Having watched (and participated in) this frenzy of local democracy for the past 6 election cycles, this one is shaping up to be epic. We have a mayoral race pitting an entrenched (impacted even) incumbent with 2 or 3 interested parties lining up in the wings. Council seats so far only have a couple of people nibbling at running. As things start to shape up, we’ll have a lot more news and opinion here.

In the meantime, if you have any inside scoop, rumors, or interesting news, please don’t hesitate to pass it along!

Webster’s Dictionary defines:

demagogue (noun) – a politician who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power

Last week, Leesburg mayor Kristen Umstattd sent this letter [PDF download] to her political supporters, rife with misleading statistics, gross revisionist history, and a utter disregard for the facts surrounding her role as the leader in the utility rate debacle.

I’d like to take a moment to address the hypocrisy in her latest bit of pamphleteering, starting with the most egregious example of demagoguery she’s trotted out lately, her call for “class warfare” between her voters and our neighbors. I’ll address the substance (or lack thereof) of her “facts” in a subsequent post on LeesburgTalk once everyone has had a chance to read her latest work of fiction.

Umstattd writes:

“Wealthy out-of-town customers will see their water bills go down significantly, while Leesburg’s middle class families will see our bills go up…” and that “they… need cheaper water because they have larger, estate-size lawns and they want to keep them green.”

Let me start by introducing Ms. Umstattd, who lives in a $400,000 house (2008) on Foxridge Dr. in Leesburg to my friend, Mary, who is an out of town customer of Leesburg’s water and sewer utilities. Mary is a single parent raising 2 children in a small home on Sherbrooke Terrace, just outside of the eastern town limits. Mary’s home is appraised at barely 50% ($226,000 in 2008) of the “estate” that Ms Umstattd resides in. She struggles to provide for her family in tough economic times and has found that her water and sewer rates doubled in 2007 because of a punitive vote spearheaded by Ms. Umstattd and her faction on the town council to play the class warfare card in an election year.

So Mary, who struggles to make ends meet with an hourly position at a company who recently left Leesburg for a more economically enlightened town to our west, is one of those “wealthy” out of towners the mayor wants us to hate so we’ll lose sight of the fact that it was she who instigated this whole debacle in the first place. Mary is the villain in this performance being presented by our mayor, while our mayor resides comfortably on the law degrees she and her husband share, enjoying cheap and plentiful water inside town, which she voted to keep cheap and plentiful by arbitrarily raising out of town rates 100% instead of keeping up with inflation and incrementally raising the rates of all customers in an election year.

This financially unsubstantiated and politically motivated rate increase led to the obvious lawsuit (the 4th the town has incurred as a direct result of Umstattd’s “service” to the voters since her first election). And now Umstattd, an officer of the court, seems to be advocating contempt of court in her letter as well by calling for a 100% or greater punitive surcharge on out of town water users without any statistical or cost data to warrant it. This is in utter disregard for Judge Horne’s order that mandates that the town reduce out of town rates by 45.51%.

Is there really any good reason for Leesburg to continue to allow this demagoguery to persist?

The town’s water and sewer systems are financed using an enterprise fund, which has several requirements placed on it. It must operate independently of the town’s general fund, it must retain specific cash reserves, and until recently, it must be able to underwrite its own financing for capital improvements. In short, it is supposed to be a self-sustaining, independent business entity from the ongoing operation of the town. However, it is intertwined with the town’s finances, since it relies on town staff for things like payroll, maintenance, IT services, etc. It has also relied on the town to underwrite its last bond issues, ostensibly to obtain better financing rates, but the net effect is to make Leesburg tax payers liable for any default on the bond payments.

Many may not realize this, but Leesburg has cadillac of a water and sewer system. It’s much nicer than most of our neighbors, and has more than enough capacity to service all of Leesburg and a lot of the surrounding communities. State and federal requirements place some additional burden on the expense side of the water and sewer equation, with more stringent water standards leading to ongoing upgrades and expenses at both plants. And these expenses often come with little or no extra money to implement the mandate. Unfortunately, we are now in a situation where driving a cadillac and having to incur its maintenance costs is going to bite us if the town council and staff don’t find a credible way to reduce the costs.

With a downturn in home and new business construction, the system is far over the capacity requirements currently needed by the town. It is also not receiving hook-up fees and availability fees that would normally be paid by developers to offset the costs of providing this increased capacity. Consequently, we are stuck paying for all of the equipment, buildings, etc. to support a much larger user base that is actually using the 2 plants. While the incremental operational cost to provide this overcapacity is relatively small, there is no revenue currently being received from this excess capacity, so it’s a net loss to the town.

There are public hearings on July 28th and August 11th to discuss the proposed rate increases. The proposed rates are coming from an outside consultant whose business is advising local utilities, and it is working with the town staff to propose rates that will cover all of the revenue shortfalls and cover the current and planned capital projects. But there are very likely lots of ways to reduce expenses or increase revenue that are not being considered. If you plan on speaking at one of these public hearings, you might consider asking about the following.

• What capital projects are being cut or terminated to reduce costs?
• What reductions in staff have been considered to reduce costs?
• What overhead costs have been cut to reduce expenses?
• Has the town considered selling excess water and sewer capacity to the county or to private developments using wells and septic systems?
• Has the town considered selling a portion or all of the water and sewer plants to private operators or to LCSA in return for a share of operating profits?
• Has the town considered contracting operation of the plants to a private entity while retaining ownership?

At the end of the day, the bulk of the expenses behind these utilities comes from capital improvement projects and the bulk of the revenue was planned to come from an increased user base and fees, supplemented by the existing customers. In the absence of the increase in users and fees, it begs the question of why we have ongoing capital projects related to capacity. Inquiring minds want to know!

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.