LTE: Metro Tax District Will Fail
A reader discusses a recent conversation with Supervisor Ken Reid regarding Metro and why he wasn't impressed.
Dear Editor,
A week prior to the Board of Supervisors' Metro vote, I called Supervisor Ken Reid to ask him where he stood. While not verbatim, I think I am really close.
Ken Reid's response: "John, I know this project has always been a piece of crap, and it still is, but the tax district has legs".
In other words, he knew something was a major waste of tax dollars, but he was going to vote for it anyways. I was dumbstruck. How does that work?
I asked how he could possibly say that the tax district had "legs", as most landowners couldn't possibly know about it yet (Supervisor Williams only had devised it two weeks prior). Ken then regaled me with a story Joe May once shared with him, on how one day he opened the mail and found out he was in the Rt 28 tax district. How funny!!!! Yep, those politicians bulldoze us when we don't expect it - what a laugh riot, those politicians! So I asked him whether that was the right way to treat taxpayers. No response.
I said to him that he sounded schizoid. One one hand, he described the project as a piece of ____, but then said "the funding has legs". Why fund a piece of ___?
He chuckled at my statement. A lengthy throaty chuckle. The sort of chuckle that brought to mind a mental picture of Ken, reclining in a leather chair, his feet on the desk, cigar in one hand and drink in the other. Life is good now.
I told him he was chuckling because he knew it was true. He didn't argue with that. More chuckles...
He claimed that the Government Reform Commission would have some great cost-saving ideas when I asked him where the money would come from to pay for the road infrastructure to support Metro. Plus they could shake more loose from Hatrick. But again, why spend that money on Metro? Just more chuckles...
Since then I have emailed him, asking what happens when the attempt to create the tax district fails, as it is likely to do. As I explained to him (and he already knows), more than 50 percent of the land in that district is owned by large developers with no interest in a $0.20 tax, especially because they already got what they want; Ken Reid and friends have already voted to commit us to Metro. One of those big developers has already told another anti-Metro activist that it's time for the public to pay for its infrastructure. No response from Ken.
So we, the common taxpayers, living in the highest tax county in Virginia, will be footing the bill. Why am I not chuckling, Ken?
John Grigsby
Hillsboro, VA
Janie Oldham
2:14 pm on Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Too bad that more of the public didn't know that the BOS was voting for a funding plan that would never work. When it doesn't work, they'll do what they always planned to do, take the money from the general fund. They will propose a bunch of cuts in schools and other programs that the public will object to. What's the poor board to do when that happens? Other than raise taxes on all of us? They'll blame it all on staff for misleading them on this bad tax district that can't possibly work. But they knew it all along. They knew the metro was a bad project and they knew they would have to raise taxes to pay for it. Watch them pretend that they didn't know.
Stevens Miller
5:13 pm on Wednesday, July 11, 2012
When I talk one-on-one with Ken, I think it is fair of him to assume I will not be publishing any unverified transcriptions I take from memory of those discussions. Accordingly, I will only say that, when I spoke to him before the vote, the conversation was rather different than what this letter reports.
Ken seemed understandably concerned with how each available option would affect his own constituents first, and the whole of Loudoun second. His constituents unquestionably supported his vote. Beyond that, he has backed a funding mechanism that levies the burden of this investment fairly, county-wide. I believe most of my neighbors here in the east are happy with what he's done.
Ken thought it through, voted wisely, and deserves some respect for both his vote and his restraint in coping with his critics.
Satchmo
6:21 pm on Wednesday, July 11, 2012
What is up with John? Because of the "brilliance" of the tax district he doesn't have to pay a dime based on where he lives. So why the animosity towards a majority of the county who wants this, and the continued effort to chastise the decision. Let it go John. You don't have to use it, you don't have to pay for it, and you don't have to like it. But for the love of pete man, give it a rest. No one is asking to be "saved" by you.
William
9:03 pm on Wednesday, July 11, 2012
How transparent can these developers be? They get these guys to agree to this project, which will help them get housing densities unheard of in Loudoun. When the people revolt against a tax hike, the same developers whisper in Shawn's ear that he can tax their properties, so go ahead and approve Metro ... first. Now when the Board goes and asks those developers (who already have their payday) to agree to the tax district, what are they going to say? C'mon! One of them already said he'd paid enough already (Route 28 Tax District), and this time it's the public's job to pay for its infrastructure.
We weren't born yesterday, Board of Supervisors members. When these developers leave you at the tax district altar, don't think we'll buy that you couldn't have expected it.
g.stone
10:06 pm on Wednesday, July 11, 2012
It is impossible for any rational human being to get from where ken has been on metro to his yes vote. You can't get there from here , yet ken did it anyway. It is one of the most shameful exhibits by an elected official in my life time .
Janie Oldham
2:18 am on Thursday, July 12, 2012
That's the worst part. Ken knew that metro was a bad project, he's written about it many many times for years. Yet he voted for it anyway, knowing how bad it will be for Loudoun taxpayers. Disgusting behavior.