Government Responsiveness and Transparency
First and foremost, I believe that government should be responsive and accountable to its citizens. It should listen to its citizens. We have all seen too many instances recently where that was not the case. I am not a professional advocate or politician. I commute to work and sit in traffic everyday just like you do. I do not think that I am smarter than everyone else; I am a regular citizen just like you. If I am elected, I am committed to listening to the citizens of Loudoun and not telling them what is best for them. It is my sincere belief that government should be limited, responsive, and accountable.
Taxes, Spending and Budgets
Loudoun County is in serious need of a change in direction on the Board of Supervisors. We have to get control of the endless taxing, spending and ever increasing debt. Our property taxes are already the highest taxes in our region, higher than Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria and Prince William Counties. Some years back there where bumper stickers that read, “Don’t Fairfax Loudoun.” Now things are the other way around.
I believe that we must re-focus our attention to the core missions of local government; education, transportation and public safety. We must build a balanced approach to our tax base, working to bring businesses to Loudoun that will create good local jobs. A balanced tax base will bring relief to the tax burden on our homeowners.
I am committed to reining in the growth in taxes, spending and sky rocketing debt. I am a fiscal conservative and I don’t just claim to be one because it is politically expedient. My record as your Catoctin School Board representative is clear; I fought against and reduced unnecessary spending by over $32 million in the operating budget. I voted to eliminate another $66 million in the capital expenditures budget, while maintaining the best school system in Virginia. We must eliminate unnecessary spending if we are to control taxes.
David L. Wilkinson, the founder of Citizens for Affordable Schools, a tax watch dog organization, said of my voting record on fiscal issues that “Geary Higgins… has been a leader among the few conservatives on the (School) Board.”
Economic Development
Loudoun’s reputation as a “business friendly” community must be restored. I commute on the Dulles Toll Road everyday and drive past the marquees of all the businesses that did not come to Loudoun County. It is amazing that business development pretty much comes to an end at the Loudoun County line. Dulles Airport is the largest economic engine in the metropolitan area and we are not taking full advantage of it. How long have we heard from this and prior boards that we don’t want Loudoun to be a “bedroom community”… when will we do something about it? When will we get serious and bring businesses to Loudoun that will create good local jobs?
We must also work to expand the business and farming opportunities of the “rural economy” in the western parts of the county. Our historic beauty and growing wine industry is making Loudoun, “Virginia’s Wine Country” and a popular tourist destination. This will require reducing or eliminating overly burdensome and restrictive regulation. We must quit encroaching on the rights of our citizens and businesses with expensive and unnecessary regulation like the recently proposed Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance.
Ultimately, I believe that economic development is the long term solution to our budget problems after controlling unnecessary taxing and spending. Over the past few years, the business revenues have appeared to grow slightly as a percentage against the residential side, but this has been caused by a sharper decline in our residential assessments due to the recession. This has created an illusion of a growing business sector, when in real dollars they are both down significantly, with the residential side falling twice as far. The bottom line is that we must grow our business tax base.
By encouraging new business to settle in Loudoun County, we will create jobs, increase revenues to the county and ease the property tax burden that has been unfairly placed on backs of our homeowners.
Quality of Life
Loudoun County remains one of the most beautiful counties in the country. I fully support the current housing density contained in the comprehensive plan as amended by the Board in 2007. I believe that all residential and commercial developers should be encouraged to use the USGBC “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Standards” (LEED) for sustainable building solutions to increase energy efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of new development.
There has been much debate over the recently proposed Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance and the quality of water in Loudoun County. No one is against protecting our water in Loudoun, and I am committed to that, but this debate is a moving target and has morphed from the bay, to streams, to ground water and back again.
The original law was intended for tidal areas, which Loudoun is not. The state legislature did not find it applicable to our county in the original law and the Board of Supervisors has done no impact studies of its effect on Loudoun. Accordingly, there is little evidence that it would do anything for our county except add another layer of bureaucratic red tape and huge additional expenses to the citizens and businesses in Loudoun.
If we do have streams in Loudoun that are “impaired”, it would make much more sense to deal with those specific problems rather than to impose a very restrictive law and its associated costs on the entire county, which was not intended for our county. The law as written arbitrarily regulates and can require expensive studies for constructing houses, sheds, decks, pools, drives, walkways, patios, fences, the planting and pruning of trees and shrubs. Basically, if you turn a spade of dirt, it can potentially be regulated by this ordinance.
I do not support the implementation of this ordinance and I would hope that in the future before any legislation of this type is considered, there would be a comprehensive study looking at it economic impact on our county vs. any perceived benefit.
There are two other serious issues that are affecting the daily lives of our citizens; they are Lyme’s disease and “Stink bugs”. Lyme’s disease is a very dangerous condition if undetected and “Stink bugs” along with being annoyance to homeowners is a serious threat to Loudoun’s agriculture. I have met with Congressman Wolf on these issues as well and I am committed to finding solutions and developing better communication of information on ways to control and prevent the effects of these insect pests.
Transportation
We must make transportation a priority and get Loudoun moving again. Too many of our current Supervisors are either retired, work from home or do not have to commute during rush hour. I do not believe they can fully appreciate the gridlock that the rest of us face every single day. This is clear to me by the fact that there have been few significant road or safety improvements to the main commuting routes west of Leesburg since the Route 7 Bypass was finished in the early 1980’s.
Our existing commuting routes in Western Loudoun are hazardous and inadequate to meet the needs of our district. We will need to work together with our now larger state delegation to get a fair share of our tax money back from Richmond to meet our transportation needs. While I generally support the Metrorail project to Dulles and other mass-transit options for Loudoun County if they are economically viable, I do not believe that these are solutions that will seriously address the current transportation problems we are facing in the west. There are five specific areas that I will initially focus my attention on as your Supervisor; we need to build an over-pass on the Route 7 Bypass at the Sycolin Road intersection in Leesburg; there needs to be a third lane added to the Bypass heading west of Leesburg from Business Route 7 to Clarke’s Gap and we need to build access ramps on the Bypass at Route 690 to provide egress to and from Woodgrove High School in Purcellville. Additionally, we need to add a right turn lane On Route 9 heading west at Route 287 and we need to complete the four lane portion of Fort Evans Road where it connects to Riverside Parkway in Leesburg.
I am also very concerned by the rapid rise in tolls on the Dulles Toll Road and the Greenway that are predicted by some to be over $25 round trip by 2015. If these tolls continue to rise at the current rate, they will become unaffordable for most of Loudoun’s families and could have a serious economic impact on our county. I have already met with Congressman Wolf on this issue and am committed to working with our state delegation to bring some relief to Loudoun’s citizens.
Not all transportation solutions require more steel and asphalt. We should work to improve and expand our existing telecommunications infrastructure to allow more people to work from home and take their cars off Loudoun’s roads.
Quality Cost Effective Schools
As a former school board member I know that everyone benefits from a high quality cost effective school system. It educates our children, protects our home values and attracts new business to our county. Our cost per pupil has been consistently lower than neighboring Fairfax County. We are the only school system of our size in the state to have reached full Standards of Learning accreditation and our SAT scores recently reached an all time high.
However, school budgets must be kept in check and I would support a true third party audit of the county and school system budgets to evaluate our efficiency. I believe that the higher the percentage of the budget directed into the classroom the better. As a former School Board member, I strongly believe that a better working relationship can and should exist between the Board of Supervisors and the School Board. This will benefit the county budget process and I will bring a working knowledge of the school system to the Board of Supervisors.
Our county’s school system must also be open to non-public and home schooled children because, their families are tax payers as well. I was a strong supporter of this position when I served on the School Board.
I am proud of our schools and I have three daughters that graduated from Loudoun Valley High School in Purcellville. Loudoun County’s school children are our future and our legacy and a quality education is a key to that future.
Preservation
History and preservation are my passions and I have been involved in preserving Loudoun’s heritage for almost 30 years. I strongly support creating voluntary incentives for preservation efforts.
After moving to Loudoun, my friend Mark Walston (a former historian for the State of Maryland) and I did the research and legwork required to nominate Bluement and establish it as a Historic Landmark. We also had help from David Edwards who is now the Northern Regional Director with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Having grown up in neighboring Montgomery County, MD, I realized that towns like Bluemont should be officially preserved while they could or some day it would run the risk of being scraped off or torn down and “improved” like the old town of nearby Rockville, Maryland.
Each home in the village had to be carefully researched and traced back to its original deed. Long hours were spent in the Loudoun County Court House and Thomas Balch Library. The process was pretty tedious in the days before the internet and search engines. After the deed documentation work was completed each home had to have a written architectural description and photographs taken.
Then the real work began of going door to door and reassuring each and every home owner that being in a historic district was a good thing. I understood their concern of government overreach into their lives, but we were able to explain to them that a historic designation for Bluemont would actually be a protection from the government. It would protect Bluemont from some well meaning bureaucrat or other outside person’s “vision” for the town. Ultimately, everyone agreed and as a result of our work Bluemont became recognized as a Historic District by the United States Government, the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission and finally Loudoun County to be preserved for future generations. My family later donated the E.E Lake store to the County, which continues to be enjoyed by Bluemont Fair goers and the citizens of Bluemont.
My wife Gail and I have restored two historic homes, winning an award from the Preservation Society of Loudoun County for the restoration and preservation of the Brooks Tavern House in Bluemont. Our current home is “Catalpa Grove” near Waterford.
Since 1998, I have been a member and former officer of the Loudoun Museum Board.
There is no disconnect between conservative and conservation. As your Supervisor I will continue these efforts to preserve Loudoun’s many historic treasures.
Fair Water Rates
Families living in Potomac Station, Red Rocks, Spring Lake, and River Creek are rightfully upset about the high water bills they pay every quarter. The Town of Leesburg supplies water to all of PotomacStation, but only half of Potomac Station is located within the Town.
The half that is located outside of the Town pays an unreasonable surcharge to get its water, and their only option is to buy water from the Town. When the Town adopted the new rate schedule in August 2009 they proposed a 2% rate increase for Town residents, their voters. They also adopted surcharges for people living in Catoctin gradually increasing to 112% for water and 334% for sewer. (Leesburg Council Adopts Higher Sewer and Water Rates).
Homeowners sued the Town and succeeded at the Circuit Court level, but the town appealed.
The Virginia Supreme Court completely missed the mark when they ruled against the homeowners for allowed the surcharges on water and sewage rates for customers in Potomac Station to remain in place.
It’s almost as though they didn’t read the brief, because their decision refers to a “remedy at the ballot box” that is unavailable to these homeowners, since the surcharge is only on people who don’t vote for the Leesburg Town Council that passed the ordinance. The Town may be pleased with the decision, but I think that both the court and the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors have failed these residents.
While the Board doesn’t have direct authority to order the Town of Leesburg to drop its surcharge to a more reasonable level, there are opportunities to leverage cooperation with the Town to encourage them to do the right thing. For example, when the Town secured Loudoun County Sheriff’s Deputies as School Resource Officers, the Board could have stipulated that they reduce their surcharge to an amount agreed upon by its customers to cover the extra carrying cost.
Unfortunately, this did not happen. I will not let such an opportunity pass again.
I am also working closely with Randy Minchew in order to craft effective legislation at the state level to right this wrong. The residents east of Leesburg can count on me to advocate that they are treated fairly by the government.