From a reader:
Good morning. Hope this finds you all well during this continued tough time.
Opinion
The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy, paraphrasing Dr. King. In this moment of challenge and controversy, we stand with you. We are angry and grieved over the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and we are committed to stand with you as we all fight the racism, inequality, and systemic oppression that continues to plague our society.
And as African-American men who care deeply about our country and our city, we are especially affected by these events.
As Chair of the Board of PRTC, I understand the importance of providing reliable, safe, and efficient transportation for residents around Prince William County and the D.C. area. The goal of our transit services – The OmniRide and the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) – has always been to get residents where they need to go while reducing congestion. OmniRide and the VRE rely heavily on our transit employees to help carry out these goals. Now with COVID-19 critically impacting our economy, our transit workers are even more vital in providing critical transportation services.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” These are the words that come to mind as we contemplate a great injustice that has rattled the nation over the past several days.
Although the death of George Floyd took place hundreds of miles from Stafford County, the impact of this injustice has reverberated across the nation including here in our community. Alongside our community, we watched with horror the chilling video of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd for a prolonged period of time as he pleaded for help and yelled “I can’t breathe.” Several officers stood nearby—doing nothing—as George Floyd took his last breath and died at the hands of the officers who took an oath to protect and serve their communities.
We are excited to see that Governor Northam has placed education funding among the top priorities in his budget submitted to the General Assembly.
Virginia is the number one state for business, and we believe that it should be number one for education as well. The greatest opportunity for sustaining economic prosperity, ensuring a strong workforce with future-ready skills, and empowering individual success is through an outstanding and equitable PreK-12 education for all.
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Everyone loves a parade, so when I woke up the morning after the history-making Washington Nationals’ World Series win, I contacted Virginia Railway Express to see if it planned to provide service to the victory parade on Saturday.
After watching every thrilling and (at times) agonizing minute of the World Series, I plan to go to the parade.
Editor’s note: We periodically publish opinion posts (letters to the editor) on local issues of interest to our subscribers and readers.
Capacity Improvements for Route 28 between Fairfax County and Manassas have been narrowed down to two general alternatives:
In addition to our efforts in the General Assembly, some issues must be solved by the Congress and surprise medical billing is one of those issues. When members of Congress return to Washington in a few days, I believe that they should take immediate action to work on common-sense legislation that will resolve the problem of surprise medical billing.
Anyone who has been impacted by a surprise medical bill—and that’s roughly 57% percent of all Americans, according to a University of Chicago, study understands the heavy financial toll that was endured. Individuals who have received medical treatment weeks or months earlier should not be confronted with surprise medical bills which require payment for costs they assumed would be covered by their insurance company.
This letter to the editor was sent to us by Mark Scheufler, a Prince William County resident. All of the letters we’ve posted by him all have to do with improving mobility around our region. This latest letter comes as the Virginia Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting on improving Interstate 95 statewide, at James Monroe High School in Fredericksburg from 6 to 8 p.m.
Getting between Richmond and Washington, D.C.c can be difficult with very unpredictable travel times, especially on weekends in the summer. The Commonwealth of Virginia is building a significant number of projects along I-95 in the Fredericksburg area that will improve traffic flow over the Rappahannock River.
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Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has called the state legislature to Richmond this week for a special session to focus on measures to reduce firearm violence in the state. Addressing this problem is long overdue.
Last year, guns killed more people than car accidents in Virginia. The majority of those deaths were people committing suicide.