There Goes the Neighborhood
May 28th, 2008 by Joe HillThis week, the Fairfax County School Board threatened to sue the Army:
The top elected school official in Fairfax County said the system may sue to force the Army to recognize that an upcoming job influx at Fort Belvoir will bring a flood of new students.
This is pretty petty to start with. Although the County projects that next year’s school population growth of 3,541 (not all of which is due to the base realignment) will require “an additional $22 million in spending and 358 new positions,” the overall impact on the County’s economy will clearly be positive:
- Over 20,000 jobs (net) will be moved into the county.
- 6.2 million square feet of office space will be built in the county.
- $3.8 billion will be spent on construction within the county, supporting nearly 8500 employees per year over 5 years.
That kind of economic stimulus is why counties are usually upset when their bases are closed, not when a base moves in.
Ok, I understand that Fairfax County is just trying to shake down the Federal Government for as much money as it can get. That’s ugly, but hardly unprecedented. But they need to understand how bad it looks when they welcome illegal immigrants with open arms, but give the cold shoulder to the Army.
You see, as discussed before on this blog, Fairfax County is a sanctuary county for illegal immigrants. When asked about his stance on illegal immigration, Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald Connolly explained, “I can just tell you Fairfax County is not going to go the route of some of our neighbors. We’re not going to demagogue. We’re not going to essentially roll back the welcome mat.” [Emphasis added]
Thanks to this welcome mat, 623 children of illegal immigrants moved from schools in Prince William County (which has begun cracking down on illegal immigrants) to Fairfax County schools last year.
Now, I’m not saying that Fairfax County should close its schools to the children of illegal immigrants. For one thing, it would be illegal to do so. But clearly, Fairfax County has made a choice to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration, and even to trumpet its commitment to welcoming any and all, and that approach is responsible for an influx of new students.
Which just makes it all the more galling then while they welcome people who entered the country illegally, they cry poverty when the Army moves in with thousands of jobs in tow. The message seems to be that the children of illegal immigrants are welcome to Fairfax County schools, but the children of our fighting men and women are not.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
[…] This is way too good to pass up: [This] just makes it all the more galling then while [Fairfax County] welcome people who entered the country illegally, they cry poverty when the Army moves in with thousands of jobs in tow. The message seems to be that the children of illegal immigrants are welcome to Fairfax County schools, but the children of our fighting men and women are not. […]
May 29th, 2008 at 7:49 am
What has always intrigued me is why the school board and others won’t acknowledge that, of the 19,300 jobs being shifted to Fort Belvoir from elsewhere in the NCR, approximately 18,800 of them are occupied by people who already live in the region. Even most of the 8,500 NGA folks whose jobs are moving to EPG from Bethesda and other NCR locales already live in Northern Virginia. For a GREAT many of these folks, their jobs are actually moving CLOSER to where they live. So our expectation is that they will NOT move their homes or transfer their kids.
As most folks in this region realize when they actually think it through, we all live at the “seat of government.” There are more federal employees concentrated here than are concentrated anywhere else, because this is where their job is. To work here, as we all know, we live all over the place, from Richmond and beyond to the South, to Baltimore and beyond to the north. Unlike what BRAC is doing in other parts of the country (El Paso is getting 23,000 people in at Fort Bliss, all of whom really are coming from way outside that region, most of ‘em bringing along at least two kids and at least two cars), in THIS region, BRAC is just shuffling jobs around in a giant “shell game.”
One more thing: it’s important to ANY discussion of BRAC impact here to consider that the very same BRAC law REMOVES from this region another 14,500 DOD jobs to places like Texas, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, etc. We can’t be concerned with how many kids BRAC will bring TO our schools without also giving equal consideration to what it will take FROM the schools - yet another point that seems to escape some people.
Don Carr, Director of Public Affairs, Fort Belvoir
May 29th, 2008 at 7:51 am
[…] of the Fairfax County government that illegal aliens are more welcome than the U.S. Military? Sure seems that way: This week, the Fairfax County School Board threatened to sue the Army. … This is pretty petty […]
May 30th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
[…] Thanks to this welcome mat, 623 children of illegal immigrants moved from schools in Prince William County (which has begun cracking down on illegal immigrants) to Fairfax County schools last year…. Source: There Goes the Neighborhood […]
June 1st, 2008 at 5:49 pm
[…] Obamessiah, people. Via a long chain of blogs I ended up at this post, which points out an interesting contrast in the priorities of the lovely Fairfax County, VA. This […]
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:48 am
We live in Fairfax County. Connolly’s recent statements that he wants Fairfax County to be a “welcoming county” might be a little different if he had to contend with this:
Every weekend in good weather, the school playground behind us is used from dawn till dusk by various soccer leagues.
Every weekend, I have to call the Fairfax County Police to ask them to visit the playground/parking lot to get the boom box owners to turn them down to a dull roar. Lots of loud music and drums.
At each call, I ask the police to check whether the various vendors set up have licenses to sell food.
As the year goes on, the playground becomes nothing but dust from the overuse, dust that infiltrates all the houses around. Fairfax County taxpayers get to foot the bill every year as the county repairs this playground.
At the end of every weekend, I clean up my back yard of the cans, plastic bags, food wrappers, etc. the soccer leaguers throw around. The playground is a mess.
I also find used condoms, Mexican beer bottles, and other such items along the back fence of the playground.
Not infrequently, I have to shout at soccer leaguers who are defecating and urinating along the back fence in the bushes, just over the fence from my property. I keep my camera ready so I can get pictures of the perps but so far, I haven’t been able to get one good enough to identify the people who seem to think is is OK to do this in public.
In good weather, the school parking lot is becoming increasingly more popular with people who drive expensive cars, make a lot of engine noise, and seem to show up at very late hours. Hmmmm…I wonder what they are doing out so late on work nights?
A drive down Little River Turnpike in either direction, towards Fairfax City, or towards Alexandria, especially in front of the 7-11’s or shopping malls, is a tour along a street somewhere in Mexico. Hundreds of males in work clothing waiting for someone to hire them as day laborers.
I got a call one night from one of our daughters who was playing tennis at a local Fairfax County tennis court that a group of “ethnic” teenagers were throwing bottles at them over the court fence. When I showed up with camera in hand, they shouted obscenities at me, threw more debris, and retreated back along the path through the woods to the townhouses where apparently they live.
My kids graduated from one of the most ethnically-mixed high schools in Fairfax County. They got along just fine with every ethnic group but the Latinos who, for some reason, seemed to think it was completely acceptable to make lewd and crude remarks to our daughters as they walked from class to class. They had no such problems with the blacks, asians, or any other ethnic group. Why the Latinos? Why do they think this is acceptable?
So, Connolly wants to run on that kind of record? He’s not getting my vote. In fact, he is going to get my active and strenuous opposition. I don’t know where he lives, but I suspect it is not in one of Fairfax County’s rapidly deteriorating neighborhoods.
He’s a true liberal - his immediate interests are not being put at risk by his “welcoming” policies. We don’t need any more like him in Congress. We already have more than this country can bear.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I live in Fairfax County. We are like so many Military Families Homeowners in Fairfax County and we pay a “pretty penny” to Fairfax County in Real Estate Taxes TOO. In essence every homeowner pays Taxes to Fairfax County.
In addition reading Don Carr’s response, Fairfax County should not be in any money trouble at all, at least not created by moving Military! The economy makes money off it!
I am ashamed of those Fairfax County Leaders!
Illegals have a higher status than our defending legal Forces?