Our “friends” in Richmond have passed a compromise bill that aims to solve the transportation crisis.  The bill is an odd mix of local taxes, regional transportation authorities and regional taxes.  Many people are prepared to accept a solution at any cost.  Others are completely opposed to the provisions of the bill.  Overall, it is not a promising mix of politics and policy.

One of the more controversial parts of the plan includes regional transportation authorities that can levy taxes.  For my part, I am not crazy about having a regional authority that has taxing authority.  I believe that taxing authority should be located as close as possible to those paying the taxes.  The local governments have to decide whether or not to participate.  The way the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority is organized, a majority of the participants have to agree to enact the taxes.  Manassas will have a vote but the general sentiment seems to be that the votes are there to enact the taxing authority with or without us.  This being the case, voting against it might only serve to aggrevate those larger jurisdictions that seem to support the idea.

What does everyone out there think?

Help save Manassas indeed. I was tied up in a Historic Resources meeting last night so I didn’t make the HSM meeting but I hear that it was well attended. I’m glad for this and here’s why: At the height of the crack epidemic we had terrible problems in GeorgeTown South (GTS). The council decided to take back that community from the criminals and discovered a crucial lesson: despite a lot of tough talk, Government has limited efficacy in such situations unless the citizens are involved. This is the light that I view HSM in.

Although overcrowding complaints have dropped, there are still siginificant problems in Manassas. The City Council has moved pretty quickly to shift to proactive zoning enforcement and the creation of a street crimes unit but unless people are willing to pitch in, government will never be able to do it all. When I say “pitch in” I am not minimizing their efforts to a clean up detail either. It is my belief that government works best when it has more input from citizens instead of less. Surely there is an element of “elbow grease” that could go a long ways but input; ideas, discussion and the sharing of information are even more important.

It is my hope that HSM will provide this conduit for citizen input, a forum for new ideas and practical two-way discussions that will help the government respond to problems that we all face.