Two ongoing stories are intersecting in one theme. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has become very adept at pretending they do not hear citizens. While Chairman Gerry Connolly is steadfastly ignoring citizen outcry for open access to information and a public hearing on the Board's upcoming decision on whether to support the now $5.15 BILLION project to run Metro to Dulles, Providence Supervisor Linda Smyth is refusing even to acknowledge receipt of three separate requests by five different civic groups to participate in a Candidates Forum tonight to discuss the implications of Dulles rail and all the other transportation and land-use issues that are affecting our quality of life.
Maybe the clue lies in Chairman Connolly's statement belittling citizen efforts to participate as "undermining your officials".
First Dulles Rail. On April 30th, candidate for Providence District Supervisor Charlie Hall issued a press release on behalf of his supporters and Providence District residents, asking for a series of Town Halls to provide information and solicit public input. No response from the Board.
On May 2rd, the McLean Citizen's Association, on behalf of 26,000 households, issued a Resolution asking for an open public process. No response.
On May 4th and again on May 10th, TysonsTunnel.org wrote to the Board on behalf of its 20,000 members, asking for public access to the still undisclosed design-build agreement, and for a formal public hearing. No response.
While Linda in graphic terms denies she is Gerry's puppet, she has obviously borrowed a page from the game book. Not only won't she come to tonight's Candidates' Forum to follow up on the May 23rd debate between Smyth and challenger Charlie Hall, she won't even acknowledge the invitation.
Within days of the announcement that the 5/23 debate would be held down in Tinner Hill, five different organizations - Vienna Little League, Vienna Youth Soccer, Vienna Babe Ruth, Hunter Mill Defense League and the N. Gallows Rd. Coalition -- canvassed their Boards and agreed to sponsor a second Forum and authorized a letter to be issued to both candidates.
That was a Friday. Charlie Hall accepted Monday. Linda Smyth was silent even in the face of a follow-up request Tuesday 5/22. She actually had to be cornered by a sponsor Board member on the stage after the 5/23 debate and asked for her response. She said she had no time.
Russ Ekanger, representing youth athletic organizations such as the Vienna Little League and Vienna Youth Soccer, said he invited the two candidates for a second debate. While Hall has accepted the invitation, Ekanger said Smyth told him she was too busy to do a second debate. "I couldn't believe a public figure doesn't have time for her constituents," said Ekanger. He said the debate would ask questions that pertain to the interests of the youth athletics and other organizations involved in it, including the Hunter Mill Defense League and the North Gallows Road Coalition. "I don't understand how she can be that cavalier about it," said Ekanger.
Even after this rebuff, ANOTHER letter encouraging Smyth to attend, and specifically asking for a written response, was issued over the holiday weekend. Again silence.
Well, tonight's Forum is going forward without her, from 7-9pm at Thoreau Middle School in Vienna. Initially, reporters covering Providence District will review and select questions collected on cards from the audience, to be presented by a moderator (as was done at the 5/23 debate). This will be followed by an open mic session where citizens can ask questions directly.
I understand that Supervisor Smyth is still welcome, but of course she will pretend she is not reading this....... she undoubtedly thinks that all this citizen interest is yet another attempt to "undermine" her.
At another public hearing, a resident was grilled by Smyth who asked questions irrelevant to the issue, such as whether it was true the gentleman lived with his sister. It was a blatant attempt to demean and belittle one of her constituents whose opinion she didn't like.
This Board has exerted a concerted effort to stifle free and open debate by means of intimidation. So if you don't agree with them, being ignored is perhaps your better fate.
On the otherhand, Charlie Hall, my pick for Supervisor, has a history of listening to citizens. As co-founder of Fairgrowth, he has promoted open meetings where citizens were encourage to state their concerns. Charlie will be at the community forum tonight. He made time so he could listen to Providence residents.
Citizens who try to oppose issues related to developers who give large sums of money to Smyth or her benefactor, Gerry Connolly, are ignored or treated shabbily. In such cases, Smyth has a history of pitting neighbor against neighbor in order to further the cause of the developer. Then she calls this "bringing people together".
To rub salt in the wound, she then declares that "the community is split" at the public hearing and votes in favor of the developer, usually reading from a pre-printed script. Obviously, public testimony at the hearing plays no part in Smyth's decision making.
Linda Smyth represents the core of what is wrong with our political system and must go!
That is my understanding. Would love to see it a public hearing where I would get my 3 minutes to make a statement.
Which is it?
Unless you have very hot-off-the-press information, the online county agenda says that the board is holding a staff briefing on Monday at 11 a.m., but not a public hearing in which citizens can come to the microphone and speak. Link to June 4 meeting agenda: http://www.fairfaxco...
On May 4, TysonsTunnel.org, which has taken such an admirable lead on this issue, wrote all 10 supervisors asking that a full public hearing be held before the board makes the momentous decision on whether to help fund the current elevated train proposal. As of earlier this week, they had received no written response from the board, including from Chairman Connolly and Linda Smyth, who have publicly stated their support for TysonsTunnel.org.
I think many tunnel supporters have been getting restive, since action (or in this case inaction) speaks louder than words.
I strongly support TysonsTunnel.org's request for a true public hearing before taking any action. I also support their position that the board should not sign any agreement unless it has full competitive bidding on the rail project, and unless it specifically allows a tunnel proposal to be fairly considered.
Let's be clear: anything else is support for an elevated train, regardless of whatever fig leaf the supervisors try to put over it.
If you scan several items down, you'll see a news release I issued yesterday about my position on Tysons rail. I think the public mood is crystal clear. People want the tunnel if the funding is there. They emphatically oppose an elevated train, which will destroy any long-term attempt to redesign Tysons.
If anyone wonders why we need reform Democrats committed to community-based solutions in Fairfax, you can't find a better example than this board's mismanagement of Tysons rail.
As I said in my release, "Truly, the only people still willing to accept an elevated train through Tysons are a few landowners and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. It's time for the public to say `enough' to the board's weak, vacillating approach and say no once and for all to the disastrous elevated train plan."
Seriously, who arranged that meeting?
The Democratic Party voter list confirms this voting record. It also shows that prior to joining the Democratic Party in 2003 and immediately declaring her candidacy for Connolly's Supervisor seat, Smyth voted in no Democratic primaries. Zero. Nada. Only Republican primaries. Some Democrat she is!
It's fine to decide to change political parties. But fess up to it. Be honest and give your reasons for doing so. To do otherwise is cowardly and dishonest. It's even more cowardly to then accuse your opponent of being a Republican as Connolly and her campaign have been doing.
Mr. Hall seems to win that who is a better-Democrat-in-a-vacuum argument, if I gathered the timeline correctly from the League debate and if he has only voted for Democrats and in Democratic primaries. But I am not willing to dis' Mrs. Smyth for voting for John Warner. I voted for John Warner, too, in 1996, so we share that guilty past. She seems to acknowledge she did that before she joined the Democratic party.
Which of the two of them (Smyth or Hall) was an actual card carrying member of the Democratic party the longest period of time before announcing a run for Board of Supervisors? That was one thing that struck me at the League debate. I believe Mrs. Smyth said, as I recall, she joined the party in 2003? If that is so, wasn't that the year she first ran for office? I don't remember when Mr. Hall said he joined, but it seemed a little less close to his bid for office and seemed more related to when he left the Washington Post for another position. From the back and forth about when he left the Post up on the podium, it appears Mrs. Smyth was given the wrong date by somebody. So on the who is a better Democrat front when viewed from space, I give the slight edge to Mr. Hall, assuming he has only voted for Democrats and unless I am mistaken by my calculations at the debate, has slightly more of a gap in time between when he joined the party and announced.
To me, rabid partisanship (don't vote in a Republican primary or don't go see your Republican congressman or vice versa for the other guys) is a true mark of foolish sheeple. I really could care less about these details. Both parties have their idiots. I am getting bored by that card.
I'm still hoping to see two candidates at the debate scheduled tonight. I intend to go. I am much more interested in hearing from them and what they have to say to me than from their supporters.
Smyth's campaign has been going door-to-door spreading the rumor that Hall is really a Republican. They've even left messages on voters' answering machines to that effect. Gerry Connolly even dared to tell Bill Turque of the Washington Post this nonsense.
It's not the '96 primary that bugs me. I know full well that many Dems crossed-over and voted in that one. It's the '88 and '89 primaries that are troubling. Combined with the fact that she didn't vote in ANY Democratic primaries until she was virtually propelled into office by Connolly in 2003.