Local Elections Tomorrow

Tomorrow is election day for Virginia local political races. There are some dismal prospects on the ballot this year, and no Green Party candidate available for a protest vote, but I’ll be voting nonetheless. The Washington Post has a good overview of the various County-level issues on the ballot.

Senate

In the Virginia state Senate district 32, the incument Janet Howell (D) is running unopposed. This is unfortunate, because I would vote for an empty chair if she was the alternative. She’s a strident supporter of gun control at the state level, and a left-leaning Democrat on most other issues. That she can run unopposed in my senate district tells you much about the nature of the district.

House of Delegates

In the Virginia House of Delegates district 86, the incumbent Tom “Abusive Driver Fees” Rust (R) is defending his seat against Jay P. Donahue (D). Donahue is a liberal with a weak record on fighting illegal immigration and I don’t trust him with guns or taxes either, but at the same time I will not vote for the House of Delegates architect of our much-maligned and extra-constitutional “abuser fees”, ol’ Tommy Rust. He’s always been a waffler anyway, though it’s >unfortunate I have to withhold support for a candidate who has generally voted correctly on VA gun rights issues. Why isn’t there a third-party candidate to soak up all the protest votes? I have no idea.

Member, Board of Supervisors

For the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for the Dranesville District, I can choose between the incumbent Joan DuBois (R) and challenger John Foust (D). Reading Joan DuBois’s website, I see some good things. From her website:

• Reduced the property tax rate by 27%! (from $1.23 per $100 of assessed value in 2003 to $0.89 per $100 of assessed value today) [Good! -an]
• Taken steps to provide our senior citizens with tax relief [Why? The poor ones already have tax relief and the rich ones don't need one unless we all get it -an]
• Voted to eliminate Fairfax County’s auto decals [Amen! -an]
• Improved teacher salaries [Boo! -an]
• Expanded access to all-day kindergarten [Don't care -an]
• Voted to approve greater funding for school construction [How about vouchers instead? -an]
• Funded after school programs in all of the County’s middle schools [I'm so glad I pay taxes -an]
• Supported anti-gang initiatives that combats gang recruitment in our school system [Are they effective or just good PR? -an]
• Implementing the federal 287(g) program which will allow local law enforcement to process, and when appropriate, detain immigration offenders they encounter during their regular, daily law-enforcement activity [About damn time! -an]
• Giving our zoning enforcement officers the tools, resources and legal support to confront illegal boarding houses [Yay! -an]
• Working to further increase the penalties for illegal boarding houses [Is the death penalty still off the table? -an]

On the whole she seems okay. What about Foust?

• Unlike his opponent, John strongly supports the Tysons Tunnel. He believes the tunnel can be less costly than an elevated rail, that it will cause less congestion through Tysons and surrounding neighborhoods during construction, and that it will enhance our ability to make Tysons a livable and walkable community. [DuBois says she supports the Tysons Tunnel too, so I guess it's a question of "strongly" or not. I hate boondoggle public transpo schemes and thus oppose it, but I'm one of three NoVa residents who feel that way -an]
• John recognizes the importance of a strong and growing economy. But he also knows we must do a better job of anticipating and providing for the traffic and other impacts that accompany growth. He will not allow the Dulles rail project to become a developer’s excuse for excessive high density growth around Metro stations before adequate public facilities are in place to serve that growth. [sounds fine, but smacks of "smart growth" and "new urbanism" bullshit -an]
• John is committed to providing our children with the opportunity to earn a first class education. He will make sure our public schools continue to recruit and retain highly qualified and committed teachers. He will work to ensure our schools have the facilities and other resources needed to carry out their mission and serve our diverse student population. [Please, God, someone run on a "close the schools" platform! -an]
• John will be an advocate for policies that reduce greenhouse gasses, protect trees from development, improve our streams, and expand parks and open spaces. [um, no -an]
• John will work to relieve the tax burden on homeowners by controlling costs and diversifying County revenues. He will ensure that critical programs and services are adequately funded and he will demand accountability to ensure they are delivered in the most cost effective way. ['diversifying revenues' sounds disturbingly like politician-speak for 'tax some other shit' I'll pass -an]

So, I’m going with DuBois on this one, as the lesser of two evils.

Chairman, Board of Supervisors

The incumbent Chairman is Gerald E. “Gerry” Connolly (D). Challengers are Gary H. Baise (R) and Glenda Gail Parker(I). First let’s look at Connolly:

• Gerry is a national leader in the fight to stop global warming and protect our environment. Locally, he developed the first 20-year environmental plan in Fairfax County history and is actively working to reverse the bad environmental practices of the past. [All while ignoring the very real threat of manbearpig -an]
• Expanded access to all-day kindergarten
• Started an early childhood learning initiative
• Increased funding for school construction
• Improved teacher salaries
• Started an anti-gang initiative that has reduced gang membership by half in our schools [I seem to recall reading this list somewhere before.... -an]
• Gerry Connolly knows that the first step in fighting crime is to prevent it. Last year, the crime rate in Fairfax County hit a 32-year low and, among the 50 largest jurisdictions, was the lowest in the nation. Our violent crime rate is half that of our neighboring jurisdictions. [Hard to take credit for such a complex phenomenon but it's not points against him either -an]
• Gerry Connolly believes that we must diversify our tax base to reduce the burden on homeowners. While most other jurisdictions in Northern Virginia raised property taxes this year, Fairfax County did not. [Sounds well and good, but Fairfax County tax revenues are going to plummet in '08 due to the housing downturn. Cutting spending is the correct response, not finding someone else to soak -an]
• Gerry realizes that we face a congestion crisis in Northern Virginia and he’s working to provide real solutions. His approach to transportation involves increasing transportation choices and changing the way we plan for development. [There's not a politician in NoVa who opposes boondoggle public transportation schemes, so while this is points against Gerry, it's points against everyone else too -an]
• Dedicated one penny of the county’s real estate tax to affordable housing [Eek! -an]
• Set and surpassed a goal to preserve 1000 affordable housing units, ultimately preserving 1300 units [Umm.. -an]
• Received an award from AHOME (Affordable Housing Opportunity Means Everyone) for his leadership, courage and innovation in preserving affordable housing [Who doesn't want housing to be affordable. That's not the issue. The issue is gov't meddling. Gerry just lost my vote -an]

On to Gary Baise:

• Gary Baise favors creating a transportation bond to provide monies for important county transportation programs and infrastructure upgrades such as finishing the Fairfax County Parkway. As Fairfax County Chairman, Gerry Connolly approved a large-scale development plan in tysons corner without including any new road expansions. as a result, construction for the project could significantly disrupt travel on route 123 and route 7-making the commute for approximately 100,000 local drivers longer and more burdensome” [As much as I hate traffic, gov't control of who builds what where leaves a worse taste in my mouth -an]
• Since Gerry Connolly was elected Fairfax County Chairman, the average homeowner has seen their property tax bill nearly double. Gary Baise will stop the County Government’s endless appetite for more of your tax money by auditing the $6 billion county budget, putting all county contracts and grants on the Internet for the public, appointing a blue ribbon panel to recommend cost savings, and will hire an independent Ethics Officer to end self dealing and conflicts of interest from County Supervisors, their top officials, developers and contractors. [That's a little disingenuous since property values have nearly doubled, but I'll give him a "hell yeah" on the audit and disclosure stuff]
• With the national immigration reforms failing, Gary Baise supports immediate enforcement of local measures already on the books including housing code and parking nuisance enforcement to end illegal activities from people in the country illegally and restore a quality of life for law-abiding residents. Gary Baise is a big supporter of LEGAL immigration that brings talented people to fill necessary jobs in the county, but ILLEGAL immigrants should be DEPORTED whenever they are convicted of a crime, not REWARDED by using our tax money to attend Fairfax schools. [Amen! -an]
• As Fairfax County chairman, Gerry Connolly has taken thousands of campaign dollars from large-scale developers then supported measures allowing developers to build high rise complexes, offices and stores near metro stations-destroying the character of suburban Fairfax. Gary Baise has refused to take money from developers doing business in Fairfax, so that he can stand up to them and allow our roads and other infrastructure to catch up with the overdevelopment encouraged by Gerry Connolly. Gary Baise supports immediate measures to protect the environment and reduce our health risks from unclean air and water by reducing the number of county vehicles on the road, upgrading water polluting storm drains, increase street sweeping, replace energy wasting street lighting, and require developers to increase the tree canopy in by at least 10%. [You had me until the tree canopy thing. Clearly another statist -an]

How about Glenda Gail Parker:

Well, you may remember during the ’06 US Senate race in which Webb ran against incumbent Allen in a very close race, a nut-job third party candidate ‘Gail for Rail’ snagged some single-digit percentage of votes, mostly from Webb. There was some consternation amongst the left-wing blogs as to what punishment would be suitable for spoiling the Dem’s first shot at retaking the Senate in quite some time. As it happens, Webb won anyway and Gail was spared the firing squad. Apparently she’s back and running for Chairman of the BoS.

Her moniker is not misplaced. If you can stand to read her website, she seems to be framing all issues in terms of rail. Also, someone please tell her the picture of a gray-haired lady in a Air Force Major’s uniform is not exactly exuding authority.

I’m going to have to hold my nose and go with Baise on this one.

Clerk of the Court (don’t laugh)

I know, you probably didn’t even know Clerk of the Court was an elected position. I will say I’ve had one encounter with the Clerk of the Court’s office, and that was in dropping off my CHP application. I found the office to be well-run, efficient, and polite (this last one being very unexpected for a government office). Other gun owners who have dealt with the CHP desk and the Deputy Clerk responsible for it have had only good things to say. So the incumbent, John T. Frey, has the benefit of the doubt to start with.

I had trouble finding Frey’s site, but I did turn up this announcement of Frey’s naming as the 2006 Public Official of the Year by the National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks (NACRC). Among the cited list of accomplishments are all good-sounding things, mostly having to do with automation and electric filing/remote access stuff for court documents.

Once I found Frey’s site, he offered this:

First off, for a guy who drove the modernization of the Court’s records systems, his website is pretty retrograde. A link titled “Setting the Record Straight” links to a Word document (yes, Word) that rebuts some claims made by his opponent (below). It’s not clear what about the ‘Save as HTML’ feature in Word he finds so distasteful, but it seems superficial to vote against a guy for failure to properly utilize technology on his campaign website.

Anyway, to spare you the effort of downloading a Word doc, here are some snippets:

Mr. Evans is using his “experience” as a member of the Board of Commissioners in Genesee County (Flint), Michigan, 25 years ago, as a major reason to be elected as the Fairfax Circuit Court Clerk.

The first year Mr. Evans was on the Board of Commissioners, he ran for Chairman and Vice Chairman, at the same time. When it became evident that his fellow board members would not elect him as Chairman, he dropped that effort and was elected Vice-Chairman. Four months later, the Chairman stepped down from the Board to take a full time job (as in Fairfax, the Board of Commissioners was a part time job). Under the bylaws of the board, the Vice-Chairman automatically became the Chairman for the remainder of the unexpired term of his predecessor.

What is interesting is that the Flint Journal newspaper reported in April, 1981, that some of his fellow board members wanted to change the bylaws to prevent him from becoming Chairman.

When the Chairman’s position came up for election again a year later, he was elected for a one year term. However, even after being elected by his fellow board members as Chairman, the Flint Journal reported in an article dated January 6, 1982, that Mr. Evans acknowledged that he limited the committee assignments of those who opposed him the year before when he first ran for Chairman. The article went on to report that Mr. Evans said: “those who didn’t support him shouldn’t expect much.” Again, in the same article, one of his fellow board members, Nancy Gadola, was quoted as saying: “Evans is a diabolical liar. He reneged on those committee assignments and didn’t have the decency to tell me he was going to renege. I have been told by members of his own party that you can’t trust him….” (Emphasis added.)

…

Sometime in the late 80’s to early 90’s, Mr. Evans moved to Virginia. He says he has been a realtor all this time. That isn’t really accurate, either. You see, Mr. Evans fails to tell you, he was a lobbyist for the smokeless tobacco industry. He also fails to tell you that he was a partner in the Public Relations firm of Webber Merrill Evans. Maybe he doesn’t mention his time as a partner in Webber Merrill Evans because he lasted as a partner for less than a year and a half.

Another (GRR! Word) document addresses Evans’ claims below about identity theft:

Mr. Evans does not know or fails to tell you that the Fairfax Circuit Court Clerk’s office has been SAFELY providing SECURE remote access to our land records for over 21 years. In those 21 years, 16 of which I have been Clerk, I am unaware of anyone having their identity stolen by a Subscriber to our SECURE remote access system!

Mr. Evans does not know or fails to tell you that I was a member of the statewide workgroup which drafted legislation adopted, but not funded, by the General Assembly this year which clarifies the Clerk’s authority to redact Social Security Numbers from documents available by Secure Remote Access. In fact, I have set aside over $400,000 to begin the redaction of those social security numbers as soon as a contract can be awarded.

Mr. Evans does not know or fails to tell you that several years ago, a number of Clerks down state began posting their court records on the Internet (UNSECURED) for anyone in the world to view, for free. This rightfully caused concern among citizens and the General Assembly. When the General Assembly addressed this issue, they adopted the Fairfax Circuit Court Clerk’s Model for SECURE remote access!

Mr. Evans does not know or fails to tell you, that providing SECURE remote access is NOT optional. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY HAS MANDATED that every Clerk’s office in the Commonwealth of Virginia provide SECURE remote access to their land records by July 1, 2008. Section 17.1-279(D) (3) of the Code of Virginia.

Mr. Evans does not know or fails to tell you, COURT RECORDS ARE PUBLIC RECORDS! “Except as otherwise provided by law, any records and papers of every circuit court SHALL be open to inspection by any person….” Section 17.1-208 of the Code of Virginia. Emphasis added.

Dale Evans, the Democratic challenger, has this to say:

Protecting Your Family’s Security and Privacy

The Fairfax County Clerk of the Circuit Court is responsible for the safeguarding of our citizens’ personal information. Names, addresses and social security numbers are maintained in our County database.

Many of the citizens I talk to are shocked to hear that for only $25.00 a month, anybody – from insurance companies to private citizens – can gain access to that information. The Clerk of Court’s office is actively selling your personal information.

I will put a stop to this intolerable practice by the end of my first day in office. County employees should safeguard the privacy of our citizens… not sell it off without even bothering to screen potential subscribers.

Working Hard for the Citizens of Fairfax County

The Fairfax County Clerk of Court’s office currently closes at 4:00 pm every day. That’s a half-hour before most other county offices and at least a full hour before most employees are able to leave work.

The Clerk of the Court is a full-time position, but for years my opponent has treated it as a part-time office. Reports are that he rarely shows up for work at all.

Citizens in Fairfax work hard. You deserve a full-time Clerk of the Court who will work just as hard to serve you, the taxpayer. I am committed to improving efficiency in the Clerk’s office while getting more from your tax dollars.

There’s pretty much no way I’m voting for Evans. Frey wins.

Commonwealth Attorney

There’s no incumbent for this office. Candidates are Patrick A. McDade (R) Raymond F. Morrogh (D).

Let’s start with McDade since I found his website first:

Currently 72% of felonies are being dropped to misdemeanors or dismissed. This is the worst prosecution rate in the entire state by more than 20%!

Change is needed!

Despite a surplus of funds available from the Commonwealth, the County, and through federal grants, the my opponent’s administration has kept the Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office drastically understaffed. According to the 2005 Virginia Crime Report assembled for the Supreme Court of Virginia, there were 33673 Category A Crimes* in Fairfax. It is impossible for Fairfax to effectively deal with that volume of crime with only 21 prosecutors in the office. In contrast, Norfolk has 41 prosecutors with less than 2/3 of the crime and less than 1/4 of the population.

My opponent’s woeful understaffing and mismanagement results in prosecutors regularly showing up for court without a case file and never having spoken to the victims or the witnesses in a case. Because of this, they consistently plea-bargain away solid cases that could have been tried successfully with proper staffing, management and preparation.

McDade has poor attention to detail when it comes to proofreading his site, but I’m all for more vigorous prosecution of felons.

Morrogh:

The mission of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office is to seek a just society through the decisions we make everyday for the welfare of people. The first duty of the Commonwealth’s Attorney is to be a good lawyer. This is not a politician’s job, but a lawyer’s job.

The priority of the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office is to effectively prosecute serious crimes, including:

• Violent offenses, such as murder, rape, robbery and abduction
• Gang violence
• Crimes against children
• Drug offenses
• Drunk driving
• Internet crimes

I know of no job that calls for wisdom so often at such a high price for everyone else. It is not really the high-profile cases that drive this office, but thousands of decisions a year made by our prosecutors who must have other people’s interests at heart, especially the victims of crime.

Hmm. So on the one hand McDade offers us sloppy writing, and Morrogh offers us happy-sounding platitudes. He doesn’t address McDade’s complaint about prosecution rates. I’m going with McDade.

Soil and Water Conservation Director Northern Virginia

There are three seats for this office, and four candidates. I’m ashamed to say this but it’s really hard to care about a position like this.

The Washington Post has a summary of this race. None of the candidates have web sites and none of their backgrounds jump out as obviously good or bad. I believe a responsible citizen should vote his/her conscience, but only when they have one. I don’t know anything about these people and can’t find anything about them, so I won’t vote for any of them.

School Board At Large

The School Board seat for my district is not contested and I won’t vote for the incumbent because, well, she sits on the school board.

There are three at-large seats available, and eight candidates.

I had the pleasure of hearing Steve Hunt, one of the incumbents, speak a few years ago, and find his politics most closely resembling mine (as close as a member of a public school board can, I suppose), so I’ll definitely support him.

Having reviewed the web sites of the rest of the candidates, I find no reason to vote for any of them.

Bond Issues

Schools

Shall the Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County, Virginia, contract a debt, borrow money and issue bonds of Fairfax County, Virginia, in the maximum aggregate principal amount of $365,200,000, for the purposes of providing up to $315,200,000, in addition to funds from school bonds previously authorized and any other available funds, to finance the costs of additional capital improvements, including acquiring, building, expanding and renovating properties, including new sites, new buildings or additions, renovations and improvements to existing buildings and furnishings and equipment, for the Fairfax County public school system and providing up to $50,000,000, in addition to any other available funds, to finance the cost of expanding, renovating, improving, furnishing and equipping facilities for the repair and other servicing of school busses, school vehicles and other County vehicles?

This is guaranteed to pass, unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean I won’t vote “Hell NO”

Transportation

Shall the Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County, Virginia, contract a debt, borrow money and issue bonds of Fairfax County, Virginia, in the maximum aggregate principal amount of $110,000,000 for the purpose of providing funds for the cost of constructing, reconstructing, and improving and acquiring transportation improvements, including improvements to primary and secondary State highways, off-street parking, pedestrian improvements, and ancillary related improvements and facilities, and including capital costs of necessary land, transit facilities, rolling stock and equipment in the Washington metropolitan area allocable to the County pursuant to the provisions of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Compact?

This is also guaranteed to pass, but in this case I think the County making capital investments in its transportation infrastructure is an appropriate use of local government power, so I’m voting “Well, alright”.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it. For most of the above races, it comes down to Giant Douche vs. Turd sandwich, or in some cases, Giant Douche running unopposed.