Author: Elena

continue posting results and comments folks!!!!

Wow, what an amazing event. Packed in tight, the people attending the final Obama rally were excited and positive about tomorrow! I was there with a friend of mine, we arrived around 5:30, and watched, as the crowd grew, and grew and grew……. people as far as the eye could see! It was an amazing event. We met three older gentlemen from Quebec Canada. They had been volunteering for the Obama campaign! Two had also been chiefs of staff for the head honcho of Quebec (I can’t remember what the formal title is of that position). They were very excited, having been intrigued bystanders of many past elections, including JFK. They said that people around the world were hoping that Obama would win, and with his win, restore the great name of The United States of America. They LOVE America, our ideals, for them, represent the best and worst that can encompasses a democratic country. By the end of the night we we were dancing and cheering together. As we said our good byes, we wished each other well and left hopeful that tomorrow will bring about a change this country desperately needs.

HUH? What kind of fiscal republican does not want to “save money” ?

By KEITH WALKER News & Messenger
Published: October 21, 2008

The Bull Run Mountains Conservancy has dropped out of negotiations with the Prince William County Park Authority over the property at Silver Lake.

A conservancy statement released Tuesday stated that the organization pulled out of negotiations because a stalemate on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors negated further negotiations.

“At this point our continued involvement can only delay opening the property to the public,” the release stated.

The property was proffered to the county by Toll Brothers in 2006 in exchange for 420 additional houses in Dominion Valley.

The conservancy was offering to combine an additional 268 acres with the county’s 233 acres at Silver Lake off Antioch Road near Haymarket if the county deeded portions of the property to the conservancy.

Additionally, a private grant would have allowed the conservancy to open a park at no cost to the public.

The conservancy was prepared to guarantee public access and certain recreational uses and accept deed restrictions that would return the land to the county if the conservancy ceased to exist or failed to allow public access.

Prince William Chairman Corey A. Stewart, R-at large, didn’t want to give away the property in order to save money.

Opening the property could cost the park authority as much $215,000 annually.

Supervisor W.S. “Wally” Covington III, R-Brentsville, didn’t like the plan because it hadn’t been subjected to the budget process.

Supervisor Maureen S. Caddigan, R-Dumfries, said having the conservancy run the park was a “no-brainer” that carried obvious benefits.

The Prince William Conservation Alliance favored the conservancy’s proposal, said Kim Hosen, the alliance executive director.

“In our view we have a problem here,” Hosen said. “We have a severe shortage of parkland and a severe shortage of money. It appeared that this was a win-win for everybody.”

It’s difficult to protect green space and open parkland in Northern Virginia, Hosen said.

“I think it takes partnerships to pull things off,” she said.

Hosen wasn’t worried by the prospect that the conservancy would have owned portions of the property.

“They were willing to sign a contract with the county and accept deed restrictions that would define the uses and public access,” she said.

Michael Kieffer, the executive director of the conservancy, said the conservancy’s withdrawal allowed the park authority a chance to move ahead on opening the park.

Come help out a local restaurant, Giuseppe’s in Haymarket, enjoy great Italian food. Let’s come to together and talk about how far we have journeyed from October 17th, 2007.

15120 Washington Street

Haymarket, VA

7:30 p.m.

Now, its bad enough that this country is dealing with an economic crisis, enveloped in global ramifications, but then, to top it off, you have this Republican GOP yahoo feeding the flames of ignorance and hatred, and it makes one wonder, how BAD can Prince William County look?  This article in Time magazine allows us a glimpse into the local strategy of the McCain campaign and it isn’t a pretty sight.

In response to this outrageous comment by Jeff Frederick, John McCain’s tepid response is incredibly disappointing. I wonder, in what “context” would comparing Senator Obama to Osama Bin Laden EVER be acceptable?

If John McCainis as serious as he says about running a “respectful” campaign against an opponent he considers “a decent person,” word hasn’t yet trickled down to his newly opened storefront field office in Gainesville, Virginia.

No Democratic presidential candidate has carried Virginia since 1964, and most election years both campaigns pretty much ignore the state. This time, however, McCain is running behind Barack Obama in statewide polls, thanks in large part to the head start he got on the ground there. “We haven’t seen a race like this in Virginia — ever,” said state GOP Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick. “The last time was 40 years ago, and they didn’t run races like this.”

Indeed, Frederick, a 33-year-old state legislator, hadn’t even been born yet. But earlier this year Frederick unseated a moderate 71-year-old former lieutenant governor (who also happens to be Jenna Bush’s father-in-law) to become head of the Virginia GOP, promising “bold new leadership” for a state party recently on the decline.

The McCain campaign invited me to visit Frederick and the Gainesville operation on Saturday morning, to get a first-hand glimpse of its ground game in Prince William County, Virginia, a fast-growing area about 30 miles from Washington, D.C.

With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: “Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” he said. “That is scary.” It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. “And he won’t salute the flag,” one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, “We don’t even know where Senator Obama was really born.” Actually, we do; it’s Hawaii.

The appointment of Robert Duecaster, although narrowly approved by a 5-3 vote, only sets the example of legitimizing the extreme rhetoric surrounding immigration and the primary target, Hispanics.  Although there are some that will dismiss the findings of the Southern Poverty Law Center, can they also ignore the Anti Defamation League? Mr. Duecaster has every right under the constitution to express his feelings towards Latinos as “invaders” and that the invasion is being “funded by foreign governments”. Mr. Duecaster states that he has a message for the current President of Mexico, that “citizens do not want this internationalization”. Mr. Duecaster never points out any other ethnic groups in has diatribe on april 29th except Latinos when referring to illegal immigration. I have included only a partial part of this most recent piece written by SPLC, please click on the link to read it in its entirety.

Robert L. Duecaster helps lead a nativist extremist group and regularly makes defamatory comments about Catholics, Muslims and undocumented immigrants, calling the latter in an October 2007 blog post “an invasion of parasites set on reducing this country to the levels of their own.”

But all that didn’t stop the Prince William (Va.) Board of County Supervisors from appointing him to a committee that will influence county decision making on human services policy and budget priorities. After a closed-door discussion, the board voted 5-3 on Sept. 16 to approve Duecaster’s nomination to the Human Services Strategic Goals Task Force, which will develop a roadmap for the next four years of human services planning.

Duecaster is secretary of Help Save Manassas, an anti-immigration group that has spawned other “Help Save” chapters in Virginia and Maryland. In 2007, he helped author a local ordinance aimed at denying county services to undocumented immigrants and empowering local police to enforce federal immigration law. County officials later softened the ordinance because of concerns that it could lead to racial profiling.

Duecaster is known for his inflammatory remarks. “This country is being invaded no less than if hordes of armed people came across its borders,” he said during an October 2007 county supervisors meeting. “This invasion is not armed, but they’ve got weapons. The weapons that they use are their anchor babies. … This invasion is being funded by foreign governments.” He offered another dire warning to the supervisors in April 2008: “You’re at an historic crossroad today. You can fund and continue to enforce the rule of law resolution or you can let it go by the wayside and watch this county and the rest of this region degenerate into a third world slum.”

Duecaster, a 57-year-old lawyer, was nominated to the human services task force by County Supervisor John T. Stirrup Jr., who said criticisms of Duecaster’s appointment amounted to “character assassination.” In a recent interviewwith The Washington Post, Duecaster didn’t retract any of his controversial past statements. “At the time the comments were made, we were living in a threatening and inflammatory environment,” he said, adding that he hoped to serve “the interest of legal residents of this county.”

Duecaster has been even more flagrant in his remarks under cover of a pseudonym, according to the Post, which reported that on Black Velvet Bruce Li, the blog of Help Save Manassas founder Greg Letiecq, Duecaster has postedblatantly bigoted comments using the screen name “Advocator.”

In January 2008, Advocator called for an investigation into “whether or not illegal aliens have a preferred breeding season.” In April, he responded to a comment someone had posted using the pseudonym “Truth” with this gem: “An’ thass right, Trufe, I am bitching about ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] as classes. Those anchor babies be costing me money.”

Sorry for the date change, but now we will party on Friday, October 17th at Giuseppes!

15120 Washington Street

Haymarket, VA

Landscape Buffers: Here today, gone tomorrow?

As if the major changes proposed for the Comp Plan weren’t enough, Supervisors will vote on proposed changes to the Zoning Ordinance on December 16. One of these changes would weaken our buffer standards for new and existing development. Buffers are strips of land with trees and other plants that separate (buffer) two different land uses, such as roads, strip malls, stormwater facilities and neighborhoods.
Read More

This recent article in the Potomac Journal, clearly demonstrates, why the qualifications of appointees matter! Robert Doucaster is a symptom of a much larger problem in Prince William County. People appointed to public policy committees are often times selected for political reasons not because they necessarily have the proper experience or judgement for the particular committee!
Read More

I recieved this e-mail update from a concerned citizen.  Apparently, the Comprehensive Plan update will now include NEW land use designations, Centers of Community, that would bring in MORE high density housing projects to PWC.  Umm, aren’t we experiencing the fallout from previous poor land use decisions?  Do we really need MORE houses or instead maybe should  focus on bringing high quality businesses to PWC so people can work closer to where they live?  We are a bedroom community because our elected officials have not been able to induce more businesses to open up shop here.  THESE land use decisions ARE the quality of life issues that we all must deal with on a daily basis.  Land use decisions are about land convservation, parks for our children, clean air, clean drinking water, transportation, quality schools, and how much we pay in taxes!

All: If you’re concerned about the issues described below, please
attend (and, if possible, address) the 7 pm 8 October (Wednesday)
hearing of the Prince William County Planning Commission at the Board of
Supervisors Chambers in the McCoart Building of the County Complex off
the PW County Parkway. I intend to be there to speak and would be happy
to go early to sign up by 6:30 pm anyone else who would like to speak.
Let me know if you’d like me to do this for you. Each speaker is
limited to three minutes. If you cannot be there, and even if you can,
you might want to send a message to the eight members of the Board of
Supervisors to share with them your views:

http://www.pwcgov.org/default.aspx?topic=040050000940000442

If you have any questions, please let me know. And please share this
message with any of your friends/neighbors who you think would be
interested. Ralph

***************************************************************

The county is proposing sweeping changes to how it accommodates future
growth by designating 19 locations in the county as “Centers of
Community” (CoCs). CoCs are large areas (reportedly about one square
mile) that are specifically planned for high-density mixed use projects,
particularly high-density housing. Each covers a half-mile radius and
is supposed to be walkable and environmentally sensitive.

The screenshot at the bottom of this e-mail, which I took off the county
website a couple days ago, summarizes the latest version of the plan. I
count a total of 19 planned CoCs — 11 in the Haymarket, Gainesville,
Bristow, Manassas area, and 8 at the east end of the county. If each of
these centers builds 3,000 homes, which is about the same density level
as the infamous 2005-06 Brentswood Project, and assuming the county’s
average of three people per house, that would total 171,000 more people,
a 50% increase in the population of the entire county.

See this link for more info:
http://www.co.prince-william.va.us/default.aspx?topic=040073001410004148

You might be interested to know that two of the main authors of this
plan are leading members of the Prince William County developer
community who reportedly have a direct business interest (some might
call it a major conflict-of-interest) in land involved in the plan,
owning large parcels within some of the areas proposed for development.
You might also be interested to know that making this plan part of the
county’s Comprehensive Plan, as proposed, will effectively bypass the
former rezoning approval and public hearing process, and fast-track
future residential development projects for expedited approval.

I believe that nothing like this should be allowed to slip thru without
thorough citizen input and thorough study and publicizing of its impact
on: 1) traffic congestion, 2) overcrowding in schools, 3) the tax base,
4) property values in existing neighborhoods (oversupply drives down the
value of your home), and 5) the environment. Note: Relative to the tax
base, all but the most expensive homes in the county are a net drain on
county services and tax revenue. This means that ultimately as a
taxpayer you indirectly subsidize all the other, non-high-income
housing, which the county, already glutted with thousands of foreclosed
and unsold homes, doesn’t even need. (By the way, those thousands of
foreclosed and unsold homes can themselves become a significant tax
burden on county taxpayers)

It’s ironic that the county is bringing this up for discussion at the
very time that the U.S. is in the middle of its worst financial crisis
since the Great Depression, a crisis brought on by, among other things,
massive housing oversupply, predatory and dishonest lending practices by
many mortgage lenders to people who couldn’t afford the homes they were
being sold, and the financially toxic effect of these millions of
now-non-performing (bad) loans on the books of banks and other
investors. (Forbes magazine reported 2.2 million foreclosures in the
U.S. in 2007 alone.)
<http://www.co.prince-william.va.us/default.aspx?topic=040073001410004148

Please share your impression about the VP debate!

This was a VERY long article, but truly excellent.  Amazingly, the Brookings Institute, decade by decade, sheds light on the how the media has framed the debate regarding immigration.  I found myself wondering, how is it that American policy has been reduced to sound bites and simple catch phrases. Lou Dobbs says there is a crisis and we believe him? Where are the moderate voices of reason, described within this Brookings Institute report? What really stood out to me, was their analysis that a comprehensive conversation regarding immigration, legal and illegal, was simply not taking place within the larger context of American economy. What was happening within our economy that was allowing for such the large flow of immigrants, including those who were not entering through legal channels? Where is the discussion regarding the housing boom and the need for additional labor? What about the need for high tech employees that this country needs in order to continue competing in a global economy? The media is complicit in promoting the belief that there is an us vs them. Whether it be citizens vs. government or legal vs legal,  somehow the more complicated resolution of immigration has been left behind for the easier to write, us vs them paradigm. In order to come to any meaningful conclusion regarding immigration, we must first rewrite the narrative of immigration. I will add, that although the media may be simplifying this issue, our politicians have shown little initiative to leave behind the politics and search for a comprehensive solution that so many middle of the road Americans desire. 

http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/0925_immigration_dionne.aspx

The U.S. media have hindered effective policy making on immigration for decades, and their impact has been increasing in recent years as a result of an ongoing evolution in the media industry. Deeply ingrained practices in American journalism have produced a narrative that conditions the public to associate immigration with illegality, crisis, controversy and government failure. Meanwhile, new voices of advocacy on the media landscape have succeeded in mobilizing segments of the public in opposition to policy initiatives, sometimes by exaggerating the narrative of immigration told by traditional news organizations. The combined effect is to promote stalemate on an issue that is inherently difficult to resolve and that is likely to resurface on the public agenda when a new administration and a new Congress take office in January 2009.

These findings emerge from an examination of how the media have covered immigration going back to 1980 with a special focus on the extended policy debates in 2006 and 2007, which collapsed without producing any significant legislation. Supporters of radically different positions in those debates agree that the current immigration system is broken; one need not favor any particular outcome to conclude that stalemate is a mark of failure in the policy process. Many actors in Washington and beyond played a role in that outcome, and the intent here is not to argue that the media were the decisive players or to rank their influence relative to others. The objective is to understand how the media conditioned public opinion and the policy landscape, and the results show that the media—both traditional journalism and new forms of expression—need to be considered among the factors that contribute to polarization and distrust.

While the immigrant population has grown vastly larger over the years, the terms of the policy debate over immigration have hardly changed in 30 years. Improving border controls; halting the employment of unauthorized migrants; dealing with temporary workers; determining legalization plans for people in the country illegally; refiguring visa categories for legal immigrants—all these topics have been debated repeatedly since at least 1980, and some have actually been legislated. In the meantime, however, the media have undergone a radical transformation marked by declining audiences for the daily newspapers and broadcast network evening news programs that once dominated the information flow and by rising new forms of news delivery via cable television, talk radio and the Internet.

In the recent immigration debates of 2006 and 2007, the new media landscape also amplified discrete sectors of public opinion to help block legislative action. In the first act of this drama, the Spanish-language media helped mobilize huge crowds to protest legislation passed by the House that would have mandated an unprecedented crackdown on unauthorized migrants including their jailing on felony charges. The protest marches of spring 2006 were one factor that pushed a bipartisan group of senators to present a counterproposal whose passage kept the other legislation from moving forward.

The new media voices played an even more significant role in the second act of the legislative drama. In 2007, conservative voices on cable television news shows, talk radio and the Internet mobilized opposition to provisions of a Senate bill that would have offered legal status, or “amnesty” as it was labeled, to unauthorized migrants. Meanwhile, liberal commentators and bloggers paid relatively little attention to the issue. Conservatives in the media successfully defined the terms of the debate in a way that helped lead to the eventual collapse of efforts to reach a compromise.

Both cases represented a triumph of “no!” These media sectors proved adept at promoting opposition to specific measures, but they have shown no comparable ability to advance an affirmative agenda. The media have given voice to strongly felt and well-defined views at either end of the policy spectrum. Meanwhile, the broad middle in American public opinion favors a mix of policy options on immigration, but that segment’s views are marked by uncertainty and anxiety about the topic and skepticism about government’s ability to handle it. This reflects the way the immigration narrative has been framed by the media for a generation.

An important but unresolved question is whether these same dynamics apply to other issues that share certain characteristics with immigration. Comprehensive reform of health care and energy policies, like immigration, require the mediation of many competing economic and regional interests while also assuaging strongly felt ideological differences. If the effects of media transformation can be generalized, the recent failures to reach grand bargains on immigration should serve as a cautionary tale.

This story, in the Chicago Tribune, eloquently touches upon the more deep seated issue that faces America. In my opinion, we, as a nation, are facing an identity crisis. Who are we as Americans? Are we a belief of values, espoused by Thomas Jefferson, and our forefathers? Are we really a nation based on the content of our character or the color of our skin? Very soon, the identity of America will look very different, within decades, “white” Americans will become the minority. What does that mean, and how will we integrate this new dynamic into our culture?

It’s a sense of unrest familiar in small towns and suburbs across America. Immigrants have flooded the country in great numbers in the past. What’s different now is where they’re settling—far from the border states and big cities that long absorbed the huddled masses.

Their integration into small-town America is marked in Manassas, as elsewhere, by a language of fear, resentment and anger. Under pressure from longtime residents, local officials have cracked down, ordering police to dramatically increase the amount of time spent checking people’s Immigration status.

Those authorities say they’re targeting illegality. Others say they’re simply going after brown people.

If we’re due a national conversation about the changing complexion of America, though, it’s not happening in the 2008 campaign.

Barack Obama and John McCain both support what they call “comprehensive” Immigration reform, but neither spends much time on this volatile topic in his presidential campaign. When they do, they don’t address the fundamental tension of America’s great Immigration debate today.

In Manassas, some old-timers watch their home changing and fight the newcomers. Others fight that backlash.

For all of them, it’s a battle for their very identity.

A new complexion
For most of our history, immigrants settled largely in the Northeast and the Midwest. In 1920, nine out of 10 immigrants lived in cities of more than 100,000. The quintessential immigrant destination was Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Now the decline of traditional manufacturing is redirecting immigrants to agricultural centers in the South, tourist centers in the West, smaller cities all over. The Census Bureau first picked up on this dispersion in the 1980s, but the proportion of immigrants in small towns really took off in the mid-1990s.

In Prince William County, where Manassas sits, whites went from 65 percent of the population in 2000 to 52 percent in 2006. Hispanics increased—from 10 percent to 20 percent, roughly—in the same period.

Maureen Wood liked the diversity at first. The students at the high school where she is a substitute teacher taught her Spanish words.

Then the school district put up mobile classrooms.

A friend’s son couldn’t get work as a landscaper when he came home from college for the summer. The company owner said he only hired native Spanish speakers, to make it easier for his crew and foreman.

The changes turned Wood and Kipp into activists. Pressure from citizens like them is having a powerful effect in Prince William County.

Last year, the county board of supervisors ordered its police force to inquire more regularly about people’s Immigration status. They later scaled back that directive, but the thunderous debate had its effect, as immigrants started running scared. Hundreds withdrew from English-as-a-second language programs in local schools.