Tomorrow at 1:3o, Corey Stewart will announce that he is running for re-election for Prince William County Board of Supervisor for the Chairman’s seat. Stewart currently holds that position.
Prince William County voters need to ask him one question: Does he plan to serve as chairman for the entire 4 years if elected chairman?
Stewart has toyed with running for Senate and other state election during this past election cycle. Prince William County residents don’t need to have their chairman campaigning the entire time in office. Either he runs for Chairman of the BOCS or he sits it out and campaigns for another office. There is simply no reason for him to campaign for another office on our time.
It would cost the taxpayers to hold a special election. Plus, if he runs he can pump up his war chest and take it with him.
That sure doesn’t sound like it would be in the best interests of the county, Juturna.
I think that he needs to take the I’ll stay pledge. Of course, we saw how well he did with the rural crescent pledge, as he lined up the Grizzlies to appear before the BOCS.
How is this for a slogan:
“Vote for Corey Stewart, he may only eff up your county for one more year”
Pledges mean nothing to Corey. He can just “reaffirm” his committment once he breaks it. Isn’t that how it works?
Can we get someone…anyone.. that’ll vote to lower my taxes and decrease the county budget? I’ll vote for that woman or man.
I’ll cross party lines. I’ll even go green party. Is it just too much to ask?? 😉
run, corey, run! an american patriot actually carrying out the will of his constituents; a rare breed in today’s cynical political environment
Not a single comment in favor of Chairman Stewart on insidenova.com.-lmao
AMF, Chairman Stewart!
@marin, I don’t think that we have high taxes locally. Of course, I am one of those people who want services.
How do you feel about traffic? He led the charge to put in more houses in the rural crescent. That means we have more cars on the road and we will need more schools. Sounds like Corey is your man….NOT.
@marinm
What part of the county government/infrastructure would you give up marinm in order to lower your taxes and decrease the county budget? Maybe we start with school buses–let those little fat bastards walk to school–I did and so did my kids. Or let their parents drive them–use that minivan for more than hauling kids to the soccer games. Ah–another idea–get rid of the soccer fields and the little league fields. After all, sandlot games were good enough for a whole lot of us. Get rid of housing subsidies, heating oil subsidies and subsidies to such things as Didlake Industries. Do away with the Community Services Board, the Area Agency on Aging and the Department of Social Serivces–turn all of that over to faith based programs but don’t provide one dime of county money (your tax dollars). That will sure as hell test their faith. Maybe have the county make large one time buy of Glocks and give one to every household–that way we could get rid of a large number of cops. Since e-books are moving to the forefront, let’s close half the libraries–who needs all those dead trees setting on shelves? Do away with school cafeterias–brown bag it. Now it’s your turn.
@George S. Harris
See, your trying to pick at me but I don’t really see a problem with anything you just said. Any of those would ‘work’.
MH, traffic sucks and it isn’t helped by the increase in the size of the federales every year. Working off a poor assumption that the federales MUST increase every year — why do so only in DC? Why not use land more land in Springfield? PWC has some available land with trees we could bulldoze and build the next Ministry of Silly Walks at. Why lobby for METRO into PWC when we can just move sections of the federales near us.
@marinm
Well, let’s see–you want someone who will lower your taxs and reduce the county budget, but you don’t offer a single suggestions. You sound like a Teapublican. All talk–no walk. Or maybe–all hat, no cattle.
@George S. Harris
Ok, I agree with you on your suggestions and then you call me out on it? Do you know how silly that makes you look?
@marinm
Hmmm–never thought of it like that. But I still am asking–what would you do? Of course I will call you out on it because you haven’t come up with anything except to bitch and gripe. As I said–All talk, no walk.
Some of the fed business is here. Check out the FBI facility off the Parkway, also the one at Quantico. I am all for spreading the city out…all over the place and out of state. However, the increased traffic is NOT because of increased federal jobs. Many of those are due to attritian.
Increased traffic in PWC is nearly totally due to the increase in new housing.
Prince Willliam already has the lowest tax bill in the area and $141k has been permanently cut from the county budget over the past two years. Marim, what programs would you cut?
I’ve been critical about Corey on this blog before about other issues but will acknowledge that he’s done a good job of cutting the budget. However, we’ve cut about as much as we can without impairing education, public safety and other essential services.
Here’s the problem. We’re living with the legacy of many Boards of County Supervisors from the past and present, and their poor decisions on allowing virtually unrestricted residential development. Residential development is almost always tax revenue negative. That means that the total taxes collected from a residential unit (property, sales, etc.) are less than the cost of services for the people who live in those houses. This is cumulative over time. As we add on more and more residential units, we must continually raise taxes and/or reduce the level of services.
Prince William County has lower taxes than Fairfax and many other jurisdictions now, but why would we want to try to catch up with them on that count? I want to hear pledges from all candidates that they will support no further comp plan amendments or rezonings that are not tax revenue positive, or allow additional density, sewers, roads or other types of growth in the Rural Crescent.
We can maintain low taxes and improve the level of services to the citizens of Prince William County by bringing in much more commercial development (in the development area rather than the Rural Crescent). Commercial development is virtually always tax-revenue positive subsidizing services for residents by paying more in taxes than the cost of the public services it consumes, and creating jobs.
No more Avendales!!!! That was a one-hundred percent residential development in the Rural Crescent. Wrong on both counts. I’m even willing to consider mixed-use projects in the development area (as opposed to the Rural Crescent) if independent analysis (I don’t believe anything Melissa Peacor says) shows that it will be in fact tax revenue positive.
Our admonition to all candidates this year must be that we do not want more tax revenue negative development, and no more growth of the type that increases congestion on the roads and in the schools. We do not need to become a high-tax jurisdiction like Fairfax County.
I agree that we need more business in PWC rather than residential. Outside of Target I tend to go outside of the county for my retail needs.
If you were to ask me what I would cut I’d zone in on two things.
Police/Fire Services
Schools
We could do a 10-15% reduction across both.
We could also explore dismantling our county police force and utilizing the Sheriff’s office for county law enforcement and court services.
I think Stafford County gets along with as little as 100 uniformed deputies.
Methinks you might have too many retail “needs” if this is the case 🙂
I go to the Apple store in Fair Oaks but that’s about it.
I would agree with you for the most part but I found that when I got hitched I had to buy grown up furniture and now items to prepare for Victor and Echo’s arrival.
I understand we have to invest in something called “Winnie the Pooh”. I’ll WIKI that later.
Marin, you have got to be kidding me. fire/police and schools?
You are aware that we still haven’t met promises made 3 years ago to the fire dept?
We are understaffed with police. And just what part of education would you cut?
ps I have had 3 people email me and ask what your problem was.
Seriously. Tell me why you would cut those 3 areas. I truly am speechless.
Stafford doesn’t have a police department, does it?
You really want to live in PWC with only 100 uniforms? Bye…I am outta here.
I really need to finish reading. Marin, you are simply full of crap. Dismantle the police and go to sheriff? Bwaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
We have had a police department since the very early 70’s. There was a need. Have you looked at the population, the types of crime in the county?
I can’t have this conversation.
Nope, not kidding. Those two amount to a very large portion of the county budget. Why should those two areas be sacred? That’s like saying defense on the federale budget shouldn’t be touched. It should.
I’m not sure why 3 people think I have a ‘problem’. I’m civily debating a topic. Just because my answers may not be popular doesn’t mean I have an issue with anyone person on this blog…my showing up to a blog event in person should speak to the fact that I’m not as malicious as people would like to assume I am.
This all boils down to a phone call from a bill collector. We might have that sinking feeling when the phone rings and we may try to avoid the call but avoiding the future doesn’t mean the local sheriff won’t throw my property out if I miss those mortgage payments.
@Moon-howler
As I have pointed out earlier: marinem = all hat, no cattle. Or if you wish–typical Teapublican–can talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk. If you want to cut law enforcement, consider cutting the sheriff’s office their job is to be gate keepers and process servers. They gave up being jailers a long time ago in PWC. But police and fire/rescue? GMAB!!! Who would be the first to bitch if his house was burgled or caught on fire? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count! Do you suppose his head is in some undisclosed location????
@Marim – I’m sure the Police Office would be delighted to receive an “opt-out” form from you regarding services. Give it a shot. 703-792-6500. In fact one call could opt you out of both Polce and Fire services. I certainly hope you live in a 100% crime free neighborhood and don’t have any children, own any property, drive on any congested roads or any other action that might expose you to the public and the subsequent dangers, accidents or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hope you don’t live in a townhouse in case of fire, or that your home is not located near power lines, woods, or too close to another home. I hope you don’t use your fireplace. How would you feel about living a home or around homes that are not up to code. Finally I sincerly hope you never have any need for ambulance services.
Police Department has lost up to 30 employees 16 policemen and the rest support staff during the last two years. CE reported it in her budget presentation. I don’t they’re sacred cows.
Fire Board is one of the very few with a population this size that functions with the large percent of volunteers.
Did you know that PWC average residential tax bill is over $1,000 less than all neighboring jurisdictions? At some point being low becomes not enough.
But, I would be interested in what programs you would support cutting in the Police Office? School Resource Officers are gone, the Crime Intervention services has been slashed. So from what I can see preventation services are dying.
I think this is where the need to be strategic and better informed (as we ALL could be) comes in. 🙂
Also, I could be wrong but the County Executive form of government requires a Police Department. I guess we could change the form of government and go with an elected County Executive. I don’t see that as an improvement.
We could go without water and dismantle the Water Authority. What’s wrong with wells and septic countywide? Might be stinky in those townhome developments and of course far more expensive to the resident than taxes, but we could reduce taxes a penny or two and water and sewer could be up to the homeowner.
We could get rid of the dump and take all our stuff to Stafford? Or, hey, let’s dump it in the Potomac!!
We could get rid of Animal Control and and let the annual bear sightings go on, rabid dogs and other critters at large and of course if you are bitten by your neighbors dog – gee, there’d be no one to complain to, no ambulance services (so hope your 6 year old can drive) and golly, no water to clean the cut. But then again, why did you move into a neighborhood where people had dogs.
I think this all reminds me of Ruby Ridge and that didn’t work out so well.
@Juturna
Could I opt out of paying for those services? At the moment I can’t so a call to the non-emergency number won’t really get me anything except annoy the non-sworn person that fields my call and files it under ‘crank’.
The police force is authorized a strength of 558 sworn officers and 181 non-sworn. We also have a county sherrif’s office. Stafford County has 223 employees total. We almost have as many non-sworn as they have sworn. Obviously there are is a size and population difference but I don’t think the numbers plot out in a way that is positive for PWC. So, we could go on a section/department/divison/program perspective or straight dollar cut and allow the Chief to figure out how to implment the cut.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+15.2-1703 is the VAC for getting rid of a county police force and going back to the Sheriff being the primary law enforcement officer. It’s seperate from the county executive form of government.
I think Colorado Springs would be a better comparison.
Here’s a video clip about how the police budget was cut in Colorado Springs so much that police won’t dispatch an officer to parking violations…so instead they train volunteers to issue out citations in a manner like a citizens arrest.
http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=585695
People being more independent. 😉
They’re all high on medicinal marijuana. They don’t know the difference. Have you visited lately? 🙂
The national ratio of officers per population is 2.0/1,000 residents. The county is 1.34/1,000. I think there is a bit more that goes into number of officers per jurisdiction – crime rate, geography, daytime population, poverty rate, miles traveled in PWC and so forth.
marin
I had great success with a sworn officer coming to my house Christmas Eve blocking my driveway as I returned home. I came straight in, called the non-emergency number and within 7 minutes a uniform officer in a squad car was here. He went and knocked on the neighbor’s door. They denied it was their guest. The officer wrote them a ticket to the tune of $35 I believe on the spot. He was willing to have the car towed if I wanted. It was Christmas Eve and there was PLENTY of street parking available and I just couldn’t have someone towed when I didn’t HAVE to get in my driveway. I will tell you this, every time I’ve called they’ve sent a uniformed officer to my house and in less than 8 minutes every time. I’ve called numerous times for driveway and sidewalk blockings with great success.
I don’t think we were FB friends then, but trust me the discussion was LIVELY to say the least on my wall.
@Juturna
I’ll make your point better for you! 😉
■The rate of full-time law enforcement employees (civilian and sworn) per 1,000 inhabitants in the Nation was 3.5; the rate of sworn officers was 2.4 per 1,000 inhabitants. – FBI
@Lafayette, I think I recall you mentioning something about that. Talk about a rude neighbor. I hope they don’t get any red velvet any time soon!!!
On every occassion (minus one) that I’ve dealt with PWCPD they’ve been very professional and effecient. The above is by no means a cop bash. But, nothing on the county budget should be considered sacred.
@marinm
Glad to know you’ve only had one bad experience.
That neighbor gets NOTHING from me. They run a day care 24/7 there and my driveway gets blocked at least twice a week with a kid drop off or pick up. My husband and I have had to go knock on the door numerous times. Then we get cussed out by them in front of 9-12 kids all under the age of 5. Nice, real nice!!
I don’t know about nothing be sacred when it comes to the budget. But what I do know is that the thought of our Sheriff’s department being the police officers scares the hell out of me. Have you ever dealt with them? My guess is you have not, or you would not be promoting the Sheriff idea for PWC. The concept works in the more rural counties, not a county of our size in the Commonwealth.
Marin, they aren’t sacred. Losing 16 officers is not sacred. Again, just because they are the biggest doesn’t mean they are overfunded. The Boards strategic plan, a guide for PWC funding, ranks education, tranportation and public safety as their top priorities.
If you think the biggest budgets should be targeted first, why did you argue that the PBS budget should be targeted before defense and foreign aid should be cut first? Couldn’t we use civilians volunteers to staff the military? People being more independent.
PS The county uses PT folks to handle parking violations around the county. About $10 an hour for about 10 people. Brings in half a mil. I’d be interested in the worker’s comp arrangement that COlorado Springs has in place for those civilians……
@Lafayette
Thats a lot of kids..are they licensed? Sounds like a mess to me. I feel for you.
@Juturna, that’s a valid point. On the other thread I think I mentioned end game. It may be that I bring up a cut here so that defenders of this program rally to defend it and then allow a cut to a social service that I wouldn’t mind being cut.
Idealy I’d like a 10-15% cut (I’ve said as much at those BOCS budget meetings and I have a room full of people glaring at me) and allow department heads to figure out how the cuts will happen with least impact.
The question was posed to me as ‘what part of county government/infrastructure would you cut’ so I answered in that context but you’re right. I could do it either way as long as the result is a cut. 😉
For workers comp I think it would vary by county/city ordinance. I don’t think the state covers it. I know if I’m deputized as a county/state police officer I’m covered under http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+65.2-103.
@Juturna
Do they have any open positions for night work??? Daddy needs to make some extra money!!
Call. Ask. Get involved and learn.
Better yet, volunteer.
Smart budgeting stopped the accross the board cuts ages ago. It’s easy but simply not strategic. Prioritizing programs and fitting them into your five year strategic plan is smarter. In government almost all agency budgets are 85% salary. PWC has fewer employees per population than almost 20 years ago despite an almost 70% increase in population.
I would recommend PWC get out of the road building business before cutting policemen and firemen. That is a state concern and a federal concern not a local responsibility. I am for defining missions and sticking to it. I’m also against duplication of services. And it’s many millions of local tax money.
@marinm
I didn’t ask them. They didn’t complain that you were rude. They thought you were out of touch and ….well…nuts.
Only 1 was a democrat type. The others were solid Rs.
As I said, the discussion was getting too preposterous for me.
There can be no fire/police/education cuts. They have been cut to the max.
Marin, you are just saying that to read your own opinions. Have you even followed budget for the past couple of years? Millions have been cut. If it weren’t for the hardworking employees of PWC, we would be a third world county. Remember, these people haven’t had a raise in 3 years. Many have retired. Positions haven’t been filled. Yet these are the people you want to have their pension pulled out from under.
Shame on you. I salute them. (and while I am at it, that is why I don’t want county employee bashing on this blog.)