This morning when I check in to Facebook.com, I saw some very sad news from Prince William County School Board Chairman Milt Johns. Let me first off say that Mr. Johns is a Republican. He and I have very different political views. In fact, on some of them, we would probably stand toe to toe and scream at each other. Mr. Johns, however, was the school board chair. Those issues that we vehemently disagree on would have rarely come up. I also don’t know Mr. Johns personally. We have met professionally, before I retired. Milt Johns’ press release:
For Immediate Release
After months of prayer, reflection, and discussions with my family, I have decided that I will not seek re-election as Chairman at Large of the Prince William County School Board in 2015. When my term ends at midnight on December 31, 2015, I will have spent nearly a quarter of my life serving on the Prince William County School Board. It is time for me to focus on other matters, including my family and my law practice. I do expect to continue to have …a role supporting Prince William County Schools and in local political activities.
When the 12th year of my tenure on the School Board concludes, I will have been part of a Board that opened 20 schools and renovated and expanded dozens more, that brought robotics to every school in the county, and that established the Safe Schools Advisory Council and the Governor’s School @ Innovation Park. We expanded full day Kindergarten county-wide, expanded AP, IB and Cambridge programs, and offered a myriad of specialty programs at nearly all of our schools. By my rough count, over 65,000 students have received high school diplomas during that time, and I personally watched almost half of them cross the stage at graduation.
Prince William County Public Schools are not perfect; they never were and they never will be. But I am extremely proud of the progress we have made – administrators, teachers, support staff, parents and students – in the past 11 years as we have emerged to be one of the premiere large suburban school divisions in the country, and the role I played on the Prince William County School Board. It was a labor of love, but all things must come to an end.
Among the many people who have supported me over the years, I must especially thank my wife Shellie and my children Caitlin and Milton Wyatt for their love and understanding, and I look forward to work hard in 2015 for the citizens of Prince William County.
Mr. Johns has served the county with distinction. He often has made decisions that needed X dollars, when in fact he only had X – Y dollars to work with. The School Board has no power to raise taxes. He is progressive. By progressive, I mean he has moved the school system forward in a way that a school system in Northern Virginia should move forward. He has helped accommodate a changing demographic and has responded to what many think is out-of-control growth in our population. We should be trend-setters. We are one of the richest and most diverse counties in the nation.
Sadly, I don’t think Milt Johns is resigning because he has tired of serving the public. I expect a part of him is “retiring” because he is simply tired of the small percent of the public that simply can’t argue policy–I mean the ones who must personalize ever issue and turn it into some sort of demonization of the individual. Yes, you know who you are.
Shame on those that drive good and decent people out of office and who keep those others from even serving in the first place. No one wants to expose their family and friends to a constant attack, a constant barrage of personal criticism and character assassination. Where is Mr. Lattin today? Mr. Lattin was also a good and decent person. Where is Don Richardson? He was also a good and decent person who no longer serves the public. Where is Mrs. Ramirez? All these people brought good ideas to the table and all wanted nothing but good things for the students of Prince William County.
Don Richardson is my friend. However, I don’t know the other two gentlemen and lady other than having met them professionally. I miss all their input, even when I didn’t agree with their opinion. Mark Twain would agree with those sentiments. This doesn’t have to get so personal. For years, Virginia appointed their school boards in order to avoid that position from being political.
I will always be the contrarian blogger. I won’t agree with those who have a personal axe to grind. More importantly, I want to help create an atmosphere where good people want to run for office to serve their communities. I want to help create an atmosphere where our public servants want to stay in office. I want to be able to influence them with reason and ideas, rather than have public policy set because officials simply tire of being lied about and eviscerated on some blog with 10 people in attack mode, serving the one who is slinging raw meat.
It’s time for people of integrity to stop allowing the loud-mouths and malcontents who couldn’t get elected to office themselves to control the dialog. It’s time that people treat our elected officials and public servants with respect. Disagree all you want but show some respect while disagreeing. Residents, if you want to have good representation rather than just settling for miscreants and malcontents, make sure that your elected officials are treated decently. Make sure running for office and holding office is not stepping into a lions’ den or in this case, a snake pit.
I want to thank the entire school board for their service. Serving on that body is unappreciated, and its a long, boring job. Would that all of the citizens of Prince William County had the grace and good manners to address board members like Jim Livingston does when he represents teachers. Jim is a gentleman and a fine role model. Perhaps the Gray Eminence could take a few lessons from him, especially regarding manners and how to talk to people. Intimidation and insults never win in the end. Just remember, Karma is a real bitch.
Thanks for your year of service, Milt Johns!
Well, let’s see at today’s BOCS meeting Supv Candland
1) expressed his dismay that when he first looked to move here his first view was of an industrial site and he thought it looked”so blue collar”.
2) his slides are formatted EXACTLY like posts in Nottingam
3) he’s surprised that people in DALE CITY of all places don’t want to pay more in taxes.
Why bother in PWC.
Maybe he needs a field trip to Dale City to talk to some of those folks.
Maybe someone on Nottingham is preparing his slides? No. Tell me it isn’t true.
Why would decent people want to run? It was bad enough when the media would twist a story around – at least you had a media outlet behind it. Now with blogging, anyone can create and easily distribute any amount of garbage that they want to. Add in a generous handful of ‘anonymous’ posters, and it gives the blog credibility. To get the money to run one needs to promise something to someone.
Totally agree, Pat. There seems to always be a lot of twisting, conjecture and slander going on.
Maybe if he doesn’t like blue collar areas he should move away.
I would assume his aides prepared slides. Oh, wait…
Maybe Candland will make food and gas free in PWC too. I don’t want to pay for that either.
Maybe it was just me. I never figured out what he was talking about other than that old tea party mentality stuff again.
Did he ever say what percent of people didn’t want their taxes raised? Does anyone ever want to pay higher taxes? 🙄
@Moon-howler
Supv. Candland released his presentation and supporting documents yesterday, so odds are over in the village of Nottingham, the material was grabbed and used in the latest post. For anyone interested, all the material is at: http://www.supervisorcandland.com/news/
By the way, I had to laugh at the “shock” of blue collar considering the number of those employed in construction, transportation, warehouse work, and waste management in the County. Guess he thought it was just a white collar suburb of DC?
Frankly, I was shocked at his use of the term. My hat is always off to blue collar workers. They are the ones who keep things spinning and our quality of life where we want it. Let’s face it, your air conditioning guy is GOD if your AC goes out in July. Plumbers drive more expensive cars than Candland does, in all probability.
I think that the comment about content similarity might be based on the fact that there was almost no time lapse between when the materials were presented and when they were posted on that blog.
On the other hand, no one is fooled by the ….shall we say connections, regardless of denial.
Hope the “other matters” include Milt’s writing, which is uniquely his own and he’s good at it – I’ve heard his work in progress at the open mic readings at Deja Brew Coffeehouse in Haymarket. And he helped launch Prince William’s first online literary review this fall, http://piedmontjpf.com/
Cindy!!! How are you doing? I hope all is well. We miss you.
I didn’t realize Milt was a writer. thanks for that bit of information.
I left out another good person who chose not to run for re-election–Andy Harrover. Andy’s calm approach to most problems will definitely be missed. Hopefully, he will take a breather and return to fight another day.
At what point do people decide they just don’t want to put their families through personal attacks? I expect to see more of this because of a small group in the county and city who just basically are attack dogs with no filters or muzzles.
People are going to find out that loud and obnoxious isn’t always better. Perhaps my mantra will become, be careful what you wish for.
Hey Moon, thank you for the kind words, and thank you for recognizing Grant, Denita, and Milt – I enjoyed working with them and we accomplished a lot. Yes, Milt is a published writer – I’ve read one of his books. Also good of you to recognize Andy Harrover – while I did not serve with him, I believe his blog is a good example of the way it OUGHT to be done. He too has an easy, approachable writing style.
Moon, there’s a reception at the Candy Factory tomorrow (Fri 12/19) from 5 to 8 pm for Andy Harrover and Steve Randolph in honor of their public service. I’m in NC now or I would be there. I agree, Andy has an open writing style that invites you along for whatever adventure he’s on. Hope he’ll do more of it now that he’s off city council.
Is this reception open to the public, Cindy?
Yes, open to the public – sponsored by the City of Manassas. Everyone welcome to say thanks and goodbye.