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Coates Ellis seeks 2nd Council term: Manassas is “growing” and “thriving”

Coates Ellis

Updated Wednesday, September 21 — Theresa Coates Ellis is seeking a second term on the Manassas City Council.

She and Lynn Forkell Greene are the only two Republicans on the city’s top governing board, which Democrats have controlled since 2020.

Ellis made streetlight issues the focus of her time on City Council, advocating for small business owners and lower property taxes for residents. She also worked to bring more visitors to the city by creating the Manassas Bee Festival, a community event held for the past two years at Liberia Plantation House.

Earlier this year, she made a failed Primary Election bid to become the Republican nominee for Virginia’s 10th Congressional District. In 2020, she ran for mayor and lost to Michele Davis Younger (D).

Coates Ellis is running alongside Lynn Forkell Greene, seeking her first full term on the Council, and Rick Bookwalter, a longtime city resident.

Three open seats are up for grabs on the City Council this year. While Republicans hope to win all three to level the political playing field, Democrats are also running for those seats.

Incumbent Ralph Smith, Sonia Vasquez Luna, and Dheeraj “JD” Jagadev, Democrats, hope to win the seats.

Ellis agreed to talk with us for a wide-ranging interview on taxes, city improvement projects, and the city’s struggling school division. Here’s a transcript of our conversation.

1. Taxes: City residents continue to see their tax bills increase despite commercial development projects like Micron, the largest public-private economic development project in Virginia history, which leaders promised would help take the burden to fund the local government of the residential taxpayer and place it onto commercial business. When do you anticipate the burden shifting to commercial businesses to fund the government, and what do you say to residents wary of regular tax-bill increases?

TCE: When I ran in 2018, my messaging was let’s grow Manassas together. And the whole point was to shift the burden from the residents paying taxes and allowing our businesses to thrive.

I’m a small business owner in my own business, born my children of 30 something years… when you make more money, you know you have to pay more back. I mean, there’s going to be taxes involved…when you’re getting into that, and most businesses understand that.

But what happened, I think, with us is the pandemic hit. We do have a diverse economy here in Manassas. We’re very fortunate. We have manufacturing…some hospitality restaurants. We have a good mix.

But a group of them were hit really hard. When the assessments came in really high for the residents, for their property tax, I have to say I was shocked that there was anything on the table to raise the tax bill.

So Lynn [Forkell Greene] and I, we were on council, and we tried everything we could to try to get them to understand, but it just seems like there’s more spending. That’s how it keeps coming out.

“We need more” is is the message the council keeps sending. We don’t need more. Needs and wants are very different.

Personal property tax bills for city residents have increased each year for at least the past five years. On September 12, the City Council voted unanimously to give taxpayers a 15% break on their personal property (vehicle) tax after many were slammed with more than 20% higher tax bills than the previous year.

After much public outcry, Coates Ellis and Forkell Green petitioned the City Council to reconsider tax relief, something it didn’t do in the spring, at the advice of city Commissioner of the Revenue Tim Demeria. While surrounding jurisdictions charged a lesser percentage of tax on personal property, Manassas continued to charge the full rate.

A lack of new car sales over the past year due to supply chain issues led, for the first time, to older cars appreciating in value. Now, the city will mail new tax bills with a new amount owed.

2. Businesses: What’s your assessment of how the city is attracting businesses to Manassas, and are the right types of businesses opening in the city?

TCE: We have a vibrant community, and we have really big great businesses. I remember I interviewed [the owner of Sinistral Brewing in Downtown Manassas] and I said, “I hear there are more breweries coming in.” He’s like, good. “That’s good.”

And he’s like, “we want them to come because if they come, [customers] will hop around,” and that’s what happened. We just have, I think, two more art galleries that opened up.

These types of businesses…bring the vibrancy that we want, the diverse population that comes in looking for a lifestyle that they enjoy living and working in. So you’re seeing it.

You’re also seeing more restaurants coming in. I think now that there’s a meal tax in Prince William County, before, there was a choice: do we want to go to Manassas City [where there’s been a meals tax for years, or eat in the county]? Now the county has a meals tax, too]…so it’s like, we’re going to go to Manassas City because they might like the vibe here better. It’s more of a community.

So we are growing because of the work that I’ve done…making sure we let businesses thrive and bring about a sense of community that we need here, not just all strictly services, our struggle.

3. Capital improvement plan: For years, we’ve seen the city invest in its capital improvement plan, from a new police station and lane reductions on streets to an expansion of the city museum. Some say the city is beginning to resemble Arlington and other localities closer to Washington, D.C.

When most proposed capital improvement projects are presented to the public, a considerable amount of staff time and money has been invested into researching the project. During this time, city staff can become excited about a project.

Do you get the sense that, by the time some recent projects have been presented to the public, such as the Grant Avenue lane reduction and streetscape project, staff has become advocates of a particular project and urges the public to share in their excitement, presenting information in a biased manner?

TCE: I voted against the Grant Avenue project. I’m not a fan of the roundabouts [being built on Grant Avenue near a new police station and proposed at Route 28 and Prescott Avenue near Food Lion].

I think they’re confusing. There could be an argument that in the long run, there’s less money to run it. You don’t have traffic lights and all that, but I know they’re very confusing.

I lived in New Jersey for a couple of years, and they call it circles and it’s just a nightmare. But I think the public, most of the majority of the public outcry is against the roundabouts.

But [city staff] comes to us with, “oh, that’s funded, we got it funded, so, therefore, it’s OK [to build]. But that’s not going to satisfy people that sit in traffic.

Grant Avenue to go from four lanes to two. [City staff] tried to push that as a safety issue, which there’s merit in that. When you’re talking about the students from the Georgetown South neighborhood, they have to cross that busy street to cut through, to go over to Baldwin and Osbourn [schools]…But you can have crossroads that are safe as well without taking two lanes away. The beautification of [the Grant Avenue project]…I do like…but that could have been done without taking two lanes away.

In my opinion. You’re seeing that all over the city where they’re adding landscape and whatnot… parks. Annaburg Manor was a huge outcry to buy. I supported that because I think parkland is very important to this city.

What’s happening? Liberia house, the preservation as well as the investment…I think that’s why people will want to live here and work here if they have the types of things that they need to enjoy with their family.

So that’s kind of where we are. I feel like we’ve done a lot of good things, but there have been things that I have voted against that were passed. It’s important that you get the three of us elected so we do bring the balance to council and we can try to get some more common sense in there with the money that’s being spent.

4. Schools: SOL scores are lower than in 2019, and the city school division is discussing purchasing the largest private office building in the city instead of taking over the police station.

As the majority funding mechanism for the School Board, how should the City Council work to ensure education dollars are spent on more learning and less on capital projects many see as monuments to public education?

TCE: The schools are a big challenge. I mean, the learning loss is severe. I know that. I just talked to some of the school board members about some things. Virginia State, our schools were about 10% to 15% below the average for Virginia before the pandemic. Now, of course, it’s worse…We’ve got to get a good school board. We have good people running for the School Board. We have to get a School Board in there that is going to really stick to education.

When it comes to [the school division’s $11 million proposed purchase of the building at 8700 Centreville Road, the largest office building in the city, instead of moving into the city’s old police station, to house the school division’s central office as originally planned]…one question that I have that I just talked to the School Board member, about nine to 13 million in order to move into the police station for renovations to get it ready for them to go in, this building is under $11 million. And so when you look at $9 million to $13 million [to renovate the old police station for schools use] versus $11 million, it’s like we’d have to spend almost the same amount.

And. They’re thinking…they’ll own the building for future education purposes that they think that they’ll need. It’s a pretty big parcel. I’m not sure where I stand on this yet.

We have to get back to investing in the classroom and making sure the teachers have what they need to teach these kids. The admin costs are very high in the budget. We need to shift that towards the classrooms.

Our teachers work so hard. I mean, my kids all went to public schools… We know how hard it is to teach, and they really do, I think, a great job.

Sometimes what’s coming down to them, what they have to do, isn’t always what they want to do. But if you get back to getting our kids in education, we have to educate our kids no matter what. That is the most important thing right now.

I mean, what they’re facing right now, it’s going to take decades to recover. That’s what some of the reports are that are coming in. And you see other school districts and even the private schools, how they did not waiver some school districts across the country, they survived quite well. So it does come down to leadership in our school board, as well as the leadership making the parents, giving them more information.

5. Finally, why should voters choose you?

TCE: Well, I’m a council person that I’ve been here 30 years. I’m a mom. I’ve built my own business, and I’m very active in the community. I have my finger on the pulse of the community for decades.

Six daughters, and one son went through this public school system. They’re all grown. And my husband George and I just have been very active, not just as business owners, but in the community. One of the things that I did as a council person that I really am excited about is we had the designation of a Bee City USA, because George and I are beekeepers as hobbies and the council got so sick of hearing me talking about bees.

But I was so excited because it was something that really brought the community together. It’s a simple thing, but we had a huge bee festival, super successful two years now, and it was the whole community. And something that really made me think about this was we are bringing ourselves together to thrive.

And that is kind of how I do really serve the citizens. It’s about them and we have to come together instead of being pulled apart if we’re going to thrive.

We’re still in a pandemic recovery. Even though we have businesses opening, there are still a lot of people that are suffering… 40% of [city residents] still using social services in the city and that’s that’s very alarming.

So we as a council have to remain committed to our citizens and what they really do need versus wants.

I also have some leadership positions, appointments chair and appointment committee, getting our volunteers on board in the city in different phases, and planning commission down to Beautification. That’s a really important committee, more than it sounds like.

But the volunteers that we have in our city really keep it going. It’s showing they’re investing their time and equity into it, even down to working at the transfer station when we have our supplies coming in for recycling.

Also on the airport commission, I was a committee member before I was elected. And what we have seen out there with the growth of our airport, it’s a dynamic economic engine out there. And I’m really happy that I’ve been a part of that for a long time, since, I think, 2015. We also do a lot of mentorship in our community.

I started the Shadow for a Day program, and that’s to give our students and career changers opportunities to link up with professionals locally and be able to learn about different careers and paths and connections so that they can get jobs and some guidance.

Because when you’re talking about our students, that’s one thing. They’re not all going to college. They might be looking for jobs right out of high school or into the trades. So we have to have these programs in place, and it has come a long way. I introduced that five years ago when [Career and Technical Education] struggled. And I have to say that we do have more programs available now through the schools and in the community to help our students. So I think I had something to say about getting that jumpstarted. I’m very happy about that.

Democrat Incumbent Ralph Smith, Democrats Sonia Vasquez Luna, and Dheeraj “JD” Jagadev also seek the three open seats. They have not returned a request for comment about their campaigns.

Need to know election info: 

  • First day of in-person early voting at your local registrar’s office: Friday, September 23, 2022
  • The deadline to register to vote or update an existing registration is October 17, 2022.
  •  The deadline to apply for a ballot to be mailed to you is October 28, 2022Your local voter registration office must receive your request by 5 p.m.
  • Voter registration offices open for early voting: Saturday, October 29, 2022.
  • The last day of in-person early voting at your local voter registration office: is Saturday, November 5, 2022, at 5 p.m.

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