Break Up Fairfax County and other DC Metro counties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greatly increase the county legislative reps & BOE seats to make them more individually/local-communuty responsive. Make planning boards similarly elected instead of appointed. Get rid of at-large seats which only reinforce majority hegemony. Elect them every 2 years. Pay these elected reps well enough to make the job full time at a reasonably professional level. Counter the increased cost of their salaries with lower allocations for legislative staff, since they wouldn't need as much outreach support to cover their smaller constituencies. Force the above with ballot initiatives.

Side benefit: special interests that end up with outsized influence from their campaign contributions would see that influence diluted.

Yeah, and guess what happens, more boards, more councils, etc etc after breakups mean more pols. More pols mean more govt salaries and lifetime pensions and retirement healthcare plans you now have to fund. That means a doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of propety taxes and local taxes/fees.

You people never learn lessons from what has already been done before...aka New Jersey.

I can't wait until this happens and then people piss and moan about $50, 60, 90, 100+ k property tax bills per year like NJ.

Not exactly. Don't balkanize into smaller districts. Still have one Board of Supervisors (or County Council), one BOE, etc., but have more members of each accountable to fewer. Don't allow seniority to confer, institutionally, greater power. More pols, yes, each with salaries, but lower than current for the county legislators (BOEs need bumps, though) and with lower numbers of staff (offsetting the increase in legislators), as they'd be expected to handle more direct interaction with constituents since the constituent-legislator ratio would be lower. And each pol would have less concentrated power.

New Jersey, as another poster mentioned, followed the balkanized, town-by-town path. That's the one with more councils, etc.

Wishful thinking. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the law of unintended consequences always takes over. Breaking up into smaller anything will absolutely end up in more councils, more schools, more police, more fire, more trash, more sewers, more public workers, and more pols. Taxes skyrocket in the end to pay for all of the salaries, pensions, and healthcare handouts.

No thanks. NY and NJ are disasters of a tax burden specifically because they went down this rabbit hole.

[Anonymous]

Let me guess, your new county would magically have a tiny fraction of the poor population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

While we are at it, lets split northern VA from the Tidewater and the mountain areas into three states and Maryland into two states and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

I love town government. True democracy at work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So maybe my dense, small. trending older part of Montgomery County can break off from the rest — and use our tax dollars for something other than educating other people’s kids? When I first read this, I was very much against it, but after reflecting on it a bit, it would depend on the boundaries. Maybe my taxes would drop, and what’s left could be used for other things.

Yes, it’s very possible that your taxes could drop and the local community would get more control.

[Anonymous]

What a majority of people - anywhere not just in metroDC - do not want is change. People will rationalize this in various ways, but the bottom line is people do not want change.

If we already had lots of towns, then people would like that and would not want more centralized county government. Since we already have the more centralized county government, most people here do not want lots of towns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

Fairfax county is too large and a handful of counties with around 200k people each would be more responsive to voters.

What do you think they aren't responsive on?

Usually when people say this about Fairfax County, they mean that they want to break off wealthy conclaves and keep their tax dollars flowing directly to their own schools and let the poor areas of the county figure things out on their own.

Can you blame them? I know people in the City of Alexandria paying $20,000 a year in property tax only to have half the schools filled with non citizens.

Do you send 20K to.... Uganda every year? If not, then STFU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

Fairfax county is too large and a handful of counties with around 200k people each would be more responsive to voters.

What do you think they aren't responsive on?

Usually when people say this about Fairfax County, they mean that they want to break off wealthy conclaves and keep their tax dollars flowing directly to their own schools and let the poor areas of the county figure things out on their own.

Can you blame them? I know people in the City of Alexandria paying $20,000 a year in property tax only to have half the schools filled with non citizens.

Do you send 20K to.... Uganda every year? If not, then STFU.

You misspelled residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

Fairfax county is too large and a handful of counties with around 200k people each would be more responsive to voters.

What do you think they aren't responsive on?

Usually when people say this about Fairfax County, they mean that they want to break off wealthy conclaves and keep their tax dollars flowing directly to their own schools and let the poor areas of the county figure things out on their own.

Can you blame them? I know people in the City of Alexandria paying $20,000 a year in property tax only to have half the schools filled with non citizens.

Do you send 20K to.... Uganda every year? If not, then STFU.

+1. And the mayor is married to a drunk felon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

Fairfax county is too large and a handful of counties with around 200k people each would be more responsive to voters.

What do you think they aren't responsive on?

Usually when people say this about Fairfax County, they mean that they want to break off wealthy conclaves and keep their tax dollars flowing directly to their own schools and let the poor areas of the county figure things out on their own.

Can you blame them? I know people in the City of Alexandria paying $20,000 a year in property tax only to have half the schools filled with non citizens.

Do you send 20K to.... Uganda every year? If not, then STFU.

+1. And the mayor is married to a drunk felon.

Recovering victim of the US mental healthcare system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

Fairfax county is too large and a handful of counties with around 200k people each would be more responsive to voters.

What do you think they aren't responsive on?

Usually when people say this about Fairfax County, they mean that they want to break off wealthy conclaves and keep their tax dollars flowing directly to their own schools and let the poor areas of the county figure things out on their own.

Can you blame them? I know people in the City of Alexandria paying $20,000 a year in property tax only to have half the schools filled with non citizens.

Do you send 20K to.... Uganda every year? If not, then STFU.

It is the same situation in Fairfax with costs for ESOL services exploding in the last few years. You get what you vote for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greatly increase the county legislative reps & BOE seats to make them more individually/local-communuty responsive. Make planning boards similarly elected instead of appointed. Get rid of at-large seats which only reinforce majority hegemony. Elect them every 2 years. Pay these elected reps well enough to make the job full time at a reasonably professional level. Counter the increased cost of their salaries with lower allocations for legislative staff, since they wouldn't need as much outreach support to cover their smaller constituencies. Force the above with ballot initiatives.

Side benefit: special interests that end up with outsized influence from their campaign contributions would see that influence diluted.

Yeah, and guess what happens, more boards, more councils, etc etc after breakups mean more pols. More pols mean more govt salaries and lifetime pensions and retirement healthcare plans you now have to fund. That means a doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of propety taxes and local taxes/fees.

You people never learn lessons from what has already been done before...aka New Jersey.

I can't wait until this happens and then people piss and moan about $50, 60, 90, 100+ k property tax bills per year like NJ.

Not exactly. Don't balkanize into smaller districts. Still have one Board of Supervisors (or County Council), one BOE, etc., but have more members of each accountable to fewer. Don't allow seniority to confer, institutionally, greater power. More pols, yes, each with salaries, but lower than current for the county legislators (BOEs need bumps, though) and with lower numbers of staff (offsetting the increase in legislators), as they'd be expected to handle more direct interaction with constituents since the constituent-legislator ratio would be lower. And each pol would have less concentrated power.

New Jersey, as another poster mentioned, followed the balkanized, town-by-town path. That's the one with more councils, etc.

Wishful thinking. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the law of unintended consequences always takes over. Breaking up into smaller anything will absolutely end up in more councils, more schools, more police, more fire, more trash, more sewers, more public workers, and more pols. Taxes skyrocket in the end to pay for all of the salaries, pensions, and healthcare handouts.

No thanks. NY and NJ are disasters of a tax burden specifically because they went down this rabbit hole.

Correct. The efficiencies and benefits of scale are obvious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greatly increase the county legislative reps & BOE seats to make them more individually/local-communuty responsive. Make planning boards similarly elected instead of appointed. Get rid of at-large seats which only reinforce majority hegemony. Elect them every 2 years. Pay these elected reps well enough to make the job full time at a reasonably professional level. Counter the increased cost of their salaries with lower allocations for legislative staff, since they wouldn't need as much outreach support to cover their smaller constituencies. Force the above with ballot initiatives.

Side benefit: special interests that end up with outsized influence from their campaign contributions would see that influence diluted.

Yeah, and guess what happens, more boards, more councils, etc etc after breakups mean more pols. More pols mean more govt salaries and lifetime pensions and retirement healthcare plans you now have to fund. That means a doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of propety taxes and local taxes/fees.

You people never learn lessons from what has already been done before...aka New Jersey.

I can't wait until this happens and then people piss and moan about $50, 60, 90, 100+ k property tax bills per year like NJ.

Not exactly. Don't balkanize into smaller districts. Still have one Board of Supervisors (or County Council), one BOE, etc., but have more members of each accountable to fewer. Don't allow seniority to confer, institutionally, greater power. More pols, yes, each with salaries, but lower than current for the county legislators (BOEs need bumps, though) and with lower numbers of staff (offsetting the increase in legislators), as they'd be expected to handle more direct interaction with constituents since the constituent-legislator ratio would be lower. And each pol would have less concentrated power.

New Jersey, as another poster mentioned, followed the balkanized, town-by-town path. That's the one with more councils, etc.

Wishful thinking. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the law of unintended consequences always takes over. Breaking up into smaller anything will absolutely end up in more councils, more schools, more police, more fire, more trash, more sewers, more public workers, and more pols. Taxes skyrocket in the end to pay for all of the salaries, pensions, and healthcare handouts.

No thanks. NY and NJ are disasters of a tax burden specifically because they went down this rabbit hole.

Correct. The efficiencies and benefits of scale are obvious.

There are diseconomies to scale after a certain population size. Fairfax County is already well past the optimal area of the cost curve and its size is only making it more wasteful with spending money. NYC has a much larger population and higher density, but it actually spends more per resident than Fairfax county $13,611 per resident vs. $10,245 per resident. This argument about "benefits to scale" is just flat out false after a certain size and the optimal size for efficient government spending is well under 1 million residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

Fairfax county is too large and a handful of counties with around 200k people each would be more responsive to voters.

Fairfax county is one of the best governmentally run units in the country. No it should not be broken up. I would expand by eliminating all of the cities in the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:County governments and school systems are just too big and dysfunctional in most of the DC metro area. Fairfax county should be split up into multiple new counties along with Loudoun, MOCO, and Prince William. They have become too big and don’t effectively represent the interest of any of the residents very well. I think Fairfax should be split into 5 counties. Prince William should be split into 2 counties. MOCO should be split into 4 counties and Loudoun should be split into 3 parts.

Didn’t the whole Purcellville attempt to abolish their police department out of the blue teach you anything?

I don’t trust town government. Give me county oversight any day.

I love town government. True democracy at work.

Sorry -- this is a dumb comment.