Dear Friends,
I recently was answering some questions from students in front of a middle school civics class, and one of the students asked me what the most important qualification is to be a member of the Board of County Supervisors in Prince William County.
I believe the answer is something most parents worked hard to instill in all of us: Integrity.
In the six years that I have had the honor to serve as the Gainesville District Supervisor, I can tell you that integrity is the one character trait that elected officials need to have in order to earn the trust of the people who voted for them.
We live in a world where the caricature of politicians is that they are “all liars” and are “all just in it for themselves.”
The truth is, there are a lot of politicians who are just that. For them, misdirection or half-truths come more easily than telling the truth, and their “self interests” or “winning the next election” is more important than doing the right thing. It causes frustration and disillusionment among honest voters.
I felt a similar frustration at 3:30am early last Wednesday morning as a more than nine hour meeting of the Board of County Supervisors was coming to a close.
The issue at hand involved whether Prince William County would maintain the integrity of the Rural Crescent by preventing public sewer lines — except for special circumstances — as a means of protecting the rural character of the area.
The issue before us was the site for a proposed mosque, which would be located in the Rural Crescent.
The Board voted unanimously to approve the mosque, but the land-use question of whether to allow for public sewer in the Rural Crescent was highly debated.
Over the years, two exceptions have been made for churches in the Rural Crescent. The most recent was for Victory Crossing because they were able to demonstrate that the existing gas lines running through its property made it virtually impossible to put in a septic field.
However, the applicant in this case didn’t bring forward any evidence for an exception in the Rural Crescent.
Just last year, I asked the St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Church to remove their request for public sewer because the proposed site was within the Rural Crescent and no special exception could be identified. They decided to adhere to the rules of the Rural Crescent and are now moving forward with septic.
So appropriately and in accordance with previous actions, the Board of County Supervisors voted against allowing public sewer for this application. But this didn’t sit too well with Chairman Stewart.
After losing the vote, Chairman Corey Stewart (R-at large) and Supervisors Frank Principi (D-Woodbridge) and Marty Nohe (R-Coles) blatantly broke the rules of the Board by forcing through another vote to approve the sewer connection.
It was politics at its worse and that is where integrity of our elected officials comes into play.
The integrity of the Board of County Supervisors should not be tossed aside for political expediency. We are a nation of rules and laws. Yet, too many politicians today believe that they are above following the rules.
What happened in the last few minutes of the Board of County Supervisors meeting last week was outrageous and truly calls into question the integrity of this Board.
I invite each of you to click on the following link of the video showing the last several minutes of the Board Meeting. You can judge for yourself if Chairman Stewart, Supervisor Nohe, and Supervisor Principi appropriately conducted themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRUGE_COuGc&feature=youtu.be (10:10 mark to view the motion to reconsider)
As you can see from the video, the Board unanimously approved the application for the mosque facility. But later, when the vote to allow the sewer line failed on a tie vote, Chairman Stewart pushed Supervisor Principi and Supervisor Nohe to violate the Rules of Procedure of the Board and Robert’s Rules of Order, which governs Board deliberations, with a motion to reconsider. The motion to reconsider was clearly a violation of our rules.
But Chairman Stewart still needed a fifth vote to win on the reconsideration vote on the sewer, and what he did to push Supervisor Jenkins (D-Neabsco) to vote his way will be a blight on the integrity of this Board for years to come.
Even though Supervisor Jenkins repeatedly stated throughout the meeting his opposition in allowing public sewer in the Rural Crescent with this application, Chairman Stewart clearly started pressuring Supervisor Jenkins by telling him to “vote yes.”
This was shocking to many of us on the Board of County Supervisors, and to the hundreds of people watching the Board meeting. Never before had I seen what appeared to be a clear act of trying to confuse and bully another member of the Board of County Supervisors.
In the end, we need people on the Board of County Supervisors who have the integrity to stand by the rules that we all live by, not bending them to fit their personal political agendas.
For the past six years, it has been an honor to serve the people of the Gainesville District, and I re-pledge my commitment to you that I will do so with complete integrity, and I will fight to protect the quality of life for families in our community.
The people of Prince William County deserve to have leaders that they can trust.
Sincerely,
Pete Candland, Supervisor
Gainesville Magisterial District