According to the County’s Agenda item 9-J-1, which mysteriously has disappeared from the latest version, the County will not be able to add the 4 new Officers nor the support staff that was to accompany them for ‘09 Budget. My question is why the description of the cuts removed? Was it a simple oversight, or was done intentionally by the person who determines the agenda?
Just finished watching the board meeting and there was some confusion about whether the ICE reimbursement budget item required a public hearing or not. Caddigan didn’t believe this was a hearing item but according to Craig Gerhart it exceeded a budgetary threshold and therefore it was required. Then on the tail of this confusion, Supervisor Jenkins commented about the lack of public participation in the process which he believes demonstrates a general lack of interest.
This money is a reimbursement from the federal government that goes back into the jail fund to support any additional expenses that they might have. This is not the total cost of the program 287(g). My question is what additional costs have we outlayed that are non-refundable? My presumption is that this would be better use of our tax money than restricting services.
Secondly, according to Pete there have been 860 detainers issued by ICE and 747 transfers with 154 currently doing time. Anybody else have questions about the math?
Additionally, it sounds as if they are still not at 100% for checking the status of foreign born inmates dispite being mandated to do so? Or is the proclaimation that they are checking 99% of the time just a CYA in case something goes wrong later on?
Also, Maureen asked long ago what this was going to cost and Corey bashed her over the head for asking. Is that on video somewhere? Today she commented that ‘we’ knew this was going to be expensive. I distinctly recall some Supervisors suggesting it would not be costly.
Lastly, what has been the true cost of this initiative, not the reimbursed portion but what is the County taxpayer responsible for?
According to the Manassas Journal Messenger,
The big difference seems to be price. At the same time Prince William’s sales statistics were soaring 72 percent, median and average sales prices for homes were falling by 34 percent and 31 percent, respectively. In the second quarter of 2008, the county’s median price for a home was $242,232; in the same quarter for 2007, that number stood at $366,845. For the average, the second quarter numbers in Prince William stood at $275,311 in 2008 and $398,775 in 2007.
In this same time period, meanwhile, Northern Virginia’s home prices only dropped on average 12 percent …
Selling everything at bargain blowout prices can’t be good; especially come next year when the County has to assess residential real estate and set the tax rate again.
It’s been a year since the County first adopted the ‘Immigration Resolution’ and because of continual participation from more moderate voices, it is now, but a shadow of its original proposed self. The Resolution is, at its core, faulted because of its assertion that illegal immigration has been determined to cause ‘lawlessness and economic hardship’. This declaration has never been substantiated and continues to remain an unfounded claim upon which this resolution was founded.
If you recall, the original version suggested checking immigration status at all public facilities even schools and parks. Thankfully, staff recognized that implementation of such a far reaching and radical policy was unwise. And, with the guidance and suggestion of more reasonable perspectives, began the process of affecting changes to mitigate not only the potential of costly lawsuits but to reign in the more radical elements that initially suggested the plan.
By October, we were left with a short list of 8 identified services that could be ‘reasonably’ restricted combined with a policy that mandated officers to inquire into immigration status with anyone they came into contact with that they believed had ‘probable cause’ to be undocumented. Shortly thereafter, it was determined that 2 of the previously identified services should also not be restricted and the list shrank to 6.
In April, with the start of the planning for the ‘09 Fiscal Plan’ another opportunity presented itself for another scale back when cameras became too costly of an investment. We then lobbied and succeeded in having the Resolution modified so that Officer’s could fallback to the previous policy of ‘reasonable articulable suspicion’ combined with a mandated post-arrest procedure for status checks, Now, the “Immigration Resolution” consists of the restrictions to the 6 services, mandated status checks after arrest and the general resolution. All of this, has born a price tag of $4 million dollars, and for all practical purposes has brought us full circle, back to the place, in essence where we started.
The Board will have both a 2:oopm session today; and comments concerning the funding of the ‘Immigration Resolution’ should be addressed then as there is no evening session. Everyone should be prepared for the ‘foot soldiers’ to once again descend on the McCoart building. Hopefully, the Supervisors won’t retreat and will have the courage to face this head-on. It’s gone on long enough and there’s simply no money to fund this whole thing.
Here’s the agenda for the meeting.
See you there.
According to the DC Examiner, Supervisors are reconsidering funding the part of the resolution due to its ever increasing costs. In the article, Principi states -
The illegal-immigration policy is an 800-pound gorilla that is following us around in everything we do. It’s time to put the gorilla back in the cage.
Meanwhile Corey believes its a ‘good gorilla’. Unbelievable. Since the Tuesday evening vote on Silver Lake, it’s becoming apparent the only true conservatives on the board are Nohe & May. Simply, there’s no money for this and the money that is being spent is a waste. We have heard Chief Deane say the majority of those arrested would have been arrested anyways. The costs are growing at every turn. We are now incurring an extra cost of $220,000 per month, per month (I reapeated that puposely for emphasis) on top of the ever skyrocketing costs. We simply can’t afford it. It is time - Put the gorilla back in the cage.
Please plan on attending this Public Hearing for the proposed FY09 Budget, Monday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m.
The following dates represent the remainder of the County’s FY09 Fiscal Plan meeting/work session calendar. All meetings and hearings will take place in the Board Chambers of the James J. McCoart Administration Building, 1 County Complex Court.
For more information about these meetings, contact the Budget Office at 703-792-6720.
From today’s Opinion Section of the Washington Post, - ‘Twisted Priorities‘
That means the owner of a $340,000 house (the county’s average assessment) will be ponying up $103 more next year so that illegal immigrants — many of them employed, paying taxes and supporting families — can be targeted. Budgets are a reflection of priorities, and Prince William’s are badly out of whack, particularly as the county struggles with plunging revenue and an anemic housing market. The crackdown’s $6.4 million price in the next fiscal year is more than the county has budgeted from its general fund for transportation improvements ($4.2 million), public health ($5.2 million) or its office on aging ($3.7 million).
That they are going to spend more on the ‘Immigration Resolution’ than transportation improvements is absurd. People sit in traffic for hours on 66, that in my opinion has more of an impact than ‘illegal immigration.’ Also, not mentioned specifically in the article but one of the major areas where residents had complaints was in residential complaints which has no additional monies set aside to address those concerns. It’s almost as if they believe all other problems would simply go away if they handle this one area. People are going to be disappointed when that doesn’t happen. Hopefully, the County has set aside some cash for the multi-million dollar lawsuit that most likely will end up on their doorstep.
‘Help Save Manassas’ has destroyed the real estate market causing many homes to go into foreclosure. This has caused the whole market to go into a ‘free fall’. According to the County’s budget report homes have lost on average 16% of their market value. Unfortunately, this trend doesn’t appear to be rectifying itself anytime soon. And if that wasn’t enough to cause a budget crunch the County now wants to spend double what they anticipated the cost to be. All of this when they have only identified an ‘insignificant’ cost attributable to the undocumented population. They identified approximately 3 million per year but to ‘fix’ the problem will end up costing more than 5 million a year. And even at that price they haven’t allotted any funds for defending against lawsuits that are sure to arise from the Immigration Resolution. Ironically it took the board years to research and investigate Parks and Open Spaces but yet only 3 months to enact legislation that appears to be very costly. More information on the County’s 2009 Budget Proposal can be viewed at http://www.pwcgov.org/docLibrary/PDF/007738.pdf
According to the County’ s Budget plans we are in for a rough road ahead. At a minimum, it appears that we are looking at an 8% increase with no money set aside for defending against the lawsuits that are sure arise in defending the ‘Immigration Resolution.’ More info to come.
