John Cook came by the Fairfax YR meeting last Wednesday and gave a great talk. I always like Cook because more so than any other Republican officeholder in Fairfax County, he gives it to you straight. He talked about the roads, the budget, a little about the problems with the School Board but mostly I took away a theme that Republicans running for all offices in Fairfax County should take – a lack of leadership.
For instance, rail to Dulles. Cook pointed out that the Democrats on the Board of Supervisors, lead by then-Chairman Gerry Connolly, couldn’t figure out how to pay for the entire extension to Dulles. So they did it in phases, with no plan on how to actually pay for Phase II – which is Reston to Dulles. On top of that, Board Democrats said nothing when Gov. Kaine gave control of the project to the Dulles Airport Authority – who are largely unanswerable to anyone. And now we have a tunnel being dug for this rail when it’s not needed (while a tunnel in Tyson’s was), thus driving costs up further. It’s a spectacular example of passing the buck on spending, planning, and taxes by BOS Democrats in this county for the last 10 years. To hear Cook talk about it, I chuckled to myself because at this point that is all you really can do.
Then on roads, he reiterated his points about local roads should be given to local control. It’s of course a great idea, but of course that means it won’t happen. Cook broke down that in Virginia a supervisor is a pretty powerful position concerning local government because Virginia does not have the layers and layers of local town, municipal, county, state, and federal overlap that states like New York have. 47 other states have local control of secondary roads. As far as costs were concerned, Cook pointed out that by doing this we would ensure that all of our local tax revenue for road maintenance would be kept here so our money wouldn’t be used to build beautiful, but largely unused pavement in places like Page County (Incidentally, I was in Page County that morning picking up a customer from Luray for work . . . Rt. 340 south from Front Royal to Luray is about as nice a road as you can find). It’s an easy fix to a major problem. Downstate legislators HATE dealing with Northern Virginia roads every year, and this would make it so they generally don’t have too. Large interstates like Rte. 50, 66, 28, 29, 123, and others would remain out of Richmond. Cook pointed out that in last years snowstorms, there was legally nothing he could do to get plows and roads fixed up except get on the phone to VDOT to try and get things moving. Our local supervisors literally cannot fix a pothole. You won’t hear Board Democrats complaining about this though, because most of been in for over 20 years and probably don’t even want the responsibility. It fits into the model of leadership in Fairfax: spend money we don’t have and shift the responsibility for it elsewhere. That means spend money on rail but have someone else in charge, that means complain about roads but let Richmond do everything and take our money, that means throw money at schools but let an incompetent School Board (that’s me talking) flush it away.
Its on issues like this every single Republican in Fairfax should be honing in on their Democrat opponents. For over ten years now, Democrats have been living fat off the good times in Fairfax County and spent money and made plans that have now put the county in serious peril, and then ignored ways to save money because they frankly do not want the responsibility. It’s not about right or left defined by the national parties, it’s about real leadership in the county. But I guess in that way, it is reflective of the national political scene. You have one party pandering to politics, while the other is actually putting for plans that address and tackle the real problems we have ahead of us. The coming crisis that will be Phase II of Dulles rail and the continuing roads debacle in the county will cost us a lot in the future. I’m just glad there are guys like Cook and Pat Herrity out there willing to fight this. We just have to make sure they get some help this year.
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