Manassas City Police Chief Douglass Keen released the department’s annual report to the city council for 2022.
Over the past year, officers have seen an increase in the number of people driving drunk, an overall increased crime rate prompted, primarily, by thefts, and a decreasing number of calls for both mental health calls and domestic violence situations.
The Manassas City Council will hold its annual retreat in Haymarket, keeping it local this year after holding last year’s event in Harrisonburg.
The council is expected to cover several pressing issues during the two-day meeting, including the city budget, transportation planning, economic development, updates on developing city parks, and affordable housing.
Late last month, a post on pwperspective.com, a website that features political news from Prince William County and touts itself as “Virginia’s anti-racist voice,” posted a hit piece about Manassas City Councilwoman Lynn Forkell Greene, whose running for re-election on November 8.
Light on details, the post accurately reported someone filed a grievance against Forkell Greene while she was still on the city’s Parks and Recreation Committee before she was elected to the City Council in November 2021. The author, and website founder John Reid, didn’t bother to report on the nature of the grievance, who filed it, or whatever came of it.
Affordable housing, education, taxes and transparency are the top campaign issues cited by six candidates vying for three Manassas City Council seats on the ballot Nov. 8.
Republican incumbent Councilmembers Theresa Coates Ellis and Lynn Forkell Greene are trying to hold onto their seats and elect fellow Republican and political newcomer R. E. “Rick” Bookwalter to increase their party’s influence on the city council, which now has a 5-2 Democratic majority.
