VA 10th District Congressional Candidates

As a public service, here are links to the official websites for the four candidates:

Frank Wolf - Incumbent
Judy Feder
Neeraj Nigam
Bill Wood

Please study up what you want and their issues and records and decide for yourself. If party is more important than issues or records, then go vote based on party affiliation. As an American, please go vote. I will - even though I haven't quite made up my mind yet on the four choices above.

Another Algonkian Park Scene

Whitetail Deer in Algonkian Park

House Prices in County Drop

I had heard that single family houses in areas around Leesburg have dropped as much as $100,000 from their peak last year. For those of you that sold then, my congratulations. For those of you that bought then... I'll keep my mouth shut.

Here's a article on the market. Read it and anticipate.

The thing that will be more telling next is that assesments should automatically go down and that will mean less property taxes for the county. That tells me that someone is going to start yelling about the shortfall for OUR children's education.

Why am I not surprised?

Shootings

Yes I am very late with this news but I am glad that the Loudoun county sheriff has made some arrests on all those houses that were shot a few weeks ago. Based on the local media, there didn't seem to be a tangible connection to MS-13 as initially suspected. I for one, am glad of that. Nevertheless, if you want to know why I am so worried about MS-13, then here's a wikipedia extract

The gangs have moved from beyond their Salvadoran, Mexican and Los Angeles origins and can be found now in Belize, West Honduras, Guatemala, Canada, Mexico, and over 30 U.S. states, especially around Washington, DC in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs

Check out the whole Wikipedia entry.

Curious About the new Goodyear?

At first it was Great American, then it became Shell, now it is Goodyear. You may know what I mean if you live anywhere near Algonkian Park. I was hoping it was going to be better than the last 2 occupants... here go read about it yourself based on another Sterling resident's experience and decide for yourself.

Racism and Bigotry Alive and Well in Loudoun County

You might look at the demographics of Loundoun county and conclude that it is an affluent, educated and cosmopolitan county and you would be right. However, if today has taught me anything, it teaches me that even in an area such as this, there will always be those select individuals that are bigoted and will say things to their spouses (but not in your face strangely enough) that your class or identity is "making a mess of the country."

If anything, it makes me sad that such beliefs still pervade in Loudoun County even among the educated and affluent. If all the issues and news and discussions in the media and schools and town hall meetings have not helped this person to realize how incorrect they are, there is absolutely nothing you or I can ever do to change their minds.

Bulletholes in Sterling

Unless you have been on another planet recently, you might have heard of the drive by shootings in Sterling - specifically Sterling Boulevard. They don't know who is responsibile and it was all done at night. As many as nine houses were hit with multiple bullets and one man went to the hospital as a result.

It may or may not be related in any way to the occupants of those homes - my guess is that they were partly random. What may be a good hunch by some law enforcement officers is that they were possibly done by gangs such as MS-13 to prove a point since gang activity has not been ignored by the Sherrif's department the last couple of years.

Let's hope they manage to stop this one early.

DMV Serving Sterling

I don't know about your experiences but my personal experience with the DMV on Sterling Boulevard have been pretty good. They have a system which works much better than a few years ago and they have staff which seemed more understanding of my personal situation than the typical government employee. They did try harder and help me with my problem better. So, I don't know if anyone of them will read this but I want to say "Thanks".

Cattails

Somewhere in Loudoun County

Thinking of buying from Circuit City?

Want an honest retailer for electronics? Perhaps Circuit City isn't one of them.

Housing Market Levelling Off

Here's some news that the housing market is cooling off. Even then, I really hate to see my next property tax bill.

If you're thinking of buying, now seems to be a much more reasonable time than a year ago. You'll have more to choose from and not have to hurry. It is still winter so things are slower. If I could though, I'd consider moving to Clarke County but that is another story.

From a few winters ago

Get ready for a huge tax bill

If any of you have read any of the local newspapers of Loudoun county, you know that the next property tax bill is going to be huge. The one number I keep remembering is that if we lower the tax rate to $0.91 from the current $1.05 that our tax bill is STILL going to go up by 25% due to the huge assesments increase.

Now is the time to let your Board of Supervisors know that you can't afford this kind of tax bill. Can you imagine what it will be if it REMAINS at $1.05?

Elections Finally Over

Tuesday was the day for special elections for the 33rd District in Virginia which includes a good chunk of Loudoun, parts of western Fairfax and Leesburg. The end result was Democrat candidate Herring won by a large margin. For reasons that go beyond this blog, the Republicans were not successful. You can go to Too Conservative for more opinions on what went wrong for the Republicans.

The signs are starting to disappear so our sidewalks and medians should look more normal shortly. I suspect that the bumper stickers will stay around for a while.

Yet Another Loudoun County Growth Paper

I came across an interesting paper that talks about growth in Loudoun County. The one line that stood out for me was:

County officials contend that the costs of infrastructure required to serve the population inflow exceeds the revenues generated, thus threatening the county’s fiscal soundness.

That brings up the obvious question. If it is going to cost more to support new homes/families under your current fiscal model than you collect in taxes, why do you want to allow another house to be built when it drives you deeper into debt? Put another way, if you were in the business of making a product and selling them and your next one was going to cost more to make than you get selling it, why bother making it at all?

The paper is in PDF format and can be found as the first item in a google search.

Now you see them now you don't

Funny thing driving around in Loudoun county. It seems that the campaign signs for Mick Staton and Mark Herring appear almost like flowers blooming for a few days. Then a few disappear at some places and then the rest disappears in many other places. Too strange if you ask me.

Also, it is awfully cold weather too to be putting up those signs and taking them down. Those campaign workers sure do work awfully hard.

Political Calls

So what happened recently in Loudoun County. Simply put, two Republican candidates had a primary and one won. Mick Staton goes on to compete against Herring to represent the 33rd District in Richmond.

So, what is it like to make phone calls for a political candidate? Curiosity got the better of me so I got into it. Actually, someone else got me into it but that is another story. I made a couple of calls and managed to get an arrangement for my modest volunteer effort. A date and time and location were set and I turned up.

It was the typical one to two floor office/industrial mix area with a brick exterior. Campaign signs adored part of the outside and there were a few cars parked in front of the entrance. I knocked and someone came to open it. We introduced ourselves and talked a bit. The head honcho introduced me to a couple of other people and gave me a bit of orientation on the phone list, codes to write depending on the result of the call, the call script for interaction with a real human being as well as one for the answering machine. The last thing was a comparison table between their candidate and the other.

The scripts themselves were simplicity itself although I changed it a bit to suit the way I spoke. The rules were to try to find out if the callee would be turning up to vote and supporting their candidate or not. You write down the result code on the phone list and went on to the next number.

The first thing that struck me was that many phone numbers were wrong numbers. Some of the data was old and people move within Loudoun county a lot as well as move out of the district or the state. Well, obviously the database needs to be updated after all this is over so that things can be more efficient in the future. I hope they're listening...

The phones were kind of neat. They were brand new and were VoIP phones. They were connected by computer LAN cable to a network switch on the floor. The cables were all taped down by some type of duct tape to the carpet so we wouldn't trip over them. There were chips and soda if you wanted it. The atmosphere was basically relaxed since everyone was a volunteer. Nice people too.

So, what were the more interesting calls like?

Me: Hi, I am .... calling for _candidate_ for Senate for the 33rd district. _candidate_ is the _list of qualities_ candidate in this race.
Callee: Oh really! _CLICK_

Me: Will you be voting in this primary?
Callee: That's my business.
.....

Me: Hello, may I speak with _John Doe_ please?
Callee: _String of Spanish phrases_
Me: I see. Thank you.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience although as a geek I wish they were more efficient though. I also found out that not all callers were necessarily from this district or county. It seems that many volunteers may actually support someone not in their district if they agree with their positions.

Well, the election will be on the 31st. I hope that all of you in the 33rd district will go out to vote regardless of your party affiliation and enjoy your rights as American citizens. There are too many people in this world that can't even voice an opinion without being afraid for their lives.

More news on Loudoun County development on WaPo

Here it is. A pretty good overview of sorts in the WaPo
about more proposed development in Loudoun County. Thanks to Virginia Centrist for blogging about this. I'll leave it up to you to decide if it is good or bad. On the other hand, there is this other article about how Americans feel about more real estate development in their home areas.

Are You a Republican in 33rd District?

For those of you that just recently returned home from your vacation to Mars, there is a Republican firehouse primary on the 16th this month for Bill Mim's senate seat in Richmond. The two competing for the Republican nomination are Mick Staton and Randy Minchew.

Mick Statson's website is www.mickstaton.com

Randy Minchew's is at www.minchew.org

This not being a political blog, I'll stay away from commenting. There are tons of VA political blogs around.

All the Kings Horses... could not fix Independence Air

You can see some of their offices on Shaw Road in Sterling near Herndon. I always did think that their work trucks with the big T-tail fins with the words "FLYi" on them were a great marketing concept but I wondered how the vehicles would drive in high winds. In a twisted sense, I guess on the freeway when there were no winds, that they stayed pretty straight.

Too bad that today's news was that Independence Air was shutting down. Customer satisfaction was great but the financial numbers were in the dumps. They thought they could go it alone without United but they were wrong. Great ideas, great spirit, great motivation but lousy numbers on the load factors and cash flow. It was only a matter of time.

I'm going to miss them.

Go over to my other blog at Rational Politics for my opinions on the actual root cause for this happening.