All: Please note that Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) Chairman Corey Stewart, who leaves office at the end of December 2019, is making a last-ditch effort to get approval over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays for 516 more houses on Devlin Road. Cynically, he thinks no one will notice or have time over the holidays to stop him, especially since he’s trying at the 19 November BOCS meeting to get the final vote scheduled to come up after midnight on 3 December.
For more info, see: https://thederecho.blogspot.com/2019/11/its-lame-duck-christmas.html
(This proposal resurrects a part of the very unpopular and previously-defeated Brentswood and Stone Haven proposals for Devlin Road. Ironically, Stewart, then Occoquan Supervisor, played a key role in defeating Brentswood, which helped propel him a year later (2007) to election as the BOCS chairman.)
So, once again, Chairman Stewart is putting the interests of his residential developer cronies — who’ve now given him almost $1.5M (see http://vpap.org) — above the need to reduce school and road overcrowding and keep our taxes low (by avoiding tax-negative residential development.) He clearly has no qualms about disturbing the peace of your Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with his personal need to pay off old political debts. Furthermore, by doing all this, he is yet again showing his enmity and vindictiveness toward the very people who elected him to office to serve the county and the greater public good, but who never saw fit to help him realize his fondest dream of statewide elected office.
Stewart’s two-step plan is to pass a resolution at the 19 November BOCS meeting to hold an evening meeting on 3 December (currently no such meeting is planned) to approve the 516 houses on Devlin. Despite Brentsville Supervisor Jeanine Lawson’s, citizens’, and reportedly even county Planning Staff’s objections — unmistakably strong, and growing, public opposition — to his hasty, ill-advised, and desperate last-minute attempt, Stewart has persisted. He has persisted in abusing his authority as BOCS chairman and disrespected the other BOCS members — as well as established county procedure — by already placing the obligatory, advance-notice 3 December public hearing signs on Devlin Road, before the public hearing has even been approved by the full BOCS. (See photo above.)
Please let the BOCS know, before it’s too late, that you oppose this sneaky, cynical, and entirely self-serving effort by lame-duck Chairman Stewart that harms all county citizens, especially those who live in the Brentsville and Gainesville districts. ACTION REQUESTED: Forward this message, or your own message, asking the BOCS to reject on 19 November a special meeting on 3 December regarding Devlin Road that will harm you, the county’s schoolchildren, taxpayers, commuters. Here’s the collective BOCS email address: BOCS@pwcgov.org
Yours truly,
Ralph & Kathy Stephenson
Prince William Citizens for Balanced Growth
Only in the bright light of public scrutiny can the common good be secured,
while in darkness and obscurity the interests of the powerful and affluent prevail.
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