Politics & Government

Live Blog: Town of Leesburg Council March 22 Meeting

Editor Christian Brown will be live blogging throughout tonight's meeting, providing timely updates as agenda items are completed

Update, 11:20 p.m.:

 The council moved on to a resolution to oppose the county’s construction of its support center near Tavistock Farms and Kincaid Forrest. Reid moved to approve it, and said it was important “to take a stand” on the county’s “planning and zoning mess” that would cost $27 million for road improvements and a future juvenile detention center.

 Reid said the community was unified in its opposition, but the Board of Supervisors needed to make the final decision. He encouraged residents to raise this issue with board members.

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Hammler said it was important to send verbatim petitioners comments to the Board of Supervisors to highlight the lack of community outreach and the depth of opposition to the project.

Wright said usually the problem is new homeowners don’t research the plans for adjacent properties, but in this case, they did. He said the county did not provide them with the information that this juvenile detention center would be built there.

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Dunn also suggested that residents organize and voice their opposition to the supervisors.

This resolution passed unanimously 7 – 0

Update, 11:01 p.m.:

Umstattd then made a motion to amend the council’s Sept. 14, 2010 vote on the downtown improvement project, to retain all parking and loading zones on King Street.

She said saving the parking would allow other aspects of the improvement project to go forward.

“Every other aspect of what the council approved goes forward,” she said. A vibrant downtown was essential, she said, and parking was necessary to draw clients to downtown businesses.

Reid said “it’s a shame that it’s come to this.” He said he knew the council’s September vote would cause backlash from the community. He offered a friendly amendment to create an ad hoc committee to remove one or two spaces, and leave the gutters as they are. He said he was concerned about the $950,000 to replace new brick, but other areas aside from King Street would not get those improvements, and it would become “an outlier.”

Hammler said unless there is significant urgency, the council’s procedure would allow two weeks to review designs. She said the council saw new designs only 24 hours prior to the meeting at its Monday work session.

She moved to postpone the vote until June 12, and Martinez seconded. Hammler said this would be conducted by the “private sector in our public-private partnership.”

Dunn said this was out of order, as postponing the motion should not allow anyone to change the motion in the meantime. He said he was not sure what the council could say that the public had not brought up already.

The motion to postpone failed 4-3, with Butler, Hammler and Martinez voting to postpone.

Reid said he was not trying to muddy the waters by creating a committee, but he did not like this project and did not think it was necessary to make a lot of the improvements, and he got “sticker shock” when he saw the $950,000 cost.

Umstattd called for the vote, and the amendment to create the ad hoc committee failed 4-3, with Dunn, Reid and Umstattd voting to amend.

Hammler moved to allow stakeholders to come to a compromise, and allow Town Council to hear the compromise on June 12. Butler has seconded it.

Reid said he could not support a long postponement, but Butler said the discussion had been going on for years and moving it to June would not qualify as such.

He said it was important for downtown to come to a compromise, so that the council could be comfortable that the issue was resolved.

“Not everybody’s going to be happy,” Martinez, who supported Hammler’s motion, said. “Somebody’s going to have to compromise.”

The motion was amended so that all options would be on the table for this task force, except the one that had been approved.

Dunn compared this to “a jump ball in March Madness,” which was constantly up for grabs.

“This is not the way we should be doing things,” he said. “Make that decision today, don’t keep dragging this out.”

Wright made an amendment to the stakeholder’s report “to acknowledge the feedback from the business community about the importance of parking,” and to consider keeping the majority of the parking on King Street. Butler and Hammler accepted this as a friendly amendment.

This carried 6 -1 with Dunn dissenting.

Update, 9:57 p.m.:

The council moved on to a resolution to move the town election date from May to November.

Council Member Thomas S. Dunn, II moved, and Council Member David Butler seconded.

Dunn concluded that the people have spoken. He said tonight’s motion will start the process which will allow for a public hearing. “I think it’s time to allow them [the public] to speak,” he said.

 

Butler said he was “surprised an almost stunned” that they were speaking about this tonight. He said this “process would subvert the will of the people in November,” because the petition is in the court.

He moved to table the motion until the second meeting in November, and Fernando “Marty” Martinez seconded the motion to table.

This failed on a 2 – 5 vote, with only Martinez and Butler supporting.

Reid said this vote has been on the agenda as old business since November. He said he had no problem if the Town Council would hold a public hearing on the election change. It would give the council “one more chance to take a look at it,” he said. He said the effort to table this public meeting would be an “effort to kill it at the polls.”

Martinez said he supported allowing the voters to speak. He said one of his concerns about moving the election dates would be that the town issues would be lost in state and federal issues. “I like the idea of it being a local election,” he said.

Vice Mayor Kevin D. Wright said he was not sold on switching elections to November of even-numbered years. He said it might make it more likely for incumbents to stay in office, and that November elections was less approachable for people who wanted to get involved in town politics.

Umstattd said the council owes it to the voters to allow them the chance to vote in November. “I’m looking forward to voting on this in November,” she said.

Dunn said the General Assembly had no opposition to allowing the Town Council to make that decision. “Now that there is a stack of 2,500 [other council members] are for allowing the voters to make the decision at the polls,” he said.

He said this was a vote to allow the public to speak, and that council members still have an opportunity to vote it down, and his accused some council members of not wanting to get the maximum number of voters. He said people are naturally used to voting in November, and this would draw more voters, holding “public officials accountable to more voters.”

“Apathetic voting is a tradition I am willing to break with,” Dunn said.

The resolution failed 4 – 3, with Dunn, Hammler, and Reid voting to start the process.

Update 9:27 p.m.:

The council held its public hearing on the proposed fiscal 2012 budget.

Leesburg Volunteer Fire Department president Brian Duddy spoke out about proposed cuts to the volunteer fire co.

He said he empathized with the difficult place the council was in, but that the fire company provides an important service and has expenses.

“We weren’t expecting as big a cut as we saw,” he said.

 

Ann Robinson said she is not willing to accept abandonment of ROCK program. Which she said was important to those children previously identified as having no resources or alternatives, and this was an early intervention for crime prevention. “These pressures have not evaporated, and will return with a vengeance [if this program is discontinued],” Robinson said.

 Bayles-Roberts spoke again in support of changing election dates as a means to save money for the budget. Also she supported the ROCK program as an alternative to those who might turn to gang membership.

 After the hearing closed, Council Member Kenneth “Ken” Reid asked for residents to send their comments to council@leesburgva.gov.

Update 9:16 p.m.:

Town Council passed consent agenda 7-0.

Mayor Kristen C. Umstattd then called a public hearing to order on the proposed budget for fiscal 2012.

Town Manager John Wells made a brief presentation, highlighting some information previously presented.

For instance, the council has a goal of “long-term budget sustainability,” which has caused staff to plan a two-year budget.

There was an initial budget gap of $3.2 million. After that discussion, development fees and cigarette tax were proposed, refined capital projects budget, restructured debt, and took other steps to shore up the budget.

Several programs are proposed, including permanent vehicle decals and automation of the parking garage, with paid parking extended to nights and weekends, which could save the town money in the coming years. 

The proposed property tax rate is 19.5 cents per $100 of assessed value.

The proposed $83.8 million budget will be up for a final vote on April 12.

The hearing was about to commence at the time of this posting.

Update 8:55 p.m.:

 Michael O’Connor, a Leesburg business owner who opened Palio Italian restaurant a year ago, said the important issue behind the town improvement plan is not about keeping parking, but about the broader vision of making the town more vibrant.

“This has never been about parking or curbs and gutters,” he said. “It’s been about concerts and dinners and having a place to recreate.”

There was a movement among some meeting attendees to delay the decision on the downtown improvement project, to find a better, more all-encompassing solution.

Peter Burnett, speaking for about 90 petition signers, said the most important thing was to establish a good visual impact that would encourage people to come to Leesburg to recreate and to tell their friends.

He said it would be worth it to wait a few months to get this right.

“It’s almost a vote against knowledge to say we’ve got to do this now,” he said.

Barbara Bayles-Roberts, who successfully gathered signatures for a petition to change the date of the elections from May to November, addressed the council about the 2,500 names on it. “There’s 2,500 voices attached to these signatures,” she said. “They’re sincere in their desire to change this election from May to November,” she said.

The petitioners section closed at about 8:56 p.m.

Update, 8:03 p.m.:

Supervisor Sally Kurtz came to speak, about disagreements between two bodies: water rates for outside towns, proffers from Villages at Leesburg, equity with student resource officers.

 “Let’s meet, and let’s straighten out our disagreements,” Kurtz said.

 Amira Bray, a student at Balls Bluff Elementary School, came forward to ask the council to support the R.O.C.K. Program, which may lose money this budget year.

 Amy Sibley resident of Tavistock Farm, wanted to ask council to support residents of that community in their opposition to a County Support Center, which will have criminal residences. Several members of this community and Kincaid Forrest are opposed to this building being constructed near their communities for the disruption construction will cause, and the potential danger of having these rehabilitation centers there.

“It is irresponsible to those of us who researched before buying,” she said.

 Paige Buscema, owner of Eyetopia, spoke about the King Street project, hoping that the town would vote to complete it without taking away parking. Several business owners are concerned that this could impact their business.

 Local business owner Stanley Caulkins asked the council to address safety with downtown improvements. He also spoke about the business owners’ petitions regarding parking on King Street. “We’ve petitioned you to death,” he said. “It’s time for you all to make a decision.”

 Charles Smith spoke about changing the town elections from May to November, because it could potentially increase voter turnout, and reduce cost to the town, which faces potential reduction in force in fiscal 2012. “Everything needs to be cut to the bone … everything we can do to minimize layoff of staff,” he said.

 Original post, 7:47 p.m.: The meeting began with a few presentations.

 Maj. Robins [editor’s note: I regret that I missed your first name, sir. I would enjoy a chance to interview you about your service.] brought back a message cylinder from Afghanistan, which tribal elders would use to transmit messages back and forth.

“If the e-mail system goes down, you can have Tom [Dunn] or Ken [Reid] carry this,” Robins said.

“I don’t think they’d trust us,” Council Member Reid said.

 Patrick Kahler of Visit Loudoun, who is also a resident of Leesburg, petitioners then introduced himself to the council. He was followed by petitioners.


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