Moonhowlings

Bring it On, now that is some brilliant satire. And I thought I was good. Hahaha.

illegal aliens are worth every penny now to remove from here. when the economy booms back, you’ll be thanking them for removing the scourge of illegals.

You don’t think a rebound in the economy will be accompanied by a return of the demand for the same cheap labor that attracted this “scourge” in the first place? Are you that naive?

Somewhere Michael Moore and Al Gore are beaming with pride at this new piece of film making garbage! Turn PW Blue, you’re right, businesses get very excited about the proposition of paying laborers as close to nothing as possible. You may have missed your calling, you should have been a labor leader!

3 million is not significant in a $850,000 million budget but $150,000 is??? That is all that was needed to continue to fund the Adult Day Care Program on the western end of the county and the BOCS could not come up with it because it was too much and they had to cut the budget somewhere. What is wrong with this picture?

After watching the video and seeing this discussion once again, I am still inclined to believe that Mr. Stewart has lots to learn. One can certainly see his lack of experience with government budgeting.

Bring it On-The footage did not appear to be spliced and diced to me. If you would have seen or been at the original meeting highlighted in the video you would know that it is pretty much what took place.

Marie, reread Bring It On’s Comment

I don’t blame Elvis and Slowpoke for trying to change the subject. Corey at his finest. Bully Mode.

Corey should have listened to Mr. Jenkins with his 25 years of budget experience, rather than belittling and contradicting him. He just didn’t get it or want to get it. I wonder if he has apologized to Mrs. Caddigan or to Mr. Jenkins?

Point of order! Point of order! I didn’t realize John S had a voice. So he does speak. I guess he said that to cut off all intelligent conversation. I mean come on! Why should we have enough money to pay for things? I had forgotten how ugly that all was. Thanks for bringing it back. I needed a reminder.

Marie,
When the BOS was addressed yesterday about the Manassas Senior Day program it was mentioned that the numbers may not reflect the money coming from the City of Manassas and City of Manassas Park. Now, this is very important. This program being cut makes me sick to my stomach.
MH,
It was ugly in the Chambers that day. I was so embarassed for our county of such bickering by our leaders. I had my camera as always, and went to video mode when it got very middle schoolish.

Middle school behavior? I see 2 supervisors making asses and bullies of themselves. Who they are should be obvious. I see Corey accusing Mrs. Caddigan and Mr. Jenkins of ‘making excuses’ and he attempted to put words in their mouths and to mischaracterize their intentions. I wonder who he learned that nasty little trick from?

I see 2 other supervisors attempting to discuss the finances of the county. They are trying to warn the people of the county that their taxes must go up because of the financial conditions of the county.

I was appalled by the behavior of Stirrup and Stewart then and I am even more appalled now, knowing all I know. In a year, my impressions of that day have not changed.

MH,

I tend to think of making an ass of yourself and bullying as middle schoolish behavior. Maybe, I was more recently than you were as a student.
The two sitting up their with the most budget experience for the county, and they were bullied. Where’s the respect, and working TOGETHER for the good of ALL in the county?

Middle Schoolers often act better than THAT! They at least have a sense of justice and have been taught not to bully. Let’s send Stewart and Stirrup back to Middle School. Better yet, start them off in Kindergarten again. See how long they last without being expelled.

Obviously, the BOCS Chair and VICE don’t care a whit for members like Nohe, Principi, and Covington. And they think they can disrespect the entire board whenever they like. I would like to see the members of the BOCS defend at least their own honor and put these two in their places where they belong. Stirrup is damn accountant. He should not be allowed to write social policy. Let him add and subtract and do all those things accountants are supposed to do.

Stewart once again shows that he’s good at political machination but a poor leader with little understanding of what it takes to run a local government. He was probably hoping to flee to a higher office before his abysmal record was evident. The rest of the board could marginalize him and Stirrup and our government would run more smoothly.

Sorry Bring it On – Thanks Leila

Chris,
Many people out there do not know that both the City of Manassas and the City of Manassas Park share services with PWC and pay big bucks for those services. City pays a share for Community Services (mental health agency), jail, courts, Office on Aging to mention a few. It makes me sick as well to see how the elderly and their families were treated by closing a much needed program.

That outburst from John Stirrup is one of the few times I’ve been able to understand where he was coming from. At the time, he didn’t know that Maureen Caddigan and John Jenkins were right. He trusted his friend Corey Stewart. And Maureen and John Jenkins were basically embarrassing him on TV and threatening the future of the Immigration Resolution, something that was personally important to him.

I have no problem with people being heartfelt and passionate, even if it’s in a direction that is bad for the county. I just expect them to be honest about their sources, their intentions, their associations, and of course the data they use to support their side.

This is where Corey Stewart and Greg Letiecq have crossed the line.

I don’t know that Stirrup has.

Let’s send Stewart and Stirrup back to Middle School. Better yet, start them off in Kindergarten again. See how long they last without being expelled.

Let’s go farther and send them back to the crib. Complete with bib and diapers.

NotGregLeteicq,

You are more generous than I am. Stirrup knew what he was doing. Point of order! Point of order! The man was both frantic and enraged.

How can we let elected officials off the hook by saying ‘they know not what they do?’ Have they ever apologized for misleading their constituents or in Corey’s case, the entire county since all of us are his constituents?

I actually didn’t realize John Stirrup had vocal chords. So is his new name ‘Point of Order?’ POO? And Corey can be ‘Over My Dead Body.’ OMDB? That one isn’t quite as cute, now is it?

Both of these men could reclaim their political reputations by thinking for themselves and relying on their constituents for guidance rather than a special interest group that simply goes about handling problems the wrong way. Their final solution is not the Prince William way!

“The two sitting up their with the most budget experience for the county, and they were bullied.”

This will be my first defense (sort of) of Stewart and Stirrup in quite sometime but to accuse them of bullying the board and in particular Caddigan and Jenkins is a topic just to hard to pass on. Please, put the immigaration issue aside for the moment and simply focus on the budget in general and the actions of this year’s and past boards.

The impression of whom was abused, disrespected or bullied depends largely on whose ox was gored. In many respects, emotional issues aside, it was simply a matter of turnabout being fair play. One could argue that it is more often Caddigan, Jenkins and frequently Nohe who have played games with the budget and bludgeoned their pet programs into the budget.

Yes it’s a shame, nay, a disgrace, that the Senior Center was closed and budget issues cited as the reason, but there are any number of budget items that could have been trimmed or eliminated that would have funded it. Those budget line items run the gamut from discretionary funds to the County Exec.’s DRIVE program to the funding of Jenkins pet railroad. It’s nothing more than business as usual with the only unusual part being that it was Caddigan and Jenkins who got gored. This will continue to occur on an annual basis so long as wind testing fence sitters like Covington and Nohe sit on the board and hold the swing votes.

My comments were strictly about behavior. It appeared as though Corey was incapable of listening to the fact that yes, taxes were going to go up. They had to. I believe he would have done literally anything to keep his precious resolution. ‘Over my dead body’ more or less illustrates my point.
To the casual observer, he appears to try to bully. Whether he is successful or not, is another matter. Check out the body language and the facial expressions. Classic.

Body language and facial expressions that are not foreign to Caddigan, trust me.

“Can the County have two tax rates, one for residential & one for commercial?”

Nope.

MH, well Stirrup is not very vocal and he’s not my supervisor so I haven’t paid much attention to him. In the 9500 film he almost seems to be on the same side as the rest of the Supervisors by the end. Like it was 7 to 1 against Corey to make the policy legal and fair. Like many others, he seemed to confuse the Anti-immigrant Lobby with the Republican party, and was loyal to the party for a long time without knowing he was actually being loyal to the LOBBY. Now that the writing is on the wall, I don’t hear Stirrup saying a lot, granted he never said a lot.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I’ve heard people say he has been distancing himself from Help Save Manassas and the Blunder Twins.

I’m not defending the childish outburst in this video. I just don’t think it’s nearly as bad as flat out lying to the public to support the FAIR’s agenda against the best interest of the county.

Stirrup: not that horrible. Stewart and Letiecq: really horrible.

Fear Not: can the county Board change the law so that residential and commercial tax rates are two different rates? Or is it a state law?

Oh yes! This video does show a bullying tactic. At the time, the whold county was shaking in its boots because of Gospel Greg and his hate squad. The Supervisors could be bullied quite easily because Corey was holding this bloody club over their heads with Gospel Greg’s face on it. If anyone said they didn’t support Corey’s agenda (later we find out FAIR’s agenda), they would be blasted on Greg’s blog and get deluged with emails from NumbersUSA and all over the nation.

You can see very plainly in this video that all the Supervisors assume that Corey has the big club in his hand. He goes “are you saying you don’t support me?” and they say “no, no, no we support you.”

I think the whole thing is a dance in which the experienced and knowledgeable Supervisors (Caddigan and Jenkins) are trying to show their non-hateful constituents that they are still looking out for their best interest. But, at the time, the assumption was that the majority of the county was hateful.

It’s incredible how much power the Blunder Twins once had, and not that long ago!

“Fear Not: can the county Board change the law so that residential and commercial tax rates are two different rates? Or is it a state law?”

The county is prohibited from taxing commercial and residential properties at different rates. It would take an action from the General Assembly to change that, and I don’t see that happening.

It’s an interesting issue, because during the boom years, the real estate tax rate was cut to give homeowners relief, and commercial property tax bills were cut significantly each year. Commercial property swings in a different cycle. So now that the county is increasing taxes because of the residential downturn, commercial properties are feeling a double hit: raising assessments AND higher tax rates. Commercial is much more volatile.

Fear Not,

Totally agree about Commercial’s volatility…and Fairfax and the close in counties make a TON of money off their commercial properties. PWC just doesn’t have the square footage that the close in counties have. I manage commercial office properties and one of my building’s taxes went up 59% over 2007 this year! And the other two went up 20% each. And it’s not chump change. One building’s taxes are almost $1M and the other two are paying in about $600K each. It takes a lot of residential unit taxes to bring in that kind of dough that they are getting from one building. And with homes in PWC now selling for about 200-250K, that will be about 1/3rd less than they’ve been bringing in over the last few years. Next year’s budget discussions will be brutal!

I agree. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Counties and Cities often have different tax rates for residential and commerical real estate. When I worked for local government there were different rates for residential and commerical.

Fear Not- I stated that counties and cities often have different tax rates but you say that they can’t have different rates. Maybe I am mistaken because of the billing cycles but I thought commerical was taxed at a higher or different rate. I will be checking with some financial people I know that work in local government finance.

Fear Not is correct. The Constitution of Virginia demands all property within the municipality be taxed at the same tax rate. It is the increase in the assessments on Commerical property that can differ from that of residential. The percent of increase in the assessment can be different. When I worked for local government there was not a different rate as I stated earlier but the assessments could increase dramatically for commerical which was not usually the case for residential property.

In any event we still have not bottomed out and next year there will be another struggle for local governments to balance their budgets so look for higher taxes.

I read an article today from the International Herald Tribune that implies our sub-prime mortgage fiasco is just a foreshadowing of things to come as Alt-A and prime loans (which have a longer rate reset period) begin to default. Our county budget won’t be looking sunny for quite awhile if these predictions hold.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/03/business/mortgage.php

Fear Not is correct as far as I know. To separate the two would make the commerical tax rate a political football…..not too many sensible states/jurisdictions willing to go there. Remember our residential real estate revenue is at 65% and commerical base is 45%. The ‘grown up’ jurisdictions have it in reverse.

Take a look at the history of the tax rate and the zoning for business and the lack of effort that went into economic development until the present CXO took over.

With zeal PWC went from the highest rate in the state at about $1.42 to $.77 in under ten years. Now THAT was not wise. PWC now has the LOWEST rate and tax bill as compared to Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax, however, the commerical base is also the lowest of those three.

Thank goodness the present CXO decided to take Economic Development seriously and actually put someone in charge several years ago…… The only thing I would blame on the resolution is what economic development might have passed PWC over. We really have a stinky reputation if you go a few miles or state or two out.

I have lived here since 1982. I’d like to blame the Board between 1980-1990 for their bad decisions (zoning/comp plan) but I honestly think we’ve kicked the skill level of Supervisors up a few notches since that time. Unfortunately as PWC became urban (last four/five years) the economy did not cooperate.

This will work out over the long term but as was suggested last year, until we (and perhaps after we) have a reversed residential/commercial percentage we need to look at a longer term tax rate that will sustain a 5-10% fluctuation in real estate values. Maybe as we all become more sophisticated about it we won’t have folks screaming about a “managed” surplus for a few years if they remember these years.

I’m glad folks have come to the same conclusions on the bifurcated tax rates.

I’ve seen the same data on the impending wave of interest rate resets. Like I said, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

What was the tax rate in 2007? Was it 78.7 cents? And we ended up at what tax rate finally? Yes, pretty sure that was more than the 15 % John Jenkins had the audacity to bring up at the BOCS meeting.

On a separate note, Corey and John S, both voted to maintain the integrity of the Rural Crescent. Corey, despite Wally C’s unending quest to sewer the Rural Crescent, stood strong and did not align with Wally. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Marty. I was VERY disappointed in Marty’s yes vote to allow sewer. Thank goodness Maureen, Frank, and Mike also voted no, thus defeating the appeal to allow sewer into the RC! For now, the Rural Crescent is safe from high density development.