We’re going to cover something a bit different tonight….every year the Council meets with (or at least conveys) our legislative priorities to our state delegate (Mr. Miller) and our senator (Mr. Colgan).  We will meet with those folks again soon but in the meantime, I’ve uploaded a copy of our list from last year.  The list is kinda filled with inside baseball but you can boil most of them down to 3 categories:

1.  Unfunded mandates: all localities hate this (and the state hates that Uncle Sam does it to them).  The state will transfer and/or mandate spending priorities to the localities in order to save themselves money or to fulfill political agendas without spending any state money.  Localities always hate this.

2.  Cuts to monies due from the state to localities that are part of deals between localities and the state (like the car tax “cut”) should be static (at least in the view of the localities).  This isn’t anyone’s “fault” in particular but is a sort of natural tension.

3.  The BIG DEAL for Manassas: the Machinery & Tools tax (M&T).  This tax has been under assault in the General Assembly (and especially the House of Delegates) for the past several sessions.  If this tax is eliminated, Manassas will either have to cut $5 million from our budget or transfer the tax burden to our home owners.  The primary payer for this tax is Micron and we have negotiated a reduced rate for them.  If this tax is eliminated, we would have to raise the residential rate by 15 cents (give or take) or cut spending on the City side by about $2 million and on the school side by $3 million (rough numbers).  Keep your eyes on this vote next time.  Our representatives must fight for us on this one.

If you support the City in any of this, please contact our representatives and let them know how you feel…especially on the M&T tax.  The House of Delegates has been edging ever closer to eliminating the M&T tax and it will simply transfer that tax revenue to our residential & commercial property owners.  You can email Delegate Miller at DelJMiller@house.virginia.gov and Senator Colgan at district29@senate.virginia.gov.  Let them know that you support this City!!!

When we establish a meeting date for the next set of priorities, I’ll post it!

ALSO: I didn’t post this to jab anyone, if you post, please be respectful of Del. Miller and Sen. Colgan.

Ok everyone, the chair of the Land Use committee (Jon Way) has scheduled a special meeting on next Friday at 3:00 to discuss the regulation of sexually oriented businesses.  He also distributed a copy of a book from the American Planning Association entitled “everything you always wanted to know about regulating sex business…”.

Hope to see all of you there – especially those of you sending me nasty, self-righteous emails detailing how I’m presiding over the decline of Manassas.  This is where the rubber mets the road – the nitty-gritty of actually governing.  It’s easy to groove with the crowd and rail against the injustices of the world.  Exponentially more difficult to attend meeting after meeting in order to craft regulation that meets constitutional muster and avoids dumb things that will draw legal challenges.  I’m confident that if we proceed by the numbers that we can get where we want to go but we must be thoughtful.