And Now the Fun Begins
Tell us your war stories of how you survived the blizzard of 2010. What harrowing escapades did you have? What news do you have? What people need help? What places should be avoided? Closings? Spill it all here.
Mystery question: What blogger is without electricity?
Virginia Car Buried in Snow December 2009
WARNING: Temperatures this morning are in the teens. Roads are treacherous. 12/21/09 (7 am)
VDOT, our state transportation overlord with those bright orange trucks, rules supreme right now. It is they who determine who gets plowed and who doesn’t. They can be found at http://www.virginiadot.org/default_flash.asp VDOT has announced that some neighborhoods will not be plowed until Wednesday night. Wednesday night?!
The cities like Manassas and Manassas Park have their own snow removal. The county relies on VDOT and those road jockies who are out riding the trucks, plows and tractors scrapping, dropping, sprinkling , spreading and barricading us back in our driveways.
Poor Westgate has had very little plowing since Saturday during the storm. It is obvious. Entire blocks can be driven without seeing pavement. Sudley, meanwhile, has been plowed. There are a few rough spots but there are single lane paths through nearly every street. Sudley Manor and Strasburg, on the other hand, have been scraped clean. Why can’t those trucks who have made 20 trips up and down Sudley Manor Drive (yea right, snow emergency route…that’s the ticket) go over and take a few swipes at the Westgate roads that look like a white, wintery moon scape?
“No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor,” … “And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice — in this world and the next.”
“This is a time of war. And yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great American community. It is this fact that makes the tragedy even more painful and even more incomprehensible.”
President Barack Obama
Larry King interviews the ex-wives, Carol and Mildred and a son, Lynn, of John Muhammad. The women say some rather surprising things.
Thanks to Gainesville Resident for the video.
Monday the USS New York came home, for the first time. Forged from the steel recovered from the Word Trade Center, the New York sailed up the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge, turned around, and saled back down to pier 88. Crowds of onlookers watched, including dignitaries and families of survivors.
According to NPR:
Families of September 11th victims as well as first responders gathered at a viewing area where they could see the crew on the deck of the battleship. Shots were fired in three bursts in a 21-gun salute
There are 361 sailors serving aboard the ship at present and about 13 percent are from New York State. There were many requests from Navy personal to serve on the ship. Rosaleen Tallon, who lost her brother, a firefighter, said she was proud the military was using the steel, transforming something twisted and ugly.
After the ceremony, the USS New York headed up the Hudson River toward the George Washington Bridge. An official commissioning ceremony will take place Saturday. It will remain in New York until after Veterans day and will then go to Norfolk, Va. for about a year of crew training and exercises
Click here to see a video of the making of the USS New York and her sister ships. It is truly amazing to see this ship arise from the ashes.
The following interview with Anabel Park and Eric Byler was on tonight on Channel 4:
From the Study of Prince William County Police Illegal Immigration Enforcement Policy Interim Report 2009:
“Most of the illegal immigrant arrestees referred to ICE have committed only minor crimes. If the objective of the County’s immigration enforcement effort is to reduce serious crime, then the current policy does not provide a very efficient means of achieving it. If the objective is to remove illegal immigrants, then ICE does not have sufficient resources to handle the large numbers of referrals that would result. ICE currently tries to limit the types of offenses for which it will pick up illegal immigrants to more serious crimes in jurisdictions other than Prince William County.”
It is clear to me that this one, brief but succinct paragraph, just about sums up why I feel like this county’s policy has no real direction. What is this policy suppose to do? Because from this interim UVA report, both objectives are failing.
From the New York Times, Sunday, March 15, 2009
Then there is Hylton High School’s home county, Prince William. What was once a mostly white, middle-class suburb 35 miles southwest of the nation’s capital has been transformed by a construction boom into a traffic-choked sprawl of townhouses and strip malls where Latinos are the fastest-growing group.
Neighborhood disputes led the county to enact laws intended to drive illegal immigrants away. White and black families with the means to buy their way out of the turmoil escaped to more affluent areas. Hispanic families, feeling threatened or just plain unwelcome, were torn between those who had legal status and those who did not. Many fled.
By last March, educators reported that at least 759 immigrant students had dropped out of county schools. Hylton, whose 2,200 student population is almost equal parts white, black and Latino and comes from working-class apartment complexes and upscale housing developments, was one of the hardest hit.
The New York Times is a large, well-funded newspaper that has national stature. Is the above excerpt from the article how things really happened here in Prince William County? Is this how our county looked to those outside the region? Is this how we want to be perceived?
Would you want to relocate in Prince William County after this description? If you were a business, would you want to move here?
At what point does it really matter what really happened? Has perception become reality?
Apparently Businessweek has even heard of Prince William County’s dirty little secret. In a March 6 article entitled, “ Signs of Life from the Real Estate Market,” Prince William County is highlighted as being abuzz with real estate buyers. That was the good news. Read on hear the bad news:
Across the country in Prince William County, Va., outside Washington D.C., buyers are out in force. The market, where subprime loans and boom-time construction were rampant, was badly damaged in the downturn. Making matters worse, a controversial law in Prince William County that allowed police officers to enforce immigration laws helped drive out many of the Central American immigrants who came in to work on building the new homes during the boom. Many of those immigrants who moved to neighboring Fairfax County allowed their Prince William County homes to go into foreclosure, said John McClain, senior fellow at George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis.
Proximity to D.C. Helps
The good news now is that inventories of unsold homes are shrinking because of the accelerating sales, though homeowners who could afford to have also likely taken their properties off the market, McClain said. In January, 3,346 homes were on the market compared to 5,355 in January, 2007, McClain said. In January, 647 homes sold in Prince William County compared to 312 a year earlier. Home prices, however, fell 34%.One factor that could help Prince William County toward recovery is its proximity to Washington D.C., one of the few local economies with relatively good prospects thanks to its federal government and defense contractor jobs. Woodbridge, Va., in Prince William County, came in at No. 14 in our ranking. Woodbridge sales jumped 32% in the fourth quarter while median home prices dropped 18% to $215,500, according to First American CoreLogic.
The drop in inventory and the rise in sales are “good signs” for Prince William County, McClain said.
“We are at that point with that trend [in Prince William County] where the economics have to kick in,” McClain said. “Prices have to stabilize and then start up again.”
Erick Blackwelder, associate broker with Exit Realty in Woodbridge, said buyers have flocked to the market and have already bought many of the foreclosed homes that were in good shape. The remaining foreclosures are largely “junk,” he said.“It started in April 2008,” Blackwelder said. “It was like all of a sudden, somebody flicked on a light switch and there were buyers galore.”
How many people would find Prince William County an attractive place to relocate after reading an article like this one? “To make matters worse….” seems to say it all.
In 2007, Prince William County Supervisors passed the “Immigration Resolution” which stated in part that “illegal immigration has been determined to cause economic hardship and lawlessness.” Has our outcome supported the assertion that ‘more illegals cause more crime and worse economic conditions’ with the converse being ‘less illegals therefore less crime and a better economy’?
According to the Prince William County Crime Report for 2008, crime now, one year after the resolution’s passage crime is slightly increased. This effectively ends our 5 year decreasing crime rate trend which obviously must have existed during our “influx of illegals.”
In financial terms, can we state that our economic hardships have lessened since the introduction of the resolution? Prince William County now leads the state and ranks top in the nation in foreclosures, and our home values have dropped 32%. The neighborhood issues that existed prior to the passage of the resolution are resurfacing as foreclosed homes bought by real estate investors are turned into rental properties. And our County budget is facing deep cuts this year with an equally dismal prospect for next.
Many predicted dire consequences but Supervisors refused to heed their warnings. Probably nobody said it better than Oklahoma Republican State Representative Shane Jett, who opposed similar legislation in his state, when he stated:
“[the passage of these types of legislations] will be the single most destructive economic disaster since the Dust Bowl,”
Now with almost one full year of crime figures, foreclosure numbers, home values, and tax revenue numbers compiled can we definitively state that the assertions in the resolution were completely unfounded? Strictly speaking, we had lower crime rates and a better economy when the ‘illegals’ were here. Will the status quo remain, as Stewart continues to assert that the resolution is working well?
Obviously this issue has been the single most divisive issue to happen here. Will Supervisors heed Dr. Fuller’s advice, and change course? Or, are they content with allowing Chairman Stewart to continue down this path hoping that voters will only hold him responsible?
Yesterday Corey Stewart, along with Brooking Institute senior fellow Audrey Singer, were guests on the WAMU Kojo Nnamdi Show.
Some people have suggested that Corey Stewart is weakening on the Immigration Resolution. According to the News and Messenger, Stewarts says no, he isn’t.
Prince William Chairman Corey A. Stewart, R-at large, said the county’s illegal immigration resolution is here to stay even in these hard economic times.
“We think it’s working and we’re going to keep it,” Stewart said in an interview Wednesday on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU, a National Public Radio affiliate.
Nnamdi asked Stewart if his focus hadn’t wavered recently in light of record foreclosures in Prince William County resulting from the failing economy.
Stewart told Nnamdi that he thought people in the community were satisfied with things as they stand, and the board wouldn’t abandon the resolution that first came under discussion in July 2007. The resolution was finally implemented in July 2008 and required police to ask anyone they stopped about their immigration status.
“Those in the community seem to be content with it, even those who opposed the policy initially,” Stewart said.
Still other things demand the board’s attention, Stewart said.
“We’re trying to move on to other problems and other concerns, namely the economy,” Stewart said. “People are worried about their jobs and their homes and everything else.
“We’ve got a lot of financial problems in the county just like a lot of other counties. We’ve had to cut about 20 percent of our budget,” Stewart said.
It sounds like Corey wants it both ways. He doesn’t want to leave the anti-immigration pack but also doesn’t want to linger. Is he now trumpeting the ‘time to move on’ theme?
[UPDATE: Here is the link Leila left for us to listen to the interview with Stewart and Singer]
According to this chart from the George Mason Regional Analysis Center, Prince William County Foreclosure Rates are OFF THE CHART in comparison to surrounding jurisdictions. WTOP news is reporting Prince William property values have dropped more than double of Fairfax County and slightly more than double of Loudoun County.
Read more…
The latest item on the Prince William County Schools chopping block is the sports program. Despicable. This absolutely should not be allowed to happen. There needs to be a firestorm of protest; otherwise I’m afraid it will be cut.
There’s a petition to sign at – http://petitionspot.com/petitions/saveMSsports
and a BLOG at – http://savemiddleschoolsports.wardcentral.com/
And, I’d strongly encourage parents to attend the School Board Meeting on Wednesday night to voice your opposition in person.
More than 150 Prince William County employees had a lucky day on Tuesday. The county received 323 applications for 167 spots in the Home Help Program. Through this program, the county seeks to cut the number of vacant houses in the county by providing low interest loans and reduced mortgage rates to entry level county employees. These employees will become home owners in Prince William County in the very near future, which is seen as a desirable goal.
According to the DC Examiner:
The plan helps fulfill a long-time county goal to have more public employees living in the county. Martino [county finance director] hopes the program will help Prince William recruit and retain employees, many of whom live outside the county and face long commutes.
The county invested $50 million in certificates of deposit at SunTrust Bank to fund the first year of Home Help. County officials emphasized that the money comes from an investment portfolio and does not use taxpayer money.
About 500 chickens remain in Loudoun County custody as part of a cockfighting crackdown in Lovettsville, VA. Even though the chickens which are mostly roosters will remain on the farm, they are considered evidence in an ongoing investigation.
Charges have not yet been brought but 2 farms are involved. Much cockfighting paraphernalia has been seized. The cockfighting laws have tightened up since the Michael Vick dog fighting scandal broke. The commonwealth’s attorney has not yet decided if he will press charges. If he does, this will be the first test case under the new anti-cockfighting laws.
It is interesting that this little indiscretion happened in Loudoun County. I guess the muckety mucks aren’t quite as muckety muck as they once thought.
Before I start crowing too much though, fancy roosters with spurs on have been seen running loose in Westgate subdivision. Perhaps Prince William County has a similar problem. The News and Messenger had better be ready to break this big story. Has anyone out there seen any odd animals that could be used in illegal animal fighting? Besides animal cruelty, illegal gambling is generally at the heart of some of the cockfights as well as dog fights. These aren’t your ordinary barnyard roosters.
