By Steve Walts
Superintendent
Prince William County Public Schools

Earlier this year, I shared with our community my key budget priorities for the upcoming 2019-20 school year, and I am pleased to announce that those priorities were all fully funded. This is only possible due to the strong collaboration with our teachers, parents, and staff in developing the budget.

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By Barry M. Barnard
Prince William County Chief of Police

Each May, for one week, the Nation recognizes the service and sacrifice of the country’s law enforcement officers. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation naming Peace Officer Memorial Day as May 15 and the week this day falls as “National Police Week”.

This year, we will celebrate our profession and remember our fallen brothers and sisters May 13-19. Thousands of law enforcement officers from the region, state, country, and even from across the world descend upon the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty and to come together as family to support one another in mutual camaraderie. Although this week is often considered a somber time meant to reflect and remember those we have lost, we can also use this week to take time and thank those who have served and continue to serve their communities.

We are very fortunate here in Prince William County to have such a supportive community. You all have stood by us during our most difficult of times and have reached out to embrace us as we have mourned.

We also frequently receive praise from community members who have reached out to express their appreciation for the positive experiences they have had with our officers. Whether helping to change a tire, offering assistance to a family in need or showing calm in a time of crisis, our community has never hesitated to express their gratitude. This appreciation does not go unnoticed.

We are extremely grateful for the compassion and support we receive from residents and business owners every day. Your Police Department is committed to the safety of our community and we take pride in serving you.

During National Police Week, I ask that if you see a police officer during your travels, please take a moment to thank them. These men and women leave their own families each morning, afternoon or evening and selflessly put their own lives on the line to serve our community.

To learn more about National Police Week and the activities scheduled, please visit policeweek.org.

Good for the Ray family.

After watching more than three hours of public testimony at Tuesday’s Prince William County Board of Supervisors meeting, it was clear the family wanted the one thing any property owner wants when they go to sell — a fair market price.

A divided Board of Supervisors approved a rezoning that clears the way for 325 new houses to be built on the 56-acre property soon-to-be known as Ray’s Regarde. They did the right thing.

When I was a child, my mother drove a Prince William County School bus for a living. She ferried high-school students from Marumsco Hills to and from Woodbridge Senior High School in Lake Ridge, each day passing by the Ray property.

This, of course, was in the early 1990s, the days before the Prince William Parkway, when the way to get across Interstate 95 was Horner Road. Since the parkway opened in the early 90s, portions of Horner Road were abandoned, and the Ray property might as well have been, too.

Members of the Ray family told county supervisors their unsightly stories of walking up on people having sex in cars on their property, people who ditched cars in their driveway because they no longer wanted the jalopies, forcing the property owner to pay out-of-pocket to have it towed. There are trash heaps due to illegal dumping, and a blighted, burned-out home that also sits on the property.

It’s no wonder why the Ray family wanted out.

When it comes to Supervisors approving any land-use case in Prince William County, there’s always the traffic argument — this new development is going to produce too many new cars that will use already overwhelmed roads.

Add to that the familiar, “all of our schools are already overcrowded.” It amounts to saying we all moved here, but, for some reason, we can’t hold any more people, and can’t figure out how to fix the schools problem, so, landowners shouldn’t sell to the free market and developers can’t build.

Traffic is a nightmare in Woodbridge. I know this because I’ve not only watched it worsen over the years, I’ve built a successful business here at Potomac Local writing about it.

But this new home project abuts the highway and sits across from Virginia’s largest commuter parking lot, the Horner Road lot. Those who move into these homes, to be priced between $300,000 and $400,000 will undoubtedly be commuters who are forced to find work further north.

All that talk from project developer Gary Garczynski about how these homes being for millennials just entering the workforce is utter nonsense, as few jobs in the county provide an appropriate salary to afford the cost of these planned homes.

And for those soon-to-be commuters who will live in Rays Regarde, things are changing. Have you read about OmniRide developing an Uber-like ridesharing service designed to pick up passengers at their front doors and take them to a commuter lot to catch a bus or to slug?

The same thing could be developed in Woodbridge, and that would mean those cars would never have to leave the driveway during the work week.

And, sure, Prince William County Schools are overcrowded. But new schools are on the way, with John D. Jenkins Elementary soon to open, and new middle and high schools soon to follow.

What about the old construction debris landfill that used to operate at the site where the homes will be built? Sure, it’s nobody’s first choice to live on top of a capped landfill. But the developer has agreed to work with the state to remove poor soils, replace them with something more suitable to build on, and open it up for testing before the first home is built.

With the coal ash problem at Possum Point near Dumfries, we’ve been talking about landfills and slurry ponds since President Obama ordered them closed. However, Prince William County Solid Waste Division Chief Tom Smith told Supervisors that situation at Ray’s Regarde is a far cry from Possum Point.

“This landfill has been capped for 30 years,” he said.

Those toxic coal ash ponds near Dumfries, however, remain wide open.

Let’s not forget this is the east side of the county — the place where the dense development is supposed to occur, alongside the busy interstate corridor complete with commuter lots, slug lines, express toll lanes, commuter rail, and a potential new commuter ferry on the Potomac River.

For years, we’ve heard many of the same speakers who opposed Ray’s Regarde urging the Board of Supervisors to support a Metro rail extension from Springfield to Woodbridge. Well, Metro craves density.

And, as Supervisor Ruth Anderson put it Tuesday, if it dense developments don’t go here, where will they go?

For years, I’ve talked with Charlie Grymes, of the Prince William Conservation Alliance, who is a huge advocate of protecting open space on Prince William County’s western Rural Crescent. To do that, the development that will inevitably come to Prince William needs to be concentrated in the county’s dense, eastern neighborhoods.

“The future is adding to density to north Woodbridge, at Innovation Park [near Manassas], building the live, work, and play neighborhoods, where you don’t need a car,” said Grymes in November, at a Prince William Committee of 100 meeting. “That’s how we’re going to get jobs in Prince William County. That’s how we’re going to get a commercial tax base.”

Since the early part of this decade, county planners and residents have been talking about a transfer of development rights program where property owners in the rural area could transfer their property development rights to developers in the denser eastern section, and be paid fair market value.

“To have a strong rural area, we have to have a strong receiving area,” Grymes said.

To date, that program is just a pipe dream.

But the reality is already on paper, and it has been for more than 20 years. The county’s Comprehensive Plan — the document outlines zoning and what type of development should be built and where — has called for about 16 homes per acre on the Rays Regarde site, more than double what will be built.

“We’ve reached a point where we’ve had this in the [comprehensive] plan for 25 plus years. It would be unfair for this Board to now say we are going to do something different with this land, and the right thing to do is to let the Ray family move forward,” Coles District Supervisor Marty Nohe said on Tuesday.

I couldn’t agree with him more.

And, like most documents, the county’s comprehensive plan is a living, changing document. The county’s planning office has been successful over the past two years attracting residents to town hall meetings they call charettes to go over small area plans, and asking residents about what kind of development they want in their neighborhoods.

Then they — and this is the important part — work together to modify the plan.

In fact, an overhaul of the comprehensive plan has been underway for the past two years. The whole time, county government employees have been asking for and getting feedback from residents.

Recently, I covered a town hall meeting in Haymarket where residents live on land settled after the Civil War by freed blacks demanded the comprehensive plan be changed because they don’t want the wider, four-lane roads the plan calls for.

And, once a year, planners bring requests to the Board of Supervisors from landowners asking for changes in the comprehensive plan. And, in some cases, they change the plan. I know this because I wrote about one such change last week.

RICHMOND -- (Press Release) Senator Richard H. Stuart, (R-King George), today issued the following statement regarding the alleged yearbook photo of Governor Ralph Northam:

Ralph Northam is a good man. He has devoted his entire life to the service of others through his career in the Army, as a pediatrician, and as a public servant.

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Submitted By Doug Widener
Citizens Alliance of Prince William

Because of housing overdevelopment, quality of life will suffer next school year for many of the students, parents, and teachers affected by the recent boundary changes for 16 elementary schools in the Woodbridge, Neabsco, and Occoquan districts.

Quality of life will continue to suffer for the thousands of other students and teachers packed into overcrowded classrooms and more than 200 trailers, countywide.

Then there are the tens of thousands of county residents who suffer daily in stop-and-go traffic congestion – some of the worst in the nation – on the way to and from work or just to go shopping.  It didn’t have to be this way.  And without drastic political change, it will get worse.

There are already more than 15,000 new housing units in the county’s development pipeline.  Those homes have already been approved by the Board of County Supervisors and are just waiting for developers to decide to begin construction.  Imagine the potential impact of this “ticking time bomb” on current school overcrowding and traffic congestion.

For example, three of the pipeline projects in the Brentsville District, approved by County Supervisors in 2008 and 2011, are now ready to begin construction.  Those developments will add students from 235 more new homes to Battlefield High, already the most overcrowded school (with 18 trailers) in the county; and to Reagan Middle, which had to install five trailers this school year.

Enrollment at the new high school scheduled to open in the district for the 2021/2022 school year is expected to exceed its student capacity soon after it opens, just like at Colgan High after its first year of operations.  These three new developments are also projected to add more than 2,000 vehicle trips per day to already congested Rt. 29, Rt. 15, Rt. 55, I-66 and other area roads.

To add insult to injury, County Supervisors are likely to approve additional new home developments now being prepared for their final public hearing.

One of them, Woodborne Preserve, is located just across the road from the three described above.  If Woodborne Preserve is approved, it will add students from another 56 new homes to the already overcrowded schools and more than 500 vehicle trips per day to the already congested roads.

School officials have stated that there are several general methods that have been considered to alleviate overcrowding in schools.  Those methods include boundary changes – For the opening of new schools or to shift student populations, which is already being used as evidenced by the boundary changes at 16 elementary schools.

Increasing pupil/teacher ratio, which is already being used as evidenced by the fact we have the fewest teachers per 1,000 students in all of Virginia, and placement of portable classrooms, which is already being used as evidenced by the more than 200 trailers in use countywide.

The only options left on the school division’s list to alleviate school overcrowding are “split shift” and “year-round schooling.”  And if you think boundary changes are disruptive, just wait until more housing overdevelopment causes those final options to be used.

It’s way past time to wake-up.

Predatory lending, imposing abusive terms and high interest rates on borrowers regardless of ability to pay, is a nagging problem in Virginia, the 36th Senate District and especially in the U.S. 1 Corridor. I will introduce legislation in January to end these abusive practices.

There are many kinds of high-interest or predatory loans. First, payday loans are loans that are secured against a consumer’s pay check. In 2009, the Virginia General Assembly enacted restrictions on payday loans which caused the practice to scale back to about six locations in and around the 36th District.

In 2010-11, some of the same companies went back to Richmond and persuaded the legislature to authorize car title loans. Today, in Northern Virginia car title loans are offered by companies like Title Max, Loan Max, Advance America, Cash Point or Fast Auto Loans. These companies are allowed to make loans at interest rates between 15 to 22% per month or up to an annual percentage rate (APR) of 267%. Several locations have shut down. The number of locations has gone from 21 to 12 around the 36th District.

In 1918, Virginia created a separate license for consumer finance loans to allow small, low- interest loans, largely in the Hampton Roads area. Historically, these loans were not problematic, but around 2014, the car title loan industry discovered this license, which had no rate interest cap and began co-locating consumer finance companies with car title storefronts and making loans at over 300% interest rates.

In 2016, I introduced legislation to prohibit this practice. A Senate committee killed my bill, but only after the car title industry promised to cease this practice. It appears that they have.

More recently, other companies are abusing two new loopholes. First, Virginia law authorizes lenders to use open-end credit lines with no interest rate caps. Historically, this was not a problem, but payday lending companies have begun to use these open-end credit lines to make high interest loans to the same vulnerable consumers.

You can go online today and Google “quick cash Virginia” and get a line of credit between $100 to $3,500 with no credit check at a 299% interest rate with a 15% “transaction fee” annualizing to an APR of over 500%.

However, even more egregious is the practice of internet lending. Sensing pending regulation at the federal level, many companies began entering into contracts with Native American tribes to provide loans to consumers over the internet, not from storefronts.

The loans have what is called “choice of law” clauses providing they are covered by tribal law and arbitration provisions allowing for dispute resolution under tribal law and under the supervision of the chief of the tribe. Interest rates exceed 400% and have been documented over 1,000%. These laws are sometimes dubbed “Rent a Tribe” loans.

I will again introduce legislation to apply minimal consumer protections to open-end credit arrangements, the protections previously required for car title loans. Among other things, this would require companies to obtain a license from the Commonwealth, prohibit automatic account debiting, restrict debt collection practices, and simultaneously carrying multiple loans. My bill last year did not even contain a rate cap, yet it was killed. This year, Senate Minority Leader Dick Saslaw is sponsoring this bill with me and I am hopeful it will fare better.

In addition, I will introduce legislation placing a 36% interest rate cap on consumer finance loans. This legislation was supported by the companies who have historically been providing consumer finance loans. Last year, it passed the Senate 37-2 but died in the House of Delegates. The House proposed to open up the consumer finance license to internet lenders and basically legitimize the 400% internet lending practices using Native American tribes.

I have now been battling these practices for nearly eight years after these lenders exploded on U.S. 1 and I will not stop. Lending money to people who are confused by complicated terms and slick sales tactics, people who have little
ability to repay them is coercive, immoral and wrong.

It is an honor to serve as your state senator. Please email me at [email protected] if you have any feedback.

Scott Surovell (D) represents southern Fairfax, eastern Prince William, and northern Stafford counties in the Virginia State Senate. 

Starting Monday, December 3, we’re on our way to a better, stronger website

Since launching our subscription tier of content in January, Potomac Local has seen tremendous growth in readership.

In a world where the term “fake news” is bandied about, in a community of more than a half million people that no longer has access to a daily newspaper, our nearly 400 paid subscribers have proven they want more than just quick-hit clickbait stories — they want real, local news.

I spent all of 2017 debating on whether or not to launch a subscriber content tier and examining which models would work best for Potomac Local. It was refreshing to see so many early subscribers choose to support our reporting by becoming annual paid subscribers, and I cannot thank them enough.

In late October, unfortunately, our growth began to put a strain on our site. Some subscribers were unable to log into their accounts, and some site content didn’t display properly. And, after eight years of adding WordPress plugins and performing ongoing basic site maintenance and upkeep, we decided that we needed a new stronger website to meet demand.

Our Investment in You

Today, we’ve contracted with Web Publisher PRO, a firm that primarily works with local online news operations across the U.S. We are investing $6,000 to improve our website.

It’s an investment in our small company and our big investment in our community. And, while you won’t notice much of a change on the surface of our website (we think the fewer aesthetic changes the better) you will enjoy a stronger, more reliable local news experience.

On Monday, December 3, paying subscribers will also be able to once again log into and manage their accounts. Our subscriber paywall will be fully restored, and that means some content will no longer be available without a paid subscription.

As always, a lot of the content on PotomacLocal.com is FREE to read. But our originals are for paying subscribers, and they’re worth subscribing to.

We also have a FREE Potomac Local News weekday morning newsletter, and it has become the most popular way for our readers to get their news. From FREE stories to exclusive content for paying subscribers, sign up for our weekday morning newsletter that shows you everything Potomac Local has to offer.

Our Investment in Local Journalism

Folks, this new and improved website means we’re making another investment in local journalism, the kind that affects each of us.

Five years after the loss of the News & Messenger, a daily newspaper that once covered the region from Prince William, Manassas, and Stafford for a combined 150 years, we remain dedicated to not only telling you what’s happening in our community, but also to find ways to make your lives better by reporting on:

• New traffic and transit improvements
• New local business opportunities
• New residential and commercial development
• Schools, and their impact on the community
• Local officials who collect and spend your tax dollars — holding them accountable

Plus, we’re a platform for civic discussion and engagement. Trust me. Those local officials read Potomac Local, making us a place for your voice to be heard.

Stronger When We All Invest

We greatly value our advertisers, but advertising, alone, can no longer pay the cost for local news organizations to produce great journalism. Local independent news operations across the country are realizing this, and Potomac Local is no different.

If you’re not yet a paying Potomac Local subscriber, we’re asking you to make a commitment to supporting local journalism and to subscribe today.

Your subscription not only gives you full access to all content on PotomacLocal.com, but it also means we can continue telling the stories that strengthen our community, and that we can continue telling the stories that matter to you.

An annual subscription to Potomac Local is $65 billed annually, a monthly subscription is $6 billed monthly, or you can try us for 14 days FREE and then pay $6 a month.

To celebrate the strengthening of our website, the first 30 people to enter the code STRONGER when subscribing to an annual $65 plan will SAVE 30% on the subscription.

The days when great local news reporting in Prince William and Stafford counties, and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, is made available free to anyone anywhere are behind us. New independent local journalism organizations like Potomac Local are smaller, more focused and more responsive to their readership than ever before.

We need your support. Invest in us. Invest in your community.

Thank you, and Happy Holidays.

On November 20, 2018, during its work session, the Dumfries Town Council became the first town in Prince William County to adopt a Resolution in support of ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment. 

In sharp contrast to the Prince William County Board of Supervisors Meeting where the Resolution was rejected, our Town Council adopted the Resolution in a 7-0 vote.

Prior to making the motion, I was able to provide some background on the history of the Equal Rights Amendment, “The Equal Rights Amendment specifies that you cannot discriminate on the basis of gender.

Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment back in 1972 and it takes 38 states to ratify.  We are currently at 37 and Virginia is in the process of becoming the 38^th state.  The General Assembly will be taking this up in their upcoming session and I would like to pass this Resolution in support of this effort. 

The motion was seconded and received the full support of the Dumfries Town Council.

In a short period of time, the Town of Dumfries has cemented its place as a leader in the fight for equality.  The town made history in August by becoming the first locality within Prince William County to include sexual orientation and gender identity in its nondiscrimination policy. 

Additionally, the Town Council has voted to move local elections to November in order to eliminate the unintentional voter disenfranchisement that sometimes takes place with May elections. 

While I was running for my position, I was often asked to explain my slogan #DumfriesFirst.  My answer was always that it meant that Dumfries sets the example for the way in which a town in the Commonwealth should operate. 

Through its commitment to inclusion and putting the needs of citizens first the Dumfries Town Council has done just that. 

Thanksgiving is a holiday that people celebrate in America by inviting friends and family for parties.

It is good to be grateful. In the Holy Qur’an it says “If you are grateful, I will surely bestow more favors on you” (14:8). The Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) said “One who is not grateful to others is not grateful to God”.

I want to thank God for creating us and giving us food, life, parents, and family. I want to thank my teachers for teaching me good things. I thank God for toys and clothes and all the stuff I have. I thank God for giving me the Qur’an to read and for making me a good Ahmadi Muslim.

I am also thankful to the spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad for travelling all the way from UK and listening to me read the Holy Qur’an in Qur’an completion ceremony held on October 29th. I loved it specially sitting next to him and reciting the Holy Book.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Aiza Mahmood 6 Years Old