The Planning Commission met last week to discuss the proposed Sunrise Assisted Living facility at Maple and Center (and other issues). My initial posting, with link to audio recording, is Post #269. There were a handful of things about the discussion that confused me, and I’d like to bring those to light.
Continue reading Post #273: More detailed followup to the last Planning Commission meeting
On these items, I don’t really know whether to laugh or cry about them. But I think I’ll get them down, in black and white, before the memory of the election fades. And I’ll preface this by saying how much I hate social media.
There are no laws governing campaign finance in Town of Vienna elections. None whatsoever. Anyone can give any amount of money to any candidate — and it doesn’t have to be reported anywhere.
And I, for one, think that’s a problem. Particularly given (what I estimate to be) hundreds of millions of dollars of land use decisions that are going to made under MAC zoning. And so I did a little something about that. But most of you are going to need a little background information first, so you can understand what I did, and why.
Now:
The provisions of this chapter shall apply to all elections held in Virginia, ... except nominations and elections for ... (iii) town office in a town with a population of less than 25,000, ....
There’s an interesting provision in the law, though. A Town can voluntarily agree to be subject to the CFDA. That provision is the following, from the same section of the law cited above:
The governing body of any town with a population of less than 25,000 may provide, by ordinance, that the provisions of this chapter shall be applicable to elections for town offices in the town.
This is exactly what the Town of Herndon, did, in 2011. You can see that briefly mentioned at the next-to-last question on their election FAQ page. And this .pdf of the actual ordinance shows how little it actually took for them to do that.
Herndon’s situation is different from the Town of Vienna, in that they were close to the 25,000 person threshold in the 2010 Census. There was some sense that they would inevitably be subject to it after the 2020 Census.
You can read the Herndon Town Council’s discussion of the pros and cons of the e CFDA requirements around page 149 of this on-line document. The reason I point to this is that you can be sure the exact same arguments will come up if this is ever debated in the Town of Vienna.
The main advantage is the law is transparency: Everybody knows what’s spent, and where the money came from. The main disadvantage is that it’s a pain to comply with it, because … you have to report what’s spent, and where the money came from. And there are additional legal issues in that you have to acknowledge, in any campaign literature, where the money came from.
Which leads to my next section.
PACs! PACs, here in Vienna. OMG, we’ve never seen PACs in Vienna before. OMG, WE HAVE PAC MONEY INFLUENCING OUR ELECTION!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, this is sarcasm. Or very nearly. Although, one of our elected officials did circulate this, as part of her get-out-the-vote effort:
"There are a few other websites, Facebook Pages, and blogs publicly available for this election, know that some are funded by a PAC that has also funded some of the candidates, so I would be a bit suspect on how balanced their information is. "
Here’s the joke: I am the aforementioned PAC. As anyone who did even the slightest bit of homework on it would know. Why would they know? Because everything about every Virginia PAC is public information.
So, I am president, treasurer, chief cook and bottle washer for my own little PAC. Now defunct. Which is the PAC in question. Total funding for that PAC was the whopping sum of $1000, which is the least it could be, and still be required to report as a PAC, under the Virginia CFDA.
So, in some sense, that sentence from the get-out-the-vote email is fair. In the sense that I’ve certainly pointed out the bias in the Town’s information enough times. So turnabout is fair play. But the PAC scare tactics are just ill-informed or ill-intentioned or both.
Why did I bring the scourge of PACs to the Town of Vienna? Let me start by pointing to some of our neighboring Towns.
Take Leesburg, for example. Nice little town. Presumably they have an honest government. But — look up the Mayor of Leesburg, and you will find — OMG, SHE HAS PAC!!!!!
But, take Herndon — surely our sister city to the west is free of that type of nonsense. Let’s check out their mayor. OMG, SHE HAS A PAC TOO!!!!!
Yes, that’s more sarcasm. The fact is, PACs are how Virginia tracks campaign finances. If you want to run for office, and you are subject to the CFDA, you have to form a PAC. And you have to report where every donation (in excess of $200) comes from, and report every expense.. And even if you are not running for office, but want to spend money by directly trying to influence an election (as opposed to just giving a candidate money), then you, too, must form a PAC to do so. And you must report every donation over $200, and every expense.
Because that’s how it works in Virginia. Under the CFDA, anyone can give anyone any amount of money as a campaign contribution, for a state or local (i.e., non-Federal) election. There are absolutely no limits. The only hitch is, it must all be rigorously tracked and reported, subject to severe penalties for mis-reporting. And for those who independently seek to influence elections (“interest groups”), anything they publish has to note the name of the PAC of the interest group. Once again, so that everybody knows where the money is coming from.
The reason we don’t have PACs in Vienna is that we’re not subject to the CFDA. See the first part of this post. And because of that — because we’re not subject to it, and PACs are not required — nobody has the faintest real clue about sources and uses of campaign funds in Town elections.
I hope you get the drift here. Anybody can give any amount to any state or local candidate in any Virginia election. The only difference between Town of Vienna and other elections is that in the Town of Vienna, there’s no requirement to report any of that.
So, why did I form a PAC? The only real drawback of putting ourselves under the CFDA for Town elections, that I have seen mentioned, is that the requirement to form a PAC is burdensome. I needed to know how burdensome it was, before I could make any sort of informed judgment.
And my answer is, any fool can form a Virginia PAC. And I’m proof of that. It’s not burdensome. The Commonwealth goes out of its way not to make it burdensome. You don’t need a lawyer, you don’t need consultants. All you have to do is go to the Virginia Department of Elections website and follow the directions. Beyond a doubt, the hardest part of it was getting used to the logic of the Commonwealth’s COMET reporting system.
But I needed to know that, before I could write this post. I needed to understand the burden issue before I could say, hey, I think we ought to put the Town under the Virginia CFDA. Just for safety. And now I know that PAC reporting burden is no big deal. In fact, it’s easy enough that if the Town ever decides to put itself under the CFDA, I’ll volunteer to lead candidates through the process of forming a PAC. It’s just not that hard.
All it takes is doing a little homework.
Thanks to ViennaVotes (Shelley Ebert), this Wednesday (5/15/2019), in the Vienna Community Center, from 6PM to about 9PM, you have the chance to meet the next Fairfax County Board of Supervisors member from the Hunter Mill District. An invitation for this event is posted on this Facebook page.
All five Democratic candidates for County Board of Supervisors for the Hunter Mill district will be there. Because Democrats dominate this seat, you should realize two things:
There will probably be a Republican challenger to the Democratic candidate, but that challenger faces an uphill battle. Democrats have held this seat in 11 of the past 13 elections. Democrat Martha V. Pennino was the Board of Supervisors member from this district for 24 years prior to 1991. In 1991, Republican Robert B. Dix Jr. narrowly defeated her, ran unopposed in 1995, and (after some scandals) was defeated by Democrat Catherine Hudgins in 1999. Hudgins has held that seat since, winning by almost a 2-to-1 margin in 2003, and running unopposed in 2007, 2011, and 2015.
The Board of Supervisors controls a lot of things that directly affect qualify of life here in Fairfax County. And, accordingly, this is likely to be a wide-ranging discussion. So please understand, this is going to be about more than just (say) schools or taxes. Development and growth have already come out as a key issues, particularly for the Reston area. There, a proposal to increase allowable housing density was recently suspended.
This is advertised as an “informal debate”. From 6:30 to 8:30, candidates will answer a series of questions about how they would treat Vienna if they were the next Board of Supervisors member. In addition, some candidates will be present for a half-hour before (6 PM) and after (9 PM) to talk to Vienna citizens. You won’t be able to ask questions during the debate portion of the event, but you should have the opportunity to talk to the candidates. Continue reading Post #271: This Wednesday, in Vienna: Talk to the Board of Supervisors candidates about schools and other issues.
Postponed:
This is the meeting where the BAR will hash out the differences between the building they last saw, and some version of the building or buildings approved by the Town Council, as outlined in Post #245: The 4/18/2019 Board of Architectural Review meeting and a few subsequent postings.
This is a brief review of the 5/8/2019 Planning Commission meeting.
There were two items on the agenda: Bear Branch Tavern — a new 250-seat restaurant planned for the first floor of 133 Maple Avenue East (tan office building next to the W&OD trail), and the proposed Sunrise assisted living facility at Maple and Center.
You can find my audio file at this Google Drive location (look for “2019-05-08 …”). The Town’s sound system was acting oddly during most of the meeting so I am not sure how intelligible the recording is. There is no separate index for this recording, but it starts at roughly 8 PM, and I note the times in my writeup here. E.g., something that occurred at 9 PM will show up about one hour into the recording. Continue reading Post #269: The 5/8/2019 Planning Commission meeting
In two earlier posts (Post #260, Post #225) I raised an issue about the timing of the new High-Intensity Activated crossWalK (HAWK) lights in Vienna. These are the new lights located on Maple at Pleasant Street and at James Madison Drive. Their purpose is to allow pedestrians to cross Maple safely at those locations.
The issue is the timing of the “walk” signal. I thought there needed to be a longer delay between the red light, and the walk signal. See the posts cited above if you want the full story.
This is not an issue. I used the Pleasant Street HAWK light earlier this week, and there is a roughly 2.5 second delay between the red light and the walk signal. So either I hallucinated the problem, or the Vienna Department of Public Works (DPW) already fixed it. For purposes of this post, I’ll assume that I am sane and that DPW did, in fact, change it that fast.
A little more about HAWK lights follows — because I literally had to look it up to understand how you are supposed to deal with them. The key point is that you should treat the flashing red lights like a stop sign.
Today — the day after the election — starts the period when all the candidates are supposed to go out and pick up their signs. I am going to start picking up the surviving green “Support Small Town Vienna” signs.
You can keep your sign if you want to, but you’ll have to tell me you want to keep it. I (purposefully) allowed people to get signs anonymously, and I did not ask for an email address. I have email addresses for some people who got signs, and I will be emailing them shortly. Otherwise, if you want to KEEP your sign, please enter your name and address in the form below, to let me know that you want to KEEP your sign.
Change of plan. The sign-pick-up crews are already out. They’ll probably get your sign. Let them, and if you sign in below, I’ll bring you back another sign, with new metal legs on.
I WANT TO KEEP MY SIGN!
And if I take your sign, and it turns out that you wanted to keep it, just email me here (savemaple.org@gmail.com) and I will return a sign to you, complete with new metal legs.
Click here to see the election results.
Last night’s election had the largest turnout in recent Vienna history — by a slim margin. Below is a graph of voter turnout since 2000, using data as posted by Fairfax County at this location. (The official 2019 turnout number has not yet been published, so I extrapolated based on total votes cast, and the median ratio of voters to votes from all prior contested elections in this period.) Continue reading Post #266: Election turnout and results
Vote at the Community Center, 120 Cherry St SE.
Polls are open 6 AM – 7 PM. I believe that if you are in line by 7 PM, they must allow you to vote.
Remember to vote for up to three candidates.
You can see my choices, and why, in Post # 259.
This week there there are two Town of Vienna public meetings directly related to MAC zoning. In addition, the Town election is Tuesday.
On Tuesday, 5/7/2019, Town elections will be held in the Community Center. Vote for up to three candidates. Polls are open 6 AM – 7 PM.
You can see who I am voting for, and why, on post #259.
On Wednesday, 5/8/2019, at 8:00 PM in Town Hall, the Planning Commission will continue its public hearing on the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility proposed for the corner of Maple and Center.
Citizens are invited to speak. Please limit your remarks to three minutes per topic. Traditionally, with the Planning Commission, if you spoke at the first part of the public hearing, you may speak again if you speak on a completely different subject. You are asked not to repeat your remarks from the prior session.
Meeting materials can be found on this page:
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=673401&GUID=16FFAA09-21C9-424A-AF47-F0EC8B3BBC5C&Options=info&Search=
You can see my suggestion that they just give up on ground floor retail for this one, and get a better building in the process, in post #254.
Of additional interest at this meeting is discussion of a new 250-seat restaurant for the first floor of the Vienna Professional Center (small tan office building just east of the W&OD trail.)
The first time I heard this new restaurant discussed was in the 8/8/2018 Planning Commission meeting, briefly described as part of this post. It’s also worth pointing out that Vienna has more restaurants per capita than any major metropolitan area in the US, as discussed Post #201, and in this follow-up post (#208, about goods versus services retail on Maple Avenue.
On Friday, 5/10/2019, at 8:00 AM (yes, AM), in Town Hall, the Board of Architectural Review will address Vienna Market, the development that was approved for the former Marco Polo site.
Meeting materials can be found on this page, although no plans or documents have been posted as of this writing:
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=692198&GUID=8CFC0C88-F6D2-4B9F-8BFD-287EF50540AF&Options=info&Search=
That will be the follow-up to the incident discussed in Post 245 and several subsequent posts. As I understand it, based on the joint work session held last week, the Town’s lawyer called the developer and straightened this out. It will be interesting to see what is presented to the BAR at this meeting.
