The back-story here is that Dave had had a particularly hard time getting his kids to bed. The house had finally settled down. And then this started up, below. This is directly in front of Town Council candidate Dave Patariu’s house. And that’s Dave, going out to ask the Town crew what they were doing. At which point they finished up and shut it down.
I’m pretty sure the Town flushes the mains yearly, as does every municipality, I think. I can’t say I’ve ever seen that done on my street at 10:30 at night, but maybe I’ve just missed it. And I vaguely recall that the Town gives notice when they’re going to do that, because it can raise sediment in the pipes and otherwise temporarily affect your water quality? Maybe I’m imaging that last part, or picked up that idea from some other jurisdiction.
It strikes me that this is a pretty good metaphor for the Town of Vienna elections. There’s Dave, talking to the TOV, saying more-or-less “what the heck are you doing”?
We need that, in the Town of Vienna. And that’s one thing I admire about Dave. He won’t be intimidated. He’ll talk back, and ask logical questions that make people uncomfortable. As with this incident, if you were too timid to go out and ask the question, you’d never have gotten an answer.
What you don’t want, I think, is seven Town Council members who will (e.g.) vote for something really key to the Town (the property tax rate) without noticing that all the legally-required numbers are clearly wrong (Post #1128). Sometimes the devil really is in the details (e.g., Post #1087). And with the Town bound and determined to redo all the zoning this year, I would like believe that somebody at Town Council level will be reading the fine print and asking tough questions. Even if that ends up being inconvenient.
Maybe his slogan should be “If you don’t want to get hosed by the Town of Vienna, consider voting for Dave.”
So I leave you with Town Council candidate Patariu, son of a New York cop, dealing with what’s happening on his street. At 10:30 on a Friday night. His three little kids finally asleep in his house. In the always-pleasant Town of Vienna, VA.
