Along with recycling, the EAC has several agendas:  education, energy conservation, watershed and stream protection, wildlife stewardship, and natural lawn and gardens (i.e., things that are native, grow best without aid of chemicals).

Did you know?  The EAC recently planned and planted $10,000 worth of trees in two areas!  One was the dry storm water pond at Kincaid Forest, and the other was the flood plane area adjacent to the bowling alley on Harrison Street.

Click here for pictures of the bowling alley project.

Two new development projects have been submitted to town – both are churches.  St. Johns Catholic Church has submitted a special exception to build at the corner of North King Street and Oakcrest Manor (there is a sign on the “knoll” where they’d like to build).  Also, the Christ Community Lutheran Church has submitted to build out at the old Lowes Hardware site at Cardinal Park Drive.

More Later on What the EAC is doing for you!

Linda Shotton

Subject: Important! Update on Leesburg Water and Sewer Rate Activities

To All Potomac Station Residents:

The following message was sent to our Board president, Henry Twentier, over the weekend by Brian Shiflett, our primary contact person for the utility rate lawsuit.  You will note that the Town Council’s proposed rate structure will affect both our Town and County residents. We encourage EVERYONE to contact Leesburg Town Council members, attend the public hearing next Tuesday, July 28, and/or discuss this issue with your neighbors who may not have Potomac Station website accounts.

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Just to let you know, today [Friday, 7/17] is the day the Town of Leesburg is due to file their petition for appeal with the Virginia Supreme Court.  Earlier this week, the Town Attorney reiterated that the Town is planning to file the petition for appeal as part of their two-track response to the April 17, 2009 Circuit Court order.  Assuming no change in the Town’s plans, we’ll have copies of the petition for appeal distributed in the next couple of days.  The other track is the rate adjustment activity that is now taking place in Town Hall.  Monday [7/13] night’s Town Council work session was the first public discussion of the Town’s rate making plans and consultant’s recommendations.  The Town retained Draper Aden Associates to perform a new rate study, one that will produce rates that the Town Council plans to approve August 11 in time to meet the September 1 date when the Town can no longer enforce its current rate schedule.

The Town plans to run a public notice in the Loudoun Times Mirror [this] Wednesday, July 22, which will advertise a set of proposed water and sewer rates and will invite public comment on those proposed rates at a public hearing on Tuesday, July 28.  We do not know what exactly the Town will propose, but on Monday night [7/13], the Town Attorney put the following numbers out for Town Council consideration (all of these numbers represent percentage increases over the current rates):

In Town Water Usage: +36%
In-Town Sewer Usage: +44%

Out-of-Town Water Usage: +10%
Out-of-Town Sewer Usage: +60%

Fixed Charges, Water and Sewer (all customer classes): +15%

Naturally, one will take offence at these numbers, depending on their perspective.  In-town customers will be shocked at the level of proposed increases in their rates, considering they just went through four annual increases beginning in 2006.  Out-of-town customers will wonder how these significant increases comply with the recent court order to decrease out-of-town rates.  Well, the Town believes that by simply doing another rate study, using the ‘utility method’ to calculate out-of-town rates, is sufficient to comply with the court order.  I think you can understand that they heaped a lot of crap on the cost pile to come up with the new set of out-of-town rates.  Our legal counsel has seen the video of the Town Council discussion, and they have a transcript of some of the more offensive portions of the rate presentation.  I will not delve any further into our legal strategy in this email.

We do need to begin communicating with our neighbors that they need to make their opinions heard by the Town Council on or before July 28. They can do so by submitting emails to the Town Council or speaking in person at the public hearing.  There is information and contacts posted on www.fairwaterrates.com.  Folks might look to us to guidance about what to say to the Town Council members.  Others may chime in, but in my opinion, the Town’s out-of- town rate proposal does not comply with the court order, because it is not consistent with the findings of the Court in the water rate case.  Obviously the Town thinks they have some sneaky legal tricks up their sleeve.  We need to tell the Town Council that the proposed rates are still unfair, unreasonable and inequitable.  We need to tell them to stop violating the law.  They need to know the out-of-towners still have fight in them.  While largely symbolic, our protest is necessary.  Thanks for your help in getting the word out.

Brian Shiflett
Representative of Loudoun Fair Water

In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I am a member of the town’s Utility Rate Advisory Committee (URAC). And in the interests of being fair to all concerned, this rate hike has absolutely nothing to do with the URAC or its recommendations to the council. In fact, 5 months of hard work by the URAC established a 2-year rate plan that accommodated out-of-town customers and moved the town to a much more fair, tiered rate plan that rewarded conservation and forced heavy water users to pay accordingly. Unfortunately, that set of URAC rate proposals was never seriously considered by the council and has been discarded in favor of proposals from outside paid consultants.

Here’s the rub. At the end of the day, these new rates are being designed to ensure there is enough income to operate the town’s water and sewer plants. But what they are failing to address, as any competently run business should address, is the expense side of the equation. Not once during the URAC deliberations were we allowed to address the expenses for operations and capital improvements. And every dollar of expense saved is that much less income that is required from water and sewer customers.

Anyone speaking at the public hearings on July 28th or later should certainly consider asking what is being done to rein in the huge cost of capital projects for water and sewer, along with asking what changes have been contemplated to reduce operating expenses. I’m guessing not much since it is a lot easier to just raise the rates than it is to cut costs.

I think one of the more relevant points in this comment is the discussion about why the emergency alert service failed to offer up any sort of warning for over 3 hours. I find it, quite frankly, unbelievable that not one person in all of Loudoun Co. and Leesburg could take the 20 seconds it would take to activate this system with a message saying “stay inside, gunman on the loose”. I managed to get a blog post on the air from my iPhone while running down Edwards Ferry Rd. 60 secs after the guy fired a shot in the street. Surely someone in the sheriff’s department in a nice air conditioned office with a full keyboard and a cup of coffee could do at least as well.

As a side note, I want to make it clear that I completely support the Leesburg police department. I got to see them up close, in action, on Friday and they were as professional and effective as you could have hoped. The issue lurking behind all of this is one of support (or lack of support) for the police department by certain members of the town council. It’s a long story for another post, but please don’t confuse my rants on this issue as being anything but supportive of the town police given the situation they are placed in by their “bosses.”

To paraphrase, it’s a letter on faux town stationery made by xeroxing a business card taped to a sheet of paper, paid for and distributed by Kristen, yet purporting to speak for the council as a whole. She proceeds to laud the neighbors, police, and anyone else who was remotely involved as though her imprimatur is somehow on their actions. Then in a complete non sequitur, she proceeds to pander to a very divisive neighborhood issue about temporary barricades on their street, urging people to come speak on the issue on Tuesday night (knowing full well that the petitioner’s agenda is going to be jammed with people wanting to speak on her inadequate support for town police and what she and the council intend to do to address the issue.)

I, for one, have no time for politicians who try to use this drama for their own gains.

So my question to Chief Price, John Wells, and the town council is this. How many more robberies, assaults, and god forbid, worse have to happen before you people stop making excuses and put some police on the ground instead of tooling around in their cars? There are all sorts of arguments and hand-waving made in the past against doing this, but there are a few in favor of it that you cannot argue against.

First, Leesburg is a community. Yes, there’s  a community policing program, mostly implemented and staffed out of the goodness and dedication of a handful of town officers. But for the Leesburg police to feel that sense of community that the residents and merchants expect, they need to walk the streets. Stop in the stores, visit with merchants, greet citizens on the street, and add that extra added bit of confidence and security to our streets that just cannot be had from behind the wheel of a cruiser. The presence of one or two officers in an area full of pedestrians, transient traffic, and lots of commerce would do wonders in several ways.

Skate punks in the town garage would likely find another place to play that didn’t result in damaged vehicles and town property. Gang members looking to tag private property or intimidate residents out for an evening walk might consider another venue. People looking to rob local merchants might think twice if they notice that police on foot are watching alleys, visiting shops, and generally making themselves immediately available to residents and merchants. Scofflaws who block traffic in the middle of town during rush hour with illegal left turns, vehicles violating the prohibition on through trucks, etc. would be greatly reduced by an officer visible on King or Market. And for officers who don’t live in town (as most don’t), providing that direct, daily contact with people they are charged to serve and protect builds a relationship with the community that a small town like Leesburg deserves and those relationships don’t come from behind the wheel of a police car.

We all know that riding in a comfortable, air-conditioned vehicle is greatly preferable to walking a beat around downtown. It’s drilled into officers that getting put on foot patrol is some kind of less-than-desirable duty. But nothing could be further from the truth. I guarantee you that the residents and merchants of downtown would welcome these officers with open arms and immediately make them part of the great community that revolves around the pedestrian areas of our town.

And honestly, the incremental cost to assign two officers to this part of town on foot instead of in a car has to be offset by savings in vehicle costs and the reduced loss of business, property, and bodily injury. We pay taxes for this kind of service. Our town deserves it. It’s time for the council and town leaders to stop making excuses and do what the citizens have been asking for years. Put police officers on foot patrol in the downtown area. Now.