Stafford business owner calls for grassroots meeting in response to BPOL tax

I received this as a comment from Crissy Sharon, owner of the Mainstreet Grill and Bar in Stafford County.  She was reacting to the Stafford Board of Supervisor’s non-Republicans imposing a BPOL tax.  After looking it over, I decided that rather than a comment, it should be a post all its own.  Thank you, Crissy, for refusiing to meekly accept this outrage.

Hello. My name is Crissy.  I own Mainstreet Grill and Bar. I started working at Mainstreet in September 2002 as a waitress, within three months I was a bartender, and then bar manager.  In September 2005, I was offered to purchase Mainstreet. Finally in January of 2006 I took over. Let me tell you I HAD NO IDEA HOW TO RUN A BUSINESS! And I am still learning everyday!

Like most small businesses Mainstreet pays alot of taxes. Sales Tax, Food Tax, Personal Property Taxes etc…Going on my 2 1/2 year mark I can say, slowly we have survived when other places have closed. My great staff and local regulars have helped us!  Two Mondays ago I got an email that was a forward of a forward of a forward from Supervisor Milde and I was amazed that I haven’t spent time finding out what had been going on in the “grassroots” of Stafford!  My husband just started a business in Stafford. He also received Mr. Milde’s email. (From a forward)  After talking with each other we decided to go to the BOS meeting. After along day at work I told my sitter I would be back in an hour!  Well we were there to the end! My husband spoke!  He told me to get up there but I was way to emotional to get up and speak.  What kind of business women would I be to sit in front of these men and cry (I mean with tears down my face) like a big baby!!!  At first I was mad at the four members of the board that voted for the BPOL. But I realize that I should also be mad at myself for not paying attention to what was going on in our county. I decided my best place to speak would be at my bar with local residents.  So since that night I have gotten on my soap box and spoke to my customers.  Not only telling them what I learned this past week but getting more information and learning more!

So I would like to get Stafford Residents involved.  I was thinking the last Tuesday of each month we can all meet at Mainstreet for a “GRASSROOTS MEETING”. This has nothing to do with “business” I’m not looking for people to come in and spend money. (And if they do spend alittle money on beer and food . . . I will just be paying more taxes to Stafford County so it works out for both of us . . . lol).  This is intended for people to come and learn (like me) and/or discuss local, commonwealth and federal issues. No matter what party you are. I would like to invite different state and local political people in here to discuss the issues.  Maybe start a Voter registration here!  I just need to get involved and the best way for me to do it is through my business.   

1st GRASSROOTS MEETING AT MAINSTREET WILL BE JULY 29 7pm-9pm (RWL Note: Address is 315 Garrisonville Road in Stafford; phone number is 540-288-9277).

“The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.”

Ronald Reagan

To th extent that anyone from Stafford reads or listens to me, I would encourage everyone to attend this meeting to let Crissy know you’re willing to help her in her efforts.

Cross-posted to Rappahannock Red

Gloucester officials indicted

Riley at VV relays the story . . .

Four of the seven Gloucester Co. board members — Supervisors Teresa Altemus (R), Michelle Ressler (Ind.), Robert “Bobby” Crewe (R) and Gregory Woodard (Ind.) – as well as the county sheriff Steve Gentry (Ind.) have been indicted for conducing public business in secret.  The BOCS members were indicted on 12 misdemeanor counts.

. . .  from the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Daily Press.

I should also note that under the provisions of HB6055, two jurisdictions previously not covered by HB3202 get a say in Hampton Roads funding as members of the HR Metro Planning Organization without paying any of the higher taxes - Gloucester and Mathews.

I can only imagine how Jim Bowden will respond to this.

Follies of the Free Lance-Black Hole

While I’ve had my eye fixed on Richmond, my local bird-cage carpet newspaper has set a new standard for shoddy journalism - and all just this morning!

Today’s edition of the Free Lance-Star - or as I prefer to call it, the Free Lance-Black Hole - includes a ridiculous editorial on SB6009S1, the State Senate bill that would impose a statewide gas tax andregional sales tax increases in Fredericksburg, Richmond, and the SWAC area.  This thrills the folks at the FLBH, but it’s fairly clear they haven’t actually read the bill (emphasis added): 

While some legislators are all too quick to pick citizens’ pockets, “‘no-new-tax’-ers” scream like stuck pigs when any revenue-enhancing suggestions are made. The reality is, we need roads, and they’re neither free nor cheap . . . while it’s true that more VDOT projects are finished on time and on budget, we’re not focusing on this question: How effective is a given project in moving traffic or easing congestion? That’s where a regional group that has power to do more than just talk would help.

I don’t know how to break it to these guys, but the money generated from the regional tax hike would not go to any regional group.  It would go to the statewide Commonwealth Transportation Board.  In effect, it’s the worst of all worlds: a tax hike that damages the region economically, an unelected bunch deciding where the money is spent, and statewide control of locally generated funds.  Other than that, it’s a fine idea.

More to the point, one would think someone at the FLBH would take the time to read the bill, just to make sure the editors weren’t talking through their hats - that is, until one came to the story on the arrests of the alleged killers of Yong Hui Zhang, at which point it would become clear that glaring errors are par for the course.

What do I mean by that?  Well, check out the paper’s story on the suspects, which included this statement on their prior records (emphasis added):

. . . neither Montgomery nor White had had previous run-ins with Fredericksburg police. An online check of court records by The Free Lance-Star turned up no criminal charges for either suspect in the Fredericksburg region or in the Tidewater area, Southampton or Sussex.

I’ll let Tim Watson take it from here (emphasis in original):

Well you guys did an excellent job of checking the independent city of Franklin**, the very jurisdiction they were arrested in!

A Jermaine Montgomery with the birthday of September 16th has been charged with the following in Franklin:

A felony charge of credit card fraud which was reduced to a misdemeanor charge of “petty [sic] larceny” which resulted in a deposition of guilty on December 3, 2007 (case number: GC07002067-00).

A felony charge for illegally obtaining a credit card number was dismissed on December 3, 2007 as well (probably a plea bargain involved there) (case number: GC07002069-00).

A pending case for a show cause for failure to pay restitution (case number: GC07002067-01).

On November 30, 2007 he was found guilty of a seat belt violation for a eight to fifteen year old as well as having no driver’s license (case numbers: GT07001731-00 & GT07001732-00). He was found not guilty of operating an uninspected vehicle (case number: GT07001732-00).

**Not to be confused with the county of Franklin, which is located in southwestern Virginia.

Ouch!

One editorial, one news stories, two glaring mistakes, one edition; it all adds up to a bad day at the Free Lance-Black Hole.

Stafford County, DE-certified as a business location since 2008

Anyone who has driven through Stafford County on  Routes 1 and 17 can’t help but notice their “A Certified Business Location” signs that adorn the county lines.

Well, I think they’re going to have to take those signs down (Rappahannock Red):

Stafford County Democrats George Schwartz, Joe Brito, Bob Woodson and Harry Crisp have approved a highly controversial businesses tax, called the Business, Professional and Occupational License or “BPOL” in a meeting that stretched until later than 3:00 am!

These liberals call it a “revenue generator” for the cash-strapped jurisdiction, but let’s be clear: RAISING TAXES IS NOT A REVENUE GENERATOR- it’s a TAX INCREASE!

Indeed it is, and there is hardly a tax more damaging than BPOL, which is a tax on revenue, not profit.  Moreover, this business crippling tax was first implemented for emergency purposes only - to let Virginia counties recover from the damage done by the War of 1812.

Yes, you read that right - the War of 1812.

So now, both anchor counties in the Fredericksburg area will be reeling from tax increases: property taxes in Spotsylvania and BPOL is Stafford.  The local economy is in deep trouble.

As for Stafford voters in particular, I would make sure they remember that all three Republicans (and only the three Republicans) on the Board voted against this monstrosity.  The people of Stafford County must remember this come November of next year.

Spotsylvania does NOT need VRE or its gas tax hike

The tax-hiking crew on the Board of Supervisors (including mine - Gary Skinner) are calling for a gas-tax hike, cleverly disguised as “VRE participation” (Free Lance-Star):

Spotsylvania County supervisors may vote on joining Virginia Railway Express by the end of the summer.

Supervisors Benjamin Pitts and Gary Skinner, who made joining the rail service a centerpiece of their campaigns last year, said this week that they are laying the groundwork for a VRE vote. Supervisor Hap Connors also supports VRE.

They need one more vote.

. . .

To join VRE, a locality must enact a 2 percent gasoline tax. After the locality pays its share of VRE operations, the leftover funds can be used on local transportation projects.

. . .

Now that gasoline has hit $4 a gallon, the sales pitch won’t be any easier.

I’ll say; 2% translates to an extra 8 cents a gallon!

Now, putting aside the question of the gas tax as a valid user fee (I’m not so sold on that), but the deeper question is this: what benefit will “joining” the VRE bring Spotsylvania.

A new station?  I doubt it.  Existing rail lines would make force a new station to be built in the extreme eastern part of the county - either along Route 2 (Tidewater Trail) or Benchmark Road.  As one of the very few Spotsylvanians who actually use the VRE, I can attest that these locations would add zero value to the users.  Unless one lives on Benchmark or Tidewater Trail themselves, the Fredericksburg station is just as close (if not closer).  So in order to the station to have enough customers to justify its existence, it would have to be outside the Primary Settlement District - i.e., in the central or western part of the county - the very place where resistance to development is strongest.  The Civil War preservationists, local environmentalists, and others who prefer the ruralia of the western part of the county have been a near-unbeatable phalanx against any kind of major development outside the PSD.  Does anyone seriously think they’ll accept railroad tracks, a commuter station, and the massive parking lots that go with it?  As John McEnroe would say, “You cannot be serious!”

So if a VRE station is simply a pipe dream, what we’re really contemplating here is another cash grab for “transportation.”  Never mind the $144 million in bonds approved in 2005, or the $2 million-plus in the Transportation “reserve fund” that seems to vanish every year for no reason.  Skinner, Pitts, and Connors want more, and with one more vote, they’ll get it.

Oddly enough, that’s the good news.  The other two “independents” won’t listen to the mob this time:

The two rural supervisors, Emmitt Marshall and T.C. Waddy, say there is nothing that will convince them that joining VRE is a good idea.

So it’s up to the Republican Supervisors (Jerry Logan and Gary Jackson).  If they are as firm on this as they were on the local budget, we’ll be spared this unnecessary tax hike.

Cross-posted to Rappahannock Red

Spotsylvania School Board slaps the taxpayers in the face

After whining for months about being cash-strapped, the Spotsylvania School Board is considering a venture that ordinary, budget-conscious people would never even contemplate (Free Lance-Star, emphasis added):

The Spotsylvania County School Board is considering allowing children of full-time employees who live out of the district to attend county schools tuition-free.

“We do see that this policy would be great for retention of our employees,” Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Brenda Seals said at last night’s School Board meeting.

Current policy requires students who aren’t Spotsylvania residents to pay tuition of roughly $2,000 a year.

Are you kidding me?

The reason non-residents pay tuition is because they don’t pay taxes here.  Thus, the tuition is their user fee.  While school system employees provide an obvious service (well, usually obvious), they’re compensated for it with their salary.  That’s the way the market works - even the market for public employees.  For the school system to even consider a fringe benefit like this after demanding a tax increase that whacked nearly $200 million from county property values is beyond mind-boggling; it’s outright offensive to the taxpayers of the county.

If the school system is having such a hard time getting and keeping employees, perhaps they should consider attriting the jobs in question and save the taxpayer some money, for once.

Cross-posted to Rappahannock Red

I’d be remiss not to mention this

The good guys won the Augusta County War (SWAC Girl).

Now the taxpayers of Augusta can be assured that the local GOP committee won’t stand by if the Supervisors try to use raised assessments as cover for a backdoor tax increase.

Dr. Hill’s weapon of mass distraction may soon be launched

Down here in Spotsylvania, local politics took an entertaining turn when Schools Superintendent Dr. Jerry Hill demanded certain documents for a possible lawsuit against “unknown parties” (Free Lance Star) who had him charged with violating election law - in particular, campaigning against a school bond measure in 2005 on account of it being too small to feed his political ego.  Last week, he got the documents he wanted.  The next step is up to him.

Now, as a good Spotsy Republican, I know I’m supposed to attack everything Dr. Hill does, but truth be told, I never thought prosecuting him was a good idea.  I honestly have trouble with the law itself (county employees are not allowed to comment on bond issues).  If it doesn’t violate the letter of the First Amendment, it certainly violates its spirit.  Besides, voters are smart enough to know the bias behind any public employee who opens his/her mouth on a subject like that.  Attempting to silence Dr. Hill accomplished nothing but gain him sympathy he didn’t deserve, and give him an excuse to possible file a lawsuit.

More importantly, it’s been a huge distraction from something far more important, namely, Dr. Hill’s terrible record as superintendent.

I just happen to have the latest (2007) SOL results for the Spostylvania (you, dear reader, can access any county you like here).  Spotsylvania had 34 subject categories to track against the state.  It was below the statewide performance on 24 of them.  For the heck of it, I also downloaded Stafford County’s numbers.  Of the 31 subject categories that applied to both counties, Stafford outperformed Spotsy in 24 of them (77%).  Stafford managed to wax Spostylvania despite spending less to operate a school system with more students (the test files include student population, for actual 2007 levels, here’s Spotsy, on page one, and here’s Stafford, on page 247). 

So far, there has been no discussion within the School Board about Dr. Hill’s performance as superintendent (I know, I checked the minutes).  The lack of accountability is deeply disturbing.  If Spotsylvanians focused on this, we would be far better off - especially the children we trust to him to educate.  Instead, the paper gives us the latest on Dr. Hill’s will-he-sue-or-won’t-he soap opera, even as he ignores his own record and wins a property-value-crippling tax increase from the Board of Supervisors (FLS).  Even without unsheathing it, Dr. Hill’s weapon of mass distraction has, tragically, been very effective.

Cross-posted to Rappahannock Red

The further importance of the Augusta County War

As I have chronicled the fight for the Augusta County GOP Chair, I have generally held to the opinion that the question of who was actually chair was not as important as the strength of the low-tax Republican activists, which had only been enhanced by this debacle and would certainly send tax-hiking cipher Emmett Hanger packing in 2011.  Of course, as someone who is a good two hours from Augusta by car, I would think of the statewide implications first.

There is, however, one local consequence of the Augusta County War that I hadn’t considered until SWAC Girl posted the list of Republican elected officials who backed Hanger’s choice (Larry Roller) - a local consequence that actually makes it imperative that Roller and Hanger lose.

If one looks at the list SWAC Girl provided, one will find four local Supervisors.  Since Augusta has a seven-member Board, that means a Board majority has aligned itself with the tax-hiking Hanger.  At first, this may sound largely immaterial from a policy perspective, but that could all change come next year’s budget.

Augusta, as I understand it, does its tax reassessment every four years; the next one is due in 2009.  Therefore, next year’s budget will be the first one with a new assessment.  Assuming property values rise (and that’s not an entirely safe assumption - what with two “up” years preceding two “down” years statewide), the local Supervisors could be in the position to pass a de facto tax increase that doesn’t look like a tax increase.  Here in Spotsylvania, Supervisors had been pulling that off for years until the turn of the century, when a new batch of more tax-conscious members began putting the public’s focus on the equalized tax rate, not the previous rate.  Thus the maintaining of the 62 cent tax rate here was seen as the tax increase it really was (the equalization rate was 56 cents).

Now, I don’t know the political culture of Augusta County that well, but I do know that local officials would prefer not to make difficult budget decisions if they don’t have to do so.  That’s where the GOP Chair is of utmost importance.

See, if assessments go up (or even if they don’t), the Augusta Board will face tremendous pressure to increase taxes.  As we learned here in Spotsylvania, most Democrats and “independents” will fold like cheap suits under that kind of pressure.  The question for Augusta is this: what will the Republicans do?

Unless I seriously miss my guess, odds are that under Kurt Michael (or his political heir), the local GOP will do everything it can to hold the Supervisors’ feet to the fire come next spring.  Roller and his backers are another matter; after all, their factional “leader,” if you will, has backed four different tax increases in the last five years.

In other words, the resolution of the GOP Chairman issue will likely have a direct bearing on each and every Augustan’s tax bill next year.  With Roller in charge, Supervisors will have a green light to raise taxes; with Michael’s supporters in charge, they will know a tax increase puts their political future at risk.  I would suspect that at least a few of the elected officials who openly backed Roller are already planning for the tax increase to come.

For Augusta Republicans and taxpayers, this is of paramount importance, and it is why they should hope and pray Michael wins.  If he doesn’t, the grass-roots effort to prevent a tax increase must begin the moment Roller is installed as Chairman.  Either way, the choice is clear - the temperature around the four Republican Supervisors must rise, or the taxes of Augustan homeowners will rise.

Dear Gary (Skinner), Hap, Emmitt, and Ben (Part II)

Just in case you didn’t get the message from the low-tax candidates winning in Chesapeake, take a look at Waynesboro (News-Virginian, emphasis added, h/t Spank That Donkey and Yankee Philip):

The man who changed the face of the City Council began guiding his pickup truck through Waynesboro at 6 a.m. Wednesday, retrieving the signs of his success.

Supporters such as Tom Reider rode with Bruce Allen in the councilman-elect’s well-worn red Sierra GMC, dents in its side, stopping numerous times, picking up the “Allen for Council” signs, also tossing in those advertising council ally Frank Lucente.

Allen, 55, joked that Lucente – seven years his senior – was getting too old to be picking up his own signs.

Those two, along with Councilman Tim Williams spent late Tuesday celebrating after a landslide election victories. Allen and Lucente hauled in more than 61 percent of the vote in a pair of three-way races. Williams ran unopposed.

Their wins gave the fiscal conservatives majority control of the council.

So we have yet another example of the voters turfing a spendthrift local majority in favor of candidates who understand the damage high taxes and profligate spending can bring.

Notice a pattern, gentlemen?

Cross-posted to Rappahannock Red