Well, the crafty old man has pulled another fast one on you, my loyal readers. See, while all of you were distracted with real life I nonchalantly blended into the stream of rush hour traffic on a sunny friday afternoon and decamped south. Indeed, I snuck out of town to attend a field hockey tournament at Lynchburg College. The OHS field hockey team was there for a day-long tournament.
At the risk of another “Miami Episode” I’ll say that Lynchburg isn’t a bad place. It kinda reminds me of Roanoke although, on the fringe, it looks a lot like parts of NoVa. For whatever reason, having at least 3 and maybe more colleges hasn’t transformed Lynchburg into a hip little mountain town. Mr. Falwell may have something to do with that…dunno…whatever the fact of the matter, both are relatively small conservative southern towns. I like them. They have an incredibly strong sense of community. of “self”. From a visitors point of view, Roanoke’s vision…or maybe identity seems a bit more cohesive. However, both have significant problems as well. Outside their central cores, zoning is kind of crazy – gas stations next to houses – and there is quite a bit of run-down almost blighted property. That part I don’t like so much.
Manassas has this kind of identity or “self”. It’s changed over the past couple of years but it is still here. I know it’s here because through all we’ve endured, people still care and argue passionately about this place. Go look at the previous post: 100+ comments. That’s not a community where nobody gives a crap. People call me, they come to my house and setup grand plans to take over the governement. People that don’t care don’t do stuff like that. People call us “Manaxico” and “Manassashole”, hell, I called it “The Jungle” but many of those same people aren’t leaving.
Now we all join arms and sing songs right? Not exactly. I have a confession: I like that Fairfax has killer schools. I want to live in a place that has killer schools. I like that central market in Roanoke. I like that Fairfax and Prince William have tons of infrastructure for public recreation. I want great schools and great recreation in my town. I want to maintain that sense of place and identity. We’re doing none of this. At all. In fact, the leadership of the city is very busy in making our town compare ever more poorly with our neighbors.
However, there is one bright spot: Our tax burden is the lowest in the region. A great example of how that is helping us is that the “Fashion Fantasy” adult store has closed and been replaced by a “we buy gold” store. Let me put it to you like this: have you ever encountered someone who said, “well, we were going to move to Prince William so we could enroll our child in the Science and Tech high school but taxes were a couple hundred bucks cheaper in Manassas so we moved there.” Ever heard that? Me either.
None of this is an argument to raise taxes. I don’t want to pay more tax than I have to. I also own a business in the City so I pay almost every tax we have. I’m arguing that we’re always having the wrong conversation: let’s figure out what we want Manassas to be and figure out how to make it happen. Our ambitions are clearly limited by our means but we need to set those goals so, when resources are available, we make strategic choices that everyone understands.