I attend many meetings during the course of the year. Like most things in life, some I like, some are tolerable and some I despise. My favorite meetings tend to be citizen meetings. Getting feedback from citizens helps the government work better. When the government works better, people are happier and my job gets easier. It isn’t always a straight line between citizen input and the government working better but if nobody knows what’s broken, it is not possible to fix it.
This brings me to my point: if you see something that concerns you in your neighborhood, please call the City to report it. If you are uncomfortable turning in one of your neighbors, call me and I’ll help you out. One run-down property breeds more. One area that seems tolerant of abusive behaviour will attract more of it. Please, please, please call the City to report these infractions. Don’t wait. Your tax dollars make the City go – you pay for it so make use of it!
I’ll create a page that has phone numbers on it later today
September 2, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Andy –
I agree with your advice, unfortunately my experience with the city’s responsiveness has been unsatisfactory. There have been numerous occasions when I’ve called and gotten an answering machine and no one returned my call. On others, I’ve gotten a live person and there was no followup.
If you advise folks to call the city, a reasonable expectation is that something will be done. When it isn’t, then why bother calling.
September 2, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Andy… God bless you, but the resources simply are not there (despite your heroic efforts for the measly addition of one zoning inspector). Drive around town. Can you honestly say that any aspect of city services today is equal to what it was even fiver years ago? Look at the cracked pavement, the grass growing in the seems of the sidewalks, the poor quality of asphalt patches, the ramshackle appearance of city signs, the parched and dead landscaping… all signs of decline (I won’t even mention city school test scores, or the 10-15% decline in real estate values). if you really want to demonstrate leadership, then you need to start knocking heads together on the City Council to help them understand the reality of our situation… in order to maintain services at a level that even approximates what we’ve been used to, the City will probably have to raise the real estate tax rate by at least 15% next year (and that’s probably conservative). It is your obligation to ready the City for this necessity. Manassas is crumbling. No cuts in services can possibly be justified, given that the City is sinking as it is. please think long and hard about this…. not just ideologically, but as someone who actually intends to stay here. I worry that your colleagues will react with the usual (bad taxes) rhetoric, and in so doing will simply, practically, accelerate the devolution of Manassas. It is not preordained, however.
September 2, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Forgot to mention that Manassas is the foreclosure capitol of Virginia…. time for a Marshall Plan for Manassas, unless we’ve just given up on the whole thing.
September 3, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Hey, Andy. I understand Manassas has adopted Section 404 of the Property Maintenance Code that defines overcrowding limits for one- and two-family homes. It specifies minimum square footage for living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms per # of occupants living in a home. How is this being enforced now with the Overcrowding Task Force, as far as you know?
September 3, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Section 404 is what they have been using all along, nothing new. All you need to do is do what I did and call and they will be happy to explain it to you. May not be the best solution, but it is what the city is mandated to use.
September 4, 2007 at 7:49 am
Dave, I’ll have to check on it. I can’t lay my hands on my copy of the Property maintenance code right now. I do know that we use the property maintenance code in conjunction with the state fire code to conduct overcrowding inspections. The biggest change that I recall to either of these two documents is that the state fire code was ameded to eliminate the kitchen and bathroom(s) from the living space calculation.
September 4, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Why I don’t call more often to complain (there are probably a few others in the city by now like me)? Here are a few reasons.
A car with a For Sale sign has been parked in the middle of the front yard at the residence on the corner of Bayberry and Liberia for at least a week. This is a main thorough fare, entry and exit to the city.
I called Manassas City Police — Parking Enforcement, Monday September 3, 2007 in the afternoon and left a message. Tuesday morning I got a message on my answering machine from a Zoning Inspector (pass the potatoe please cuz it’s not my job, man) by the name of Carlos who said he had indeed seen the car Tuesday a week ago on his way out of town and again today. He said he would speak to the owner and if it had not sold in a week to 10 days, he would tell the owner to move it, but it was perfectly legal to sell a car from your residence….???!!! Now of course, those of us who have a clue know the issue is that the city out and out BANNED parking vehicles on the front and side lawns of residences way back in August of 2003. Somehow this little fact escaped the City Zoning Inspector responsible for enforcement of Property Maintenance and Parking…and evidently Parking Enforcement at the City PD doesn’t handle parking enforcement on residential lawns…??
If Manassas police actually ever patrol the area (a main thorough fare through town mind you), how could this sight be missed? Why didn’t they initiate some action on their part, and call zoning or parking? What about the city maintenance crews? Any number of city workers could be briefed on the most common violations and call them in. Or is reporting all the various sundry zoning violations ENTIRELY dependent on the initiative and/or knowledge of private citizens?
I have come to the conclusion that those responsible for enforcement
in the city must A) be vision impaired or plain fools B) think we the citizens are plain fools and mislead us on purpose C) just don’t know their job, have no supervision, and make it up as they go along. I can’t think of another option.
September 4, 2007 at 6:57 pm
And by the way, WHY is City of Manassas the ONLY jurisdiction between here and Timbuktu that does NOT provide email communication capability for city council and their constituents? Seriously, every other jurisdiction in Northern Virginia provides this for promote communication between the elected and electorate. It would be nice to get into the 21st century…
September 5, 2007 at 4:46 am
Dave,
Sounds like you missed attending the Land-Use committee where our Chief of Police, Skinner, exposed the master plan of “discretionary enforcement”.
He admitted there are not enough officers to enforce AND not all laws are enforceable and/or know by officers! He did say they get to the BIG ones. Shocking news to most of us out here. But this is not a local problem. IT’S NATIONAL!!!!!
September 5, 2007 at 10:52 am
Frankly, it’s not really a question of resources. The manpower is there.
However, for my taxdollars, I would like to see the City workforce and its “discretionary” work policy reduced to TWO (2) contract, on-call individuals. I’d bet we’d get better results then what we see from the overbloated bureacracy we have ….
September 5, 2007 at 10:55 pm
John Titus… God bless you as well. But, brother, you are clueless. The Manassas City government, including the Police Department, is a shoestring operation. You’ve gotten what you pay for, which is very little. Bloated government in Manassas? You’re smoking crack, or maybe banana peels. If you think your taxes are bad in Manassas, then you are truly and completely out of touch. I think there are a couple of counties in the western Appalachians that may have cheaper taxes than Manassas… please go there, or alternately, make a little more money to invest in your community. You and those like you are the very reason that the United States is devolving so rapidly… you are all mouth and no pride or patriotism. Your shriveled wallet essentially speaks for you, alas.
September 8, 2007 at 7:30 am
Andy, don’t you have anything to say about this? For God’s sake, you have to know that any time you walk into a room everyone begins whispering… what happened to Andy… he was one of us, a solid citizen, a good boy who understands our history, and a guy who wants to raise his family in the best tradition. Then, apocaliptically, you through in with the “messianic, Jesus is on his way soon for the second coming, so who cares about life on Earth, so who gives a f*ck about your neighbor crowd. it can not be a mystery to you why your own family distances itself from you. WAKE UP. Who do you really care about? What do you want your life to mean? Are you a Christian? If so, what does that really mean to you? Are you a builder or a destroyer? is there such a thing as value for money, or is the penultimate value that you accrue maximum money to yourself? What about your values as they relate to community and to country? The truth is…. a lot of folks in Manassas view you as the ultimate sell-out (a sucker for the ideologues, who will leave Manassas when they decide that their ideology backfired, somehow, and that the Town’s become a shithole). Will you and your family bail out when the bottom falls out, or do you intend to stick it out? If you intend to stay, then you had better change your stripes. A lot of the “establishment” Republicans hate you with a passion that is difficult to express. Rightly. The loser, mean, petty, gross, so-called republican newcomers have made you their bitch. Please be a man and regain your footing.
September 8, 2007 at 7:45 am
Andy… that was a vent. let me put my question to you more directly. In the context of what’s going on in Manassas today, as a Republican standard-bearer, how would you describe your values and priorities in a practical sense? what about the tension between taxes and public services? Where do you stand? Is there a moral and community component to Republican thinking (other than rules about what you can do, and with whom, in your bedroom)? Would love to hear you express your values in real terms, rather just just observing your votes on the Council, after near silence on your part. Please tell us who you are, at last.
September 10, 2007 at 7:05 am
TH:
A couple of things:
1. My votes do express my values in the most real terms available.
2. If everyone despises me so, then you won’t have to tolerate me for long.
3. If wanting to clean up the City makes me such a terrible person, I can live with myself.
September 10, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Andy…The house next to me has been on the market for about five months. The owner remarried and moved away. I can cut the front yard but I won’t go through her gate into the back yard. The grass was about a foot to a foot and a half last week. My wife called the Tall Grass hotline at the City and left a message on their automated system. Within an hour she got a call back confirming the address and other details. The next day, the problem was taken care of. It appears that there are departments in this city that are doing their jobs and should be commended. As far as where you stand or what your values are, I prefer to judge anyone more on their actions than their political party affiliations. If you care about keeping Manassas a community not a battleground, then that’s good enough for me.
September 10, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Tudor Hall,
In your post of September 5th at 10:55pm you made a lot on sense. Your post of September 8th at 7:30am is offensive. Andy is a good man and working his butt off for our city. He is doing what he feels is right. Knowing him for 30 years I know he is nobody’s “bitch”. He is man enough to answer your rant in a calm coherent manner. I think it hypocritical for you to tell someone of Andy’s stature to “Please be a man” when you are not a big enough person to use your real name. Don’t get me wrong, pseudonyms are fine in most posts, but not in one like yours. Please have more respect for a man that deserves it.
September 10, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Andy,
I am looking forward to getting the Manassas City phone contact list you refer to in this posting on August 29th.
September 11, 2007 at 5:23 pm
“I consider the Variety of Humors among men, and despair of pleasing
every Body; yet I shall not therefore leave off Printing. I shall
continue my Business. I shall not burn my Press and melt my letters.”
Benjamin Franklin
Pennsylvania Gazette
June 10, 1731
Hang in there Andy –
September 11, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Mr Austin,
I’m not sure which phone contact numbers you are
seeking, but you can scroll down to the bottom of the city’s
opening web page and click “phone numbers” for all city
departments.
One good contact person is Ms. Kisha Wilson- Sogunro,
our community preservation “ombnibus person”- 703-257-8240.
Hope this helps.
September 12, 2007 at 11:50 am
Thanks Steve.
September 12, 2007 at 12:03 pm
There’s a link over on the right side now that has contact info.
September 12, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Andy,
I liken the comments above regarding a for sale vehicle parked in a yard and nothing done about it to what I saw at the last council meeting I attended (can’t remember the date, it was the night the liefsaving awards were given to the Rescue and Police folks). What became clear to ME that night with all the discussion of the “push cart” vendor issue was that there seems to be no general awareness across City staff of what IS and IS NOT legal (either from a criminal OR civil perspective). It was sad to hear nobody really knowing if the “push carts” were even legally issued “permits” in the first place, regardless of the later legality of the actual selling practices (name not matching license, etc.). Nor does there seem to be general knowledge within either staff or citizens of what should be called in to Police (criminal) and what should be called in to some other City agency (civil).
I don’t know the solution, but I think it would go a long way towards bettering the City if that could somehow be changed. I know Police have to pass knowledge tests on laws they will be enforcing, is there any City Ordinances knowledge verification required of other City staff?
September 12, 2007 at 2:59 pm
FYI, as of yesterday that car at the corner of Liberia and Bayberry was gone. Did not see it today, so hopefully that is the end of it. The problem is that there is only so much that the Police and Zoning can do with the current laws. It is a long process to get some of these violations like a tagless car sitting forever on the street taken care of. My parents had a similar problem with the people next to them. The city had gone as far as taking them to court but they cleaned up for a short period and the case was dropped by the courts. Now it is getting back to the way it was. So its a whole new process to start with.
September 17, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Andy:
Thanks for the link of Manassas City phone numbers.
May I suggest you ask the city manager to produce one for the citizens and place it in the news letter we get monthly with our utility bills. It should define sub sections, i.e., not saying just “zoning”, but some further breakdown. (Yard sale signs, overcrowding, cars on lawns, tall grass, etc.)
I have had a lot of trouble getting the ole “it’s not my job” response, and then having to make several calls to get to someone who finally adresses the issue at hand.