlight of Sleaze title!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t worry about the technical glitches, Moon. I struggle with that sort of thing also, and am on the phone this morning with someone who trying to help me figure out how to use my new iPad and get files from computer onto it. I’m relatively technologically incompetent.
Althought the pre-arranged stage show for Avendale was an unparalleled disgrace, Corey’s personal performance Tuesday set a new standard for disgraceful behavior, one that even Rangel would find hard to approach.
Corey’s shilling for the Chamber and Development interests was to be expected and his last minute amendments should have come as no surprise. What truly disgusts me is the shameless manner in which he advanced those interests. I would suggest that his actions didn’t diminish the thousands of man-hours put in by staff, appointees, interest groups and citizens but rather negated them in their entirety. It seems pointless to expend time, resources and money on months-long processes mandated by statute when ultimately the finished product is ash-canned in favor of “expertly” crafted alternatives penned by the BOCS or more properly their enablers in the development community. Perhaps as part of their next legislative agenda they could suggest to the GA that all county policies be developed and implemented by the NVBA, think of the savings that could be accomplished by outsourcing the responsibility to them and eliminating the Planning Office, Planning Commission and large portions of the Transportation and Public Works Departments.
The greater issue for me however is Corey’s personal performance, one that stabs at the heart of my Conservative Republican soul. The utter lack of transparency was abominable and the additional opportunity for input given solely to the industry representatives post-hearing comtemptible. All of that pales however in the face of Corey’s presentation. For God’s sake man if you are going to present amendments at least have the decency to know what they contain prior to initiating them. Further is you don’t have the vaguest idea what they mean, to the point of having to ask staff to explain them, you have no effing business making them in the first place. Alas, I suppose that would require Corey to understand such concepts as transparency, ethics, protocol and the definition of the public trust. I can honestly say I have NEVER been more disgusted with an elected official at any level carrying an R next to his name than am currently with our esteemed chair.
MoM brings up an important point….Corey didn’t know what he was talking about. It was clear someone had talked him into nefarious business, he had said OK, and didn’t even know how to present it. Did you catch him saying, “let’s see, what am I talking about.”
That might not be a direct quote but close enough. NTK and MoM are both right. Shameful. Embarrassing. Highlights of Sleaze. It can’t be singular.
Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse as far as shameful and embarrassing. It does. Will it ever end?
The thing really gets my goat is the fact the Chairman thinks such amendments should be passed without public review, let alone input. The BoS needs to remember who elected them and who they represent. Is it 2011 yet?
Mom’s comments are on the money. The only outstanding question is which was sleazier; last Tuesday or Avendale last summer. You could argue it either way, I suppose. In support of last Tuesday is that Corey demonstrated overwhelmingly and with no doubt that he has no knowledge or understanding of any of these issues; development, environment, economics, or what have you. He is simply a mouthpiece of whatever group he thinks at any given time is most likely to help him advance his career.
Conservative Republicanism, which is where I see myself, especially in fiscal and economic matters, bears no resemblance to what Corey Stewart has been doing. People such as Mom, me, and many others who are committed to this philosophy are appalled by Corey trying to identify himself with it. It means many things, including limited government and minimal interference in the functioning of the free market.
True Conservative Republicanism includes in no way private business interests colluding with and bribing elected officials through campaign contributions to get their way against the interests of all taxpayers and citizens. Such practices, which are the hallmark of Corey’s political style, are the antithesis of free market capitalism and everything for which being a Conservative Republican stands. This sort of corporatism is toxic to Republicans. Preaching free markets and conservatism in public, and practicing special interest politics behind closed doors will be the death of Republicans unless we can clean house of those who engage in such behavior.
BECAUSE listening to land use and the environment regulations are so tedious, that is what makes Kim Hosen and the Prince William Conservation Alliance critical to protecting the interests of citizens like us. Without people like Kim, the liklihood of developers getting away with stuff like this becomes even more possible.
visit their website http://www.pwconserve.org
Elena,
You are so right about Kim ant PWCA. They really do have an informative website. I try to share their links on my FB to make sure others in the county are aware of their work and efforts. I know several that have been so impressed it’s made them write to our BoS and Planning Commissioners. Several were quite concerned with the proposed “Helwig Highway”. The PWCPA didn’t seem to be very good stewards of our environment judging by the pictures of the park and the work in progress at the time. I’m grateful for their efforts.
Here’s the link to the update on the Environmental Chapter update. (sigh)
http://www.pwcgov.org//default.aspx?topic=040073001410004148#Environment
Here’s the link to the text amendments from Tuesday night.
http://www.pwcgov.org/documents/bocs/agendas/2010/1207/15-F.pdf
I don’t think the second link is working. Hopefully this on will work.
http://www.pwcgov.org/docLibrary/PDF/13359.pdf
Reminder: 3 links = a ticket to moderation.
It is very boring and dull stuff to listen to and unless you do it every day, very hard for the layman to understand.
I’m not worried about get caught in moderation or spam. I don’t believe there’s anything to listen to in the links I put up. I was awake to hear the begining of Corey and couldn’t stay awake. I hope to catch it tonight or DVR it. I have no sound on my computer.GRR!!
No one wants you to worry about it. I have warnings up on all threads that things are hinky. They seem to be mostly after Need to Know.
3 links goes to moderation. Sometimes less does it. Some unknown thing is putting people in spam.
I have not been around since this morning to rescue people so if someone is stuck there, email me or leave a note on open thread.
@Moon-howler
Corey and the developers must be on to me and out to get me! Turning paranoia switch back off now.
@NTK
Corey will have to get in line. The software was out to get you this morning.
Keep the switch on.
Indeed, I am who MH is referring to. I did contact the county and they came and told the developer (Brookfield) to drain the huge pond on the property adjacent to my lot. I’ll add that when I purchased my lot it was back in May 2008 and we had that long dry spell, so the lot next to mine was completely dry. Not until I moved into my house at the end of October 2008 did we see any rain and then when the rain came in the fall the lot next to mine which was unbuilt completely flooded. I have a ton of pictures of this. Anyway, the county told the developer to drain the lot (after my repeated attempts to get the developer to do it on their own). Well, they drained it, and sped up building on it (they told my neighbors who later told me this story – that they had decided to “do them a favor and speed up delivery on their house”)! Anyway, soon after they moved in, their driveway developed huge sinkholes. And, the steps to their front porch separated from the pavement and left a gap of about 8″ between the bottom of the first step and the top of the pavement. We have pictures of this too. The builder came and of course “fixed it” by putting down new higher pavement and by filling in the driveway. The driveway since has sunk again and has been fixed again.
For awhile my sump pump was running like crazy – until I got the county to chase after the developer who refused to fix it – and the “fix” was to direct the water from the sump pump away from my house. It had been dumping it right back down next to my house. Not sure that’s much of a fix. My basement floor is severely cracked, and the builder refuses to address that. Brookfield – we call them “Crookfield” actually!
Well, that’s sort of the short form of the story (not that it was that short). MH knows more of the gory details. Until just recently there was a hole in my neighbor’s driveway right next to his garage – that was the width of an arm and that you could put your entire arm down and not find the bottom!
Congrats on the new iPad! I’ve had mine for about 2 months now and really like it a lot! MH has one too and has had one much longer than I have.
Speaking of the iPad – I tried in the past (as in a few weeks ago) to post on here from it but my posts never made it up here. It seemed to at least not like my iPad. Haven’t bothered to try posting from it since. Posts didn’t even end up in moderation – guess they ended up as “spam”.
Probably not a good idea to stick your arm down there!
Crook field should have never been allowed to pull that crap. Who approves homes being built on ponds?
City of Manassas has Sumner Lake and some of those houses are sitting where there was once a pond.
Crookfield..that’s a classic. Corey’s exact word’s “they[Crookfield] are one of the good guys”. LMAO
That’s really funny Lafayette. I can’t take the credit for “Crookfield” – someone else in the neighborhood coined that term on the neighborhood’s FB page!