Since Moonhowlings began questioning how county money was being spent, it seems that the question has come up about the place of blogs in communicating county affairs. Have we overstepped our boundaries as citizens of Prince William County? We say resoundingly, NO!
Understandably, print newspapers are struggling and often face the wrath of their readers. How many times does a story evoke the “I am going to cancel my subscription” because of this or that story or editorial? Even though most of a newspaper’s day to day funding comes from advertising, it does no good to advertise if there are no readers.
Many friends have suggested that we do some cash compensation here through advertising. To date, I have resisted. I am not rolling in dough but so far, I have been able to pay my electric bill and my go- daddy accounts. We owe no allegiance to any advertiser. We are our own operation.
We don’t have to worry about our readership. While everyone in the blogosphere loves having good numbers, if we don’t have great numbers, that’s ok also. Several people have left this blog because they don’t like our rules. We try to be fair to everyone, despite how it seems. We can easily have someone tell us they aren’t going to read our blog any more. What’s the worst that can happen? What do we tell them? Not let the keyboard hit them in the ass on the way out? [Thanks to Elena for that one.]
Hopefully, everyone will stay and we can work together with our differences and our similarities. Very few people have been asked to leave. Most of those who have left have self deported and are welcome back at any time.
I think it is our job to be a watch dog for the county, with the help of our contributors. We don’t claim to hit it all.We aren’t a publication. Sometimes our silence is what should speak volumes. Many of you all noticed it during the last election cycle. Other times we will be vocal. This is one of those times. From now on, when a supervisor donates money from his or her discretionary fund, we want to hear the following: ” I plan to donate x amount of money to Y organization on behalf of the Prince William County taxpayers.”
Wally Covington, please withdraw your request to give Rainbow Riding Center $100,000 of taxpayer money. It just the right thing to do at this point.
I agree with 100% of the above.
But, I would add that I resent having a govt jackboot on my throat seeking more and more of my money in the form of taxes. To echo what someone else said. I can stomach money going to a road or to a county service like police/fire/ems (I want poor people off my yard!). I do not support govt giving money out to any special interest – regardless of that interest.
Help me understand the poor people on your yard comment. I missed something.
I think I have just gotten to the point where I don’t care much for the discretionary spending. I think it all goes to good causes. I just think maybe there is a better way to do it that ensures that everyone gets a piece of the pie would be better. I proposed a grant application program somewhere on here.
I understand the need for supervisors to have some money to spend in their districts, I think. I sure have never seen any of it. I don’t ask for much. I have asked for the use of after hours spots for watching celestial events and I have tried to work with the county on getting street lights. Zippo in all cases. I don’t want the light but my neighborhood has no street lights. We all know that lighting cuts down on crime. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a company to discount volume gas light conversion or repair. I think many people would activate the lights in front of their houses.
I would like some trees planted on the median strip in my community. It is a nice, inexpensive way to give older communities a face lift. That never happened.
I have never had a positive idea even recognized. I suppose just the bitching wheel gets the oil.
@Moon-howler
I think that Marin was making a joke.
The purpose of a blog?
That’s easy. The purpose is to a) provide entertainment and enjoyment to its owners b) provide a needed outlet to prevent unruly shouting at TV’s and hard objects from being hurled. c0 provide free ice cream d) because there is always SOMEONE WRONG ON THE INTERNET e) alert the neighbors to various important things like LolCats, crooked politicians, cool stuff, and f) giving everybody the benefit of your genius. (see d.)
Oh…and g) really pissing off those people that desperately need it.
Mostly g.
Oh…and H) make money.
Notice…that’s the LAST one on the list………
Reminder: All supervisors email addresses are on the pages (those tabs across the top of the blog). Please contact your supervisor and urge him or her to vote NO on giving Rainbow Riding $100,000 of YOUR money.
I will just comment that I’ve sent out several e-mails to pertinent supervisors about this, since I live in the Brentsville district. I was never a Wally fan and did not vote for him in the Primary or the General election, but this really is a slap in the face to me. Heck, I may even motivate myself to go speak out at Citizens’ Time, which would be a first for me. That is how angry I am about this fiasco. It is on the heels of them sneaking through that crazy soccer complex on the Wiita tract, which is on the southwestern edge of my neighborhood. If I had known it was not going to be used for passive recreation (as it was intended for) I never would have bought my property where I did 3 1/2 years ago when I signed the contract for my house in Gainesville! This is just another slap in the fact now that I’m a Brentsville district resident.
My opinion of Wally is: he is your typical self serving politician. However, this takes unmitigated gall to pull of something like this:
1. Give $100K of your discretionary funds to something outside the Brentsville district, that will only benefit a small percentage of county residents.
2. Give $100K of your discretionary funds to a charity where your wife is high ranking member.
3. Purposely wait until days after the General Election, and then sneak it in at the last minute during a holiday period so people “won’t notice”.
He either thinks Brentsville (and PWC residents in general) are stupid or aren’t going to care or he doesn’t care what they think of this.
I vote for all 3, however PWC residents are not stupid, and they ARE going to care!
Unfortunately, we are stuck with Wally for another term… Sadly, he had deep pockets, and with poor turnout for the Primary Jeanine Lawson, a neighbor of mine (lives very nearby me – less than 1 mile from my house) didn’t prevail. She did get over 10% of the write-in in the general election in the Limestone Precinct, which both she and I live in!
And I did contact both Corey Stewart AND Wally Covington on this subject. This is what I wrote to Wally, and I wrote essentially the same thing to Corey just changing “you” to “he” and things like that in referring to Wally:
Hello Wally,
I noted on the agenda for the upcoming Board of County Supervisors meeting an item concerning a proposed donation of $100K to Rainbow Riding out of your “discretionary funds” budget.
I must protest this donation for several reasons which I will briefly outline below:
1. This money is going outside of the Brentsville district.
2. Your wife is heavily involved in Rainbow Riding and this smells of impropriety – and on the surface just looks not proper. If it “looks not proper” it probably is not proper! While it is perfectly legal, it is unethical in my opinion.
This latest move of yours is a slap in the face to his constituents in Brentsville district. I think the timing is very odd, coming on the heels of the General election. Why did you not make this donation before that election or before the primary? Because you knew if he did he would not get voted back in! Now you are thumbing your nose at Brentsville residents.
If this donation goes through, it will solidify my opinion that you are nothing but a self serving politician that only looks out for his own interests, and could care less about his constituents.
To be very honest: I think in these tough economic times we should be practicing fiscal conservatism. In my opinion, discretionary funds should be largely eliminated, and that money should go back to the general fund for spending on things that we (the county) need, and that is a large sum of money that could be used to increase other budget items WITHOUT raising property taxes! I say, reduce the amount of discretionary funds to $25K per supervisor! Actually, the more I think about this: ELIMINATE DISCRETIONARY FUNDS ENTIRELY!
Also, I think it is wrong for the county to decide what charities to donate my taxpayer money to! Let the individual residents decide by making their OWN contributions. Many charities have huge administrative costs, and I for one don’t like seeing my taxpayer dollars go to these charities, as I have zero say in the matter obviously!
Finally, I think what you are doing is very underhanded. The same way you helped push through the soccer stadium disaster that will be right outside my neighborhood! I am an amateur astronomer, and if I had known the Wiita tract was going to be used for anything other than passive recreation (which is what it was intended for) I would never have bought my house as it will be a stone’s throw from that crazy soccer complex that you helped sneak through!!! That is going to cause so much nighttime light pollution in the sky and noise for those of us living near Rollins Ford Rd. it isn’t even funny! Thanks a lot Wally!
Sincerely yours,
XXXXXXXXXXXXX (my name and address)
Fabulous Gainesville Resident! I especially like the addition of the witta tract stadium complex, another misuse of what was intended to passive rec and yet is dedicated to one special interest group. Where are the county parks for all residents? Few and far between with little capitol investment for the ones that do exist (ahem, Silver Lake).
Please, contact ALL supervisors. As they all have a vote and they do have the power STOP this. Of course, I won’t be holding my breath.
@GainesvilleResident
Great letter. Motivate you to go to Citizens Time? Now, that’s serious. Unfortunately, our supervisors usually have their minds made up and some what politely listen to the citizens. Let’s not forget many folks work in the county and have take time off of work to go speak at CT and thoughts seem to fall on def ears.
I just want to say that applaud all of you that have such a active role in local politics, regardless of your personal politics. I am completely ignorant of NOVA politics and even having a score card would be useless. Bravo to you Gainesville, Moon, and Elena.
While I may not agree with all of your politics (I don’t know if I do or not on the local level) I think that your activism should spread to all citizens.
I’m thinking about Citizen’s Time Lafayette. Indeed, for me to even think about speaking there, is a big thing and shows how angry I am about this. But my anger has been building as Wally betrayed me with the Wiita Tract, and now this is salt in the wound as it were.
I will shoot that e-mail out to other supervisors, per suggestions above, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll go that around lunchtime today.
Thanks Cargo too for your comments. I did not realize you are not local to NOVA, but I have been away from the blog for some time. I probably will step away again after this, as I just find I don’t really enjoy political debate that much and it is healthier for me to just keep away from it. But I followed a link on Facebook to here, so that brought me back to the blog as I found it largely (or maybe 100%) in agreement with me on this issue.
I just can’t believe the total unmitigated gall of Wally, the timing of it after the election, snuck in during the holiday period, etc. I just find it insulting to my intelligence that he’d think he can pull off a stunt like this. Then again, it is pure Wally in my opinion, he showed his true colors to me on the Wiita Tract proposal which directly affects me. My house is up on a hill and overlooks Rollins Ford Rd. which is 0.3 miles from my house. I will be greatly affected by the traffic and noise generated when that soccer stadium lets out at 10 PM or whenever. Not to mention one reason I bought my lot was it is very dark at night for amateur astronomy. Now I will see a nice light pollution glow from that soccer stadium. I know people who love soccer are all for it, but I resent the fact the Wiita Tract was designated for “passive recreation” and if I had known it was going to turn into a gigantic soccer complex, I would NEVER have bought my house where I did! “Thanks a lot, Wally”!
Anyway, I’ll step off my soapbox, but I may go to Citizen’s Time tomorrow night… I will see what my day at work is tomorrow. Sometimes, I need to just go home and vegetate, as right now work is super busy as I was away from the office for over a month and many things were done in my absence by people filling in for me while I was gone, and my customer is livid about that. So I have a mountain of work to do between now and the end of the year to “set things right” in the eyes of my customer. Anyway, if tomorrow is not too crazy/stressful at work, I might motivate myself to go down and speak at Citizen’s Time, but there’s no guarantee. However, I am really fired up about this issue, in a way that I’ve never felt before, in my 3 years as a county resident (after 25 years as a City of Manassas resident and not concerning myself about local politics there as by and large the City Council did fine by me).
One last thing, I get that the vote is predetermined and Citizen’s Time, they listen but it doesn’t change their minds. However, I would edit down my letter above to a brief concise statement just to vent a little and get it off my chest. Again, it may or may not happen, will decide sometime tomorrow. If I do go, it would be an edited version of what I wrote above, down to something crisp and concise and I might not even use up my allotted time. I am fine public speaking at work on technical topics in front of gigantic audiences, but this would be a bold step for me to speak on something I am less sure of myself of. It will depend what mood I am in tomorrow afternoon/early tomorrow evening, whether I decide to hop in the car and drive there.
But I get Cargo and other’s point about citizen activism, and it makes sense, and maybe on this particular issue it is time for me to step up and at least say my piece at Citizen’s Time..
I may have just put my foot in my mouth. I was thinking it was an evening meeting (shows you what I know) but now I see if I read it right, it is at 2 PM. Unfortunately, after being out of the office for more than a month until just a week and a half ago, I really can’t get away from work. I don’t know what made me think the meeting was at 7:30 PM? Maybe I’m wrong, but I took a quick glance and saw it says 2 PM. Chris’ comment about PWC workers not being able to take off for it was what clued me in, as I thought to myself “why would they be working at 7:30 PM?” I know often there are daytime and evening meetings, but this appears to be an evening meeting.
However, I will fire off e-mails to the rest of the supervisors. I’ve already sent two – one to Corey and one to Wally. But I get that it makes sense to hit the other 6 supervisors, it is very easy for me to do as I’d just send them what I sent Corey.
@GainesvilleResident
Often times there is no pm session. Making it very difficult for citizen input. Especailly the working citizens. Might know tomorrow would be one without a PM session. I guess that’s due to their busy day. 👿
@Lafayette,
I expect it was intentional. By all means let’s sneak something through when most people will not catch it. It hits the agenda Wed. before a long weekend and will be decided at a meeting thawt has no evening sessions. People who work will be excluded from voicing an opinion.
hmmmmmm
Interesting list of whose who is involved here with this club:
Capital Campaign Members
Kevin and Karen O’Connor, Honorary Chairs
Kevin Cole, Co-Chair
Jack Rinker, Co-Chair
Karen Cole
Ron Devine
Maryann Ghadban
Michael Lubeley
Walter Lynch
Lauren Peterson
Thanks Lafayette. I will confess to be a novice regarding the meeting schedule, and simply “assumed” there was an evening session. It appears this is one of those times there is not, sadly! So I guess that explains why I “thought” there was! Maybe I’m missing something, and I’ll take a deeper look at the county website at lunchtime and see if perhaps I’m wrong! If there is an evening session, I’d go. As you say, an afternoon session makes it difficult for us regular working folks as that means we have to take time off from work to attend! GRRRR!
M-H,
Note that Andy Harrover recently posted about some of the issues
on his blog – My Side Of The Fence.
Apparently it isn’t easy for anyone to maintain a civil blog.
Thank you for keeping at it.
I guess if one person becomes aware of how their tax dollars are being spent, then it is all worthwhile.
Thanks for your support and for being here, Big Dog.
I have to give MH and Elena credit, it is indeed very tough to maintain a civil blog. As much as I griped in the past about some of the namecalling here, I appreciate how difficult it is to keep a lid on that stuff without doing too much “censoring”. Also, they stick their necks out there and it is not something I would care to do. If I created a blog, I predict it would last 5 days at most as I’d get infuriated at some of the posters and just shut the thing down. So I have to give them credit for keeping this one going all this time, it is not something I personally would have any patience or even guts to attempt to do.
Thanks, Gainesville. And I have to admit, I have wanted to close it down several times.
My congratulations for the fine work done by Moon and Elena here (and also Gainesville)! Anyone able to unite MH, BVBL, Truth Squad, Too Conservative and others really deserves a feather in their hat.
It’s regrettable that the developers gave Covington enough money to spend nearly twice as much as his primary opponent, Jeanine Lawson ($90K to $46k). Even then he won by only 159 votes. Had she won, we wouldn’t be seeing this sort of corruption that has been going on from the Brentsville supervisor’s office for nearly eight years (with four more to come).
Another dimension of this problem is crooked supervisors exploiting decent, sincere members of the community for their own purposes. I looked at Rainbow Riding’s website and they seem to have a very admirable goal. The same can be said for the Gainesville Grizzlies who were used to get Avendale approved, and other community-minded people in the soccer fields on the Wiita track. In all cases, public land and monies were promised and used for the exclusive benefit of preferred members of the community rather than all taxpayers.
I see a very dismal four years coming our way.
I haven’t been back here for a while and found Moonhowlings again when searching for more info on the Covington mess. Excellent job, and it is indeed amazing that both you and BVBL can agree that this stinks to high heaven. Keep up the good work – I added you to the TC blogroll.
Just FYI… I e-mailed the other 6 supervisors and got an auto-reply from Marty Nohe that he is out of town on a family vacation until December 6. So I take it there are now just SEVEN votes on this issue tomorrow? I polished my letter a bit and added a blurb about the “2 PM Meeting time” as that is additional salt in the wound that it deprived me (and many others) of our ability to address this issue during citizen’s time. It is otherwise much like what I wrote above, but here’s the text of what I wrote to the other 6 supervisors. I had written Corey and Wally previously (last night/early this morning) before I found out about the 2 PM Meeting Time:
Hello Supervisors of Prince William County,
I noted on the agenda for the upcoming Board of County Supervisors meeting an item concerning a proposed donation of $100K to Rainbow Riding by Wally Covington out of his “discretionary funds” budget.
I must protest this donation for several reasons which I will briefly outline below:
1. This money is going outside of the Brentsville district.
2. Wally’s wife is heavily involved in Rainbow Riding and this smells of impropriety – and on the surface just looks not proper. If it “looks not proper” it probably is not proper! While it is perfectly legal, it is unethical in my opinion.
3. I would attend Citizen’s Time to protest and speak out about this but this meeting is cleverly scheduled for 2 PM tomorrow, and this agenda item was snuck in by Wally at a time when many people were out of town so they would not find out about it! A typical “slick move” by Wally, who does not and never has represented my interests as a constituent who lives in the Brentsville District!
This latest move of his is a slap in the face to his constituents in Brentsville district. I think the timing is very odd, coming on the heels of the General election. Why did he not make this donation before that election or before the primary? Because he knew if he did he would not get voted back in! Now he is thumbing his nose at Brentsville residents.
If this donation goes through, it will solidify my opinion that Wally Covington is nothing but a self serving politician that only looks out for his own interests, and could care less about his constituents.
To be very honest: I think in these tough economic times we should be practicing fiscal conservatism. In my opinion, discretionary funds should be largely eliminated, and that money should go back to the general fund for spending on things that we (the county) need, and that is a large sum of money that could be used to increase other budget items WITHOUT raising property taxes! I say, reduce the amount of discretionary funds to $25K per supervisor!
Also, I think it is wrong for the county to decide what charities to donate my taxpayer money to! Let the individual residents decide by making their OWN contributions. Many charities have huge administrative costs, and I for one don’t like seeing my taxpayer dollars go to these charities, as I have zero say in the matter obviously!
Finally, I think what Wally is doing is very underhanded. The same way he helped push through the soccer stadium disaster that will be right outside my neighborhood! He never replied to my e-mails about it! I am an amateur astronomer, and if I had known the Wiita tract was going to be used for anything other than passive recreation (which is what it was intended for) I would never have bought my house near Rollins Ford Rd.!!! That is going to cause so much nighttime light pollution in the sky it isn’t even funny! Thanks a lot Wally!
Sincerely yours,
(My name, address, e-mail address, phone number, for whatever that’s all worth)
Thanks Need To Know, appreciate the kind words but I didn’t spend much effort on this, so really it was not a big deal to me. It would have been much more effort for me to have gone to Citizen’s Time, IF it were held in the evening. As they deprived me of that by holding it at 2 PM in the afternoon, I think my work is about done here. The vote’s a forgone conclusion sadly… Anyway, thanks again for the acknowledgement, but Elena/MH deserve the lion’s share (99%) of the credit. It was nothing for me to hammer out a few e-mails from basically the same original text I wrote to Corey, then revised to Wally, and then revised again to the other 6 supervisors. However, I figured it was about time to speak up about something I feel passionate about. I should have spoken up before about the Wiita Tract but didn’t, which is why I tossed an short blurb about that at the end of my message.
I agree 100% with you concerning Jeanine Wilson, Need to Know. I’m in the Limestone precinct too, and really regret she did not win the Primary. I tossed my vote to her, but sadly Wally’s pockets run too deep! As you pointed out, giving the limited financial resources she had, she gave Wally a good run for his money.
I know Jeanine wants to set up a “Civic Association” for lack of a better word consisting of residents in the neighborhoods that lie along Rollins Ford Road, including my neighborhood. I for sure would support that, and would be part of it, to help unite folks in those neighborhoods and give them a larger voice, so we don’t have a repeat of the “Wiita Tract Fiasco” again. Also, all of us for more than 3 years have been lobbying PWC about the highly dangerous (at night) intersection of Rollins Ford Rd. and Linton Hall Road. The need for lighting there as well as a traffic light. It took them years (even before my time in the neighborhood people were complaining about it) for the county/VDOT to finally listen! Probably if Jeanine’s Civic Association had been set up maybe they would have listened sooner. That intersection up until recently was super scary after dark, you could run off the road if you didn’t know it well! I had no idea how bad it was until I was taking some stuff over the night before I moved to my new house in late October 2008, and came that way up Linton Hall Road to Rollins Ford, from my old townhouse in Manassas. I was scared out of my wits, and people told me even back then they had been trying to get the county/VDOT to do something (anything) about that crazy intersection. It is just now getting perfected, probably 5 years too late in many folks’ opinions!
I meant Jeanine Lawson – I have a friend named Jeanine Wilson and I often get the two names mixed up! Very confusing to me for whatever reason….
I think blogs and larger civic associations are the average citizen’s best way to get his or her voice heard. Some supervisors are responsive to their constituents and some aren’t. A little sunshine doesn’t hurt.
@Moon-howler
My time to post seems so limited now.
MH, I think we agree on more things than we care to admit – sometimes for very different reasons. When we do disagree we generally disagree to a point where there is no meeting in the middle.
Here I agree with you about discretionary funding and IIRC I think the citizens have won because the funding was pulled. I think that this funding should not be able to exist at all.
It’s a win for everyone. But it’d be a bigger win if all that money instead of sitting in a bank account for the next ‘good use’ be returned to the taxpayers of this county with a note that says “We’re sorry for having stole this money from you.”
Just for the record, I’ve left because I lose my temper. Blogging for me can be dangerous because I tend to vent through writing and I get myself in trouble on a variety of levels. So I hope you understand I haven’t “self deported,” (love the allusion! :)) nor do I dislike anyone here. MH, Elena et al, you do a great job of keeping up with current events.
Funny you should mention Civic Associations today of all days. While at the courthouse I couldn’t help notice one CA was in court today. Any guesses what CA this might be. There were a couple of residents talking about it in the hall. I hope they all calmed down before going in front of any Circuit Court judge. Can you name that Civic Association? 😉
@Lafayette
I’ll bet I could name that association. I’ll find out more tonight, but it appears that the neighborhood lawyer-wannabe sued everyone individually on the board – except for himself. I suppose he couldn’t sue the board because he’d be included.
I wish I’d known the date – it would have been interesting to see the fireworks!
Hi Pinko, Good to see you.
I have to confess, I used the term self-deport at Slowpoke and iut just stuck.
Lots of people get mad at me. I fear I just bring that out in people., My husband would agree. 👿
Andy Harrover is feeling blog pain and has laid down some new rules. I don’t blame him. Andy, you have our full support over here at Moonhowlings. We consider you one of our brothers in torture.
Apparently some folks had been fairly nasty to Andy and his family was feeling it. There is no excuse. Off with their heads. That is what is going to be happening to toads and trolls on my side of the fence blog. You go guy! @ Andy