Citizens of PWC, waiting very patiently, now have an opportunity to read Babur Lateef’s platform. He has laid out the foundation for his candidacy.
In the Washington Post Blog/local politics, Dr. Babur Lateef also shares his views. Here is a link to the full article.
Pr. William board chairman candidate to release campaign platform
By Jennifer Buske
Democrat Babur Lateef ,who is seeking to replace Board Chairman Corey Stewart (R), said he plans to release a campaign platform this week that focuses on issues that have directly impacted his family, including the foreclosure crisis.
An opthamologist with his own practice in Prince William, Lateef said his business took a hit during the recession. He said he fell behind on his mortgage payments last year and his home went into foreclosure.
Lateef said his brother and sister-in-law were able to purchase the house when it went up for auction, but now Lateef, his wife and four children are tenants in the home they once owned.
“The [foreclosure] issue is troubling for a lot of folks in the county and as a candidate running for office, I can really relate,” the 39-year-old said. “Corey hasn’t been there to address these issues and the race should be about someone who will address the problems of the people in Prince William.”
If elected, Lateef said his first action would be to create a foreclosure task force of homeowners, policy experts and banking officials. Lateef said the county should adopt an ordinance that requires lenders who evict families to show proof to the county sheriff that they have given the family a proper eviction notice and that the family has exhausted all avenues to save their home.
Lateef said he wants to work with local, state and federal officials to require banks to give homeowners 45 days notice before a foreclosure, up from the current 14. He also wants to draft a plan that would allow families facing foreclosure to apply certain county payments, such as their personal property tax, to their mortgage.
“We were fortunate to have family that could help us through that very difficult time…but most Prince William families are not as fortunate,” Lateef said. “It’s why I care so deeply about addressing the foreclosure crisis in our county.”
Besides tackling the foreclosure epidemic, Lateef said he will focus on education, traffic, jobs and development.
Lateef said he supports a bus-rapid transit system both in the county and along Interstates 95 and 66. Bringing metro to Prince William is another priority, Lateef said.
On the job front, Lateef said he wants to work with state officials to expand the governor’s opportunity fund and develop a small-business leaders round table in the county. Lateef said he supports the plan to revitalize Route 1 and wants to see more mixed-use development in areas that can support the growth, not in the rural sections of the county.
@Censored bybvbl
Mr. Gray or Councilman Wier?
Censored
I would say it benefits Mr. Gray slightly, as some of those who would have otherwise voted for Mr. Latef, but can’t bring themselves to vote for the incumbant, will cast their votes for him. But this effect will not move the dial more than fractionally. Mr. Gray has to answer questions about electability. He’s run under just about every party affiliation, and never been successful. What this says is, he can’t win over “R”s, “D”s or “I”s in sufficient quantity to win. Councilman Wier is going to have a very tough slog to win the nomination. It’s very hard for a challenger to pick off a sitting incumbant in a nominating contest.
@Elena
Different people chose to deal with it differently. To lump all the people together who found neighborhood issues undesirable is simply not accurate.
Elena,
Lateef and his wife are doctors, they bought a $1.2 million home, that they couldn’t afford. Then they stuck it to the bank, neighbors, taxpayers etc… If he can’t keep his home and finances from foreclosure, who can trust him to do any better with our $$.
InsideInfo, most of us had our equity tank. (Thank you, Corey Stewart, for chasing immigrants and cameras instead of keeping track of our housing market!) Perhaps it was more important to the doctors to have their offices and sources of income remain viable. Weren’t there some doctors in Gainesville who suddenly closed their offices without warning to their patients? Many doctors – who have to rent or buy office space as well as pay for staff and expensive equipment – have been hit hard by this recession. Many of their patients are skipping visits but their utilities, rent, etc. just keep going up. Many small businesses are in the same bind and many people have used their homes to keep themselves afloat.
If you think Mr. Lateef is not qualified to hold office because of his personal finances, I hope you examine Corey Stewart’s problem with “truthiness”. It would be nice to have a Chairman whose word meant something.
Moonhowler,
I am not even sure what you mean. I described the tactics of HSM and BVBL as organizations that led the fight against the “scurge” of illegal immigration I did not say that people who had neighborhood issues were all HSM or supporters of BVBL, or ALL people behaved the same. If I somehow initimated that I apologize.
NIMBY is how communities organize, but its the way in which they organize that matters. I have been involved in many issues that had no direct impact on me, the Dominion Power line comes to mind. However, most people tend to get involved in issues that are “close” to home and only really effect them. I would add, illegal immigration clearly affected specific communities. I would argue, the long term fiscal impact of sustainable growth, has a county wide impact, to every household, in some manner.
Had we not had the RC during the massive build out of PWC for almost a decade, I can only imagine how many more homes would be sitting empty on land that would require taxpayer money to have brought out sewer, water, fire and rescue, new roads, etc. Those are the immediate fiscal impacts, but what about clean water, more congested roads, loss of canopy cover which filters air pollution.
Censoredbybvbl,
Don’t get me wrong. I am no fan of Corey Stewart.
But after learning about Lateef’s foreclosure… Well, I have gone through a wide range of emotions, from it just simply couldn’t be true, to being angry that nobody vetted Lateef, then feeling rather depressed about the prospects of having Stewart for another 4 years.
So, trust me, I do not enjoy saying this, but, Lateef has no chance of winning.
In general–
Many in town people do not see the Rural Crescent as a priority, even if they support some or all of its components. Lafayette spoke of things that impact her on a daily basis, both past and present. I guess I don’t see what they have to do with bvbl or HSM. Many of the problems existed long before those organizations came into being.
There are still serious issues for the in-town people that impact us on a daily basis. Lafayette can’t pull off her street without her vision being obstructed. Someone erected a 6 foot fence in their front yard. Pulling out blind on Strasburg is not a good idea.
She and a few others had to go mano a mano with the school board to keep a mega school from being built on Lomond Drive. Lomond already has too much traffic on it. There are no street lights in Sudley subdivision and both Westgate and Sudley were being chopped up and gutted like a catfish by our very own county when drawing the new magisterial districts. It sounded like divide and conquor to many of us.
Some of us are still dealing with inconsiderate neighbors. The foreclosure next door to me was bought up and construction has been going on for 5 months with various McMansion projects. It begins early in the morning and ends in the evening. It looks like I live next door to a model of Jamestown. My neighborhood is mosquito infested and the county tells us that the mosquito spray truck can’t go down the main drag because of speed issues. They don’t even KNOW the speed limit.
Lafayette gets stuck in her own driveway because of the baby sitter business next door to her. Cars block her in. Parents dropping off children have even been known to meet for ‘nooners’ out front. I run out of parking in front of my own house because of the inconsiderate perpetual construction neighbors arking in front of their house instead of their own. Easier to circumvent Jamestown from in front of my house I guess.
Wild animals come in to the burbs. The police will no longer help you out. No traps. I guess they are saving money. Deer hop the fence and I have a full grown possom living under my freaking front porch. Do you know what Orkin wants to get that mofo out from under there?
We no longer have shopping carts littering the neighborhoods only because residents bitched and complained to the stores loudly enough that they took action on putting on lock wheels and other devices so the carts couldn’t be removed. There is just nothing like finding a shopping cart in your front yard when you wake up.
These are just a few things that plague our neighborhoods. I have only scratched the surface. I guess what we are saying is, nothing in the Rural Crescent addresses these problems (nor should they necessarily). I don’t need to demonize anyone or bring any organizations into the conversation to state that these have been and will be problems for us in-towners. It isn’t that we don’t care about the Rural Crescent but it isn’t the sword those of us ‘Manassas’ folks will fall on when we vote.
At 7 in the morning when my neighbors crank up with the drills and the buzz saws…I could give a crap less about the rural crescent. I am cursing the damn foreclosures.
It is now May. The election is in November. That is light years away. My diatribe has nothing to do with any of the candidates, just an explanation as to why the Rural Crescent isn’t as much of an issue with those of us living closer to town. We have other fish to fry.
Actually, no one says we have to vote for Lateef or Stewart. There are 2 other candidates out there at last count. Additionally, more might jump in the fray.
I agree with InsideInfo. I don’t enjoy saying it, but Lateef has no chance of winning.
@Moon,
You are right it’s still early in the election game. I’ve certainly not forgotten about Mr. Gray and Councilman Wier having their hats in the ring. It’s hard to tell who might be next. It should be interesting to say the least. It is nice to see challengers emerging this election cycle. The Chairman, Supervisors Covington and Stirrup have challengers. I hope the other five are challenged as well. I’m not all against or all for any of the BoS members. However, I do want to see them all challenged. We the voters need to have a choice when we go to the polls, not vote for this person, or waste a vote on write-in, or worse yet, not vote at all because there are NO challengers.
Challengers keep everyone on their toes and keep all from growing complacent.
Hate to say it but I think Steve Thomas and InsideInfo have it right. If the race in November is Lateef, Stewart, Gray it’s gonna be something like Lateef 38%, Stewart 59%, Gray 3% though it’s remotely possible that Gray might get to 5%, all of which will come from Lateef. The worst thing about this is that result will give Stewart what he needs to convince his party that he’s viable for higher office. Even though I still don’t have the full picture of what happened, hopefully the local paper will do a full expose on it, what really burns me is that the PWC Democratic Party did not vet Lateef properly. If they had, there is no way they would have considered him a viable candidate for chairman. Maybe district supervisor against Nohe, but not chairman.
Blue Moon, you mean there is a Democratic Party in PWC?!! I agree that the vetting process sucked. A candidate’s finances are one of the first things that should be examined.
Is this the same Democratic Party who featured Pierre Manes for school board? Was he the guy who was fired from county schools who then ran for school board?
The Rural Crescent directly ties into land use, which ties into housing, which ties into over development. It was the mass building of houses in PWC that brought so many “new” people into this area. Who was going to build all those new houses?
People vote how their Supervisor addresses their immediate problems, but there are alot of people in this county, who will vote from a broader vantage point. Lack of parks (passive and active) are of huge concern to many people, clogged roads and overcrowded schools, higher taxes, flooding in areas that had little to no storm water control, these are issues that all tie back to poor land use decisions.
I don’t expect everyone to be interestd in land use and its far reaching negative consequences, but I also don’t expect people to assume that everyone should expect an entire county to be turned upside down because of their neighborhood problems, no matter how serious they may be. I know there are issues in lots of communities, that is why it is so important that people organize to deal with their issues. I brought in HSM and BVBL because they required an entire County to be pulled into their neighborhood issue. I am not discounting that they were dealing with some pretty bad circumstances.
Elena,
The neighborhood issues that plagued us could not have all been addressed by Neighborhood Services, as you have indicated. I can tell you that NS could had no jurisdiction over the brothel on Lomond Dr., the prostitutes that got picked up on the sidestreets and bus stops by their John’s, the theives(foreclosed property) that robbed a house of all appliances(2 coin operated washers and 2 coin operated dryers), lighting and bathroom fixtures, or the prostitute and her John that finally got busted at that house(across the street from me & next door to my mother), the attack dog that bit a middleschooler on her way home from school and then came after an Animal Control Officer(dog had to be put down, THANKFULY), or the numerous stolen cars that landed in our neighborhood, or the chemical spill that shut our block down for an entire Sunday in the summer. This is just the tip of the iceberg. NS was NOT the answer to all of the issues we had.
Your tone of voters in our area, is frankly quite condescending. We’ve really had to fight some real issues. I’m sure issues you would have fought for too if they were in the “gated community” called the Rural Crescent. I will repeat again the RC was not meant to be forever. It was means to control growth, and the bottom line is, it failed to do that. The growth has gone as far as it can without going into the RC, because the growth over the past two decades has damn near built out the land up to the RC. Piss poor planning in this county goes way beyond Corey. Our Planning staff sucks, to put it mildly, perhaps with a new director there’ll be a little house cleaning in planning. Sir Sean led the pack with the growth. Everyone got all in huff over Disney, and they didn’t come. Instead the area got developed anyways with Vinyl Villages that we must provide services for. Disney would have generated revenue and not put near the burden on services as the Vinyl Villages have.
The neighborhood issues being addressed by HSM were not only in WestGate/Sudley. These same issues plagued Dale City and the Marumsco’s. Those folks also, worked with their supervisor and NS as well. We all learned a lot in the process, we taught NS a few things, and them us. As a result all complaints are now inspected the first time within 3days of the complaint. Prior to 2007 it took 24 days for the initial inspection. We the citizens have worked hard to improve our quality of life.
You don’t have to tell me about poor storm water management. If rains more than an hour I have a river in my backyard. My next door neighbors and Moon have ponds when it rains. So, that’s yet another issue I’m familiar with and need to focus on in my neighborhood. I do think of myself as a reasonable person that looks at the big picture, and I can most definately see beyond my backyard.
Not sure how the Rural Crescent, neighborhood services and immigration topics are pertinent to the main question of whether Lateef can win. Since he has no prior record on any of these topics, or any other public issue in PWC, people will judge him on other things. Character is a big “other thing” and the personal finance issue does not speak well to his character or judgement. Seems to me right now the ONLY things he has going for him is that he is not Corey and he has shown access to reasonable $$$ needed to run a race, very little of which, so far, has come from inside PWC. But what reasons has he given voters to vote FOR him?
Blue Moon,
Is this your blog? Many times one topic lead to other topics. The Royal Crescent and NS do belong here. As you’ve read, I have no intent of entertaining Lateef as viable candidate. The RC and NS are relevant topics to this thread, I believe. Albeit the direction it has gone is a little “intense”. All of these issues need to be discussed as the election grows closer.
Lateef has no reason for voters to vote for him. I’m really thinking it’s counter-productive to keep discussing a person that really is not in the race.
[Ed. Note: Blue Moon is no relation to Moon-Howler. M-H}
Laf,
My tone was intended to be condescending, just a matter of fact. Land use, not just the Rural Crescent, impacts all our lives, no matter where you live, whereas your issue affected specific pockets in PWC. Furthermore, the issue I have the how was the fight was handled, Hispanic became synonymous with illegal, I have a real problem with that.
Most neighborhood issues stay neighborhood issues, the power line is a perfect example. The county was not required to financially pony up to address Dominion Power and its negative impact, which only effected specific neighborhoods. Most neighborhood issues are resolved in that way. I became involved in that issue even though I was not personally effected and clearly that had nothing to do with the Rural Crescent.
John Stirrup handled the issue all wrong, and had there been someone who had real community skills and the forsight to deal with this as a neighborhood issue, it would have saved alot of pain for all of PWC.
Furthermore, my community is not “gated” and you are the one turning this into a class warfare. I have fought for parks and open space priorities for everyone on this county even though the need does not necessarily effect me.
I simply stated that Babur Lateef had at least come out and zinged Corey on the betrayal of this pledge, which clearly pissed off many conservatives in this county. John Gray and Bob Weir don’t have the funds to defeat Corey and come with plenty of their own baggage.
So are we willing, in the face of Corey’s many ethical issues of his own, going to find no redeeming qualities about Babur Lateef? THAT was the point I was making in bringing up a clear difference between the two.
Elena,
This whole thing has gotten to a point which I don’t care to continue down this pass. Bottom line, we have different opinions, and issues that are of concern to us and all. That’s are right.
Sorry that you feel this a class warfare thing. I feel those stones have been thrown BOTH ways. It was it is. We live in two very different areas of the county. We are not going to be on the same page always. Right now I’m pretty concerned that the county is considering a vote for SUP’s for funeral homes/mortuaries/crematoriums being in shopping centers and retail malls. An SUP for such a thing should not even be an option. However, our illustrious planning dept thinks it’s just dandy. I guess Lubely has a developer buddy that wanted this to happen.
I am done wasting anymore thoughts on Lateef.
I am sorry to have seen this escalate to the level it has. Oh, well perhaps we’ve come full circle, and I’m the enemy again. 🙂
Laf,
It’s mothers day, let just agree that we are both disappointed, maybe for different reasons, that Corey does not have a strong opponent, and leave it at that.
Enjoy your day with your family! I’m thankful we have moms in order to even be here to debate each other 🙂
@Lafayette,
I believe Elena intended to say NOT INTENDED. Now I got nailed on that one last week…I left off the word NOT and you all hung me out and spat on me and then did a draw and quarter number on me. 👿 . I want to rescue Elena from the same fate.
YES! I just realized that I left out that very critical NOT before “intended” in my #19 post. Thank you Moon.
I knew you meant NOT. Now, Moon last week, she could’ve meant it. 👿
We can most definately agree that we are disappointed Corey doesn’t have a strong opponent.
And guess who is sitting around laughing….you gussed it, Mr. Stewart. Inside sources tell me he is already taking his victory laps as he stops only momentarily to guffaw.
Way to kick things off on a Monday, Moon! I wonder how those fiscal conservatives will feel when Corey is ready to run for higher office. Leaving us the tax payers to foot the bill for a special election, because Corey has his eyes on a higher office. Voters should be looking at a candidate that’s going to stick around to complete their term.
@Lafayette
I hope they extract a pledge from him that he will not run for another office. I don’t think that is too much to expect. He needs to keep those bad eyes on the Prince William prize. I hope he doesn’t do the Palin thing, should he receive the honor of serving us again as chairman, and quit half way through so he can go do something else.
On the other hand, I have heard rumblings about another challenger stepping out of the shadows. Stay tuned.
Staying tuned…the more the MERRIER!!! 🙂
I’m not sure about the pledge thing. We know how he handled his pledge regarding the RC.
@ Lafayette
Is it ok if he crosses his fingers behind his back?
You will know when his nose starts to grow and he trips over it.
Can he win?
Not after reading this: http://woodbridge-va.patch.com/articles/babur-lateefs-foreclosure-draws-suspicion
@Blue Moon
I found this http://woodbridge-va.patch.com/articles/babur-lateefs-foreclosure-draws-suspicion