McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
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Anonymous
you live in a state with southern government. Assuming the moratorium is lifted, the hoops you'll have to jump through were put in place to make the formation of a new city nearly impossible. You don't even have a town yet (a necessary first step in Virginia). Good luck though |
Anonymous
Thank you. It’s good to know activism and civic engagement is still tolerated, even when it doesn’t simply involve writing checks to benefit other parts of the county while we put up with excessively large class sizes and neglected facilities. |
Anonymous
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OK, I'll bite. The response above triggers reactions from those who do not live in McLean because of:
1. Your presumption that your real estate taxes fund the rest of FCPS. If you read all 55 pages of this thread, you would see data from a McLean resident establishing that McLean's rate of school age children per household is very high (hence, all your crowded schools) and might not even cover all of your own schools, let alone "pay for the whole county." 2. Your presumption that your real estate taxes are somehow more of a burden that the rest of FC. Real estate taxes are a flat tax, not progressive - while you pay a higher dollar amount based on the value of your home - we all pay the same rate and have the same RELATIVE burden. Your higher tax bill reflects the fact that you own a higher value asset. If you don't like that, sell. But stop saying that the comparative burden is somehow worse for you. 3. Your presumption that you are alone in FCPS mis-management. MHS is one of TWO of the most overcrowded HS schools not approved for a renovation/addition - Chantilly is as bad as you, they just don't act as entitled. The School Board has 4 courses of action to relieve overcrowding at MHS, yet your community has pushed back against all of them. Plenty of schools have been pushed back on the order of merit list in CIP and feel they were lied to by SB. No reason to believe you are singled out for mistreatment. 4. Your presumption that school overcrowding alone justifies FC and VA state in allowing you to reap the benefits of all the infrastructure, parks, playgrounds, libraries, and the Silver Metro line that those entitles have poured into NoVA and Tysons. |
Anonymous
+1. Well stated. As a resident of McLean, I'll make one additional note: 5. Your presumption that you speak for everyone in McLean, when -- in fact, there are residents of McLean who strongly disagree with this effort and resent how you mischaracterize McLean's relationship to FC. |
Anonymous
No one speaks for everyone in the county or for McLean, including you or PP. That fact will not dissuade those community residents who are dissatisfied with the county government and FCPS from advocating for change, whether it's replacing our elected officials with officials who are more responsive, advocating for a fair share of resources that our schools have been denied for years, or exploring incorporation as a separate jurisdiction in anticipation of the possibility that this may become a future option. Chantilly is very overcrowded, too, and I wouldn't be happy with that situation there, but I dare anyone to visit the two high schools and assert the facilities are even remotely comparable. Chantilly is a much newer building with better facilities;; McLean is an older building, got the cheapest renovation of any high school renovated since 2000, and has been denied an addition even when other older "legacy" high schools built after McLean that are less overcrowded like Justice and Madison are getting additions. Add to that the large class sizes that McLean and Great Falls-area schools have, the uncertainties around boundaries, and the threats to "upzone" our neighborhoods without corresponding investments in schools and other infrastructure, and many of us are deeply dissatisfied. It's not like we haven't advocated behind the scenes for years - we have - and in return - we've been lied to, misled, and ignored by county officials, particularly FCPS. Those who support kicking our advocacy efforts into a higher gear are long past worrying about whether some anonymous posters on DCUM think it's bad form. |
Anonymous
It's not a very good counter-argument to assert that other people put up with shitty services and an incompetent school system as well. At most it suggests you're envious of those who are speaking up and finally doing something about it. |
Anonymous
Well kids all it takes is excel spreadsheets and maps. Planning units for developments. School program capacity which is design capacity adjusted for class sizes. Start at the borders and work in ... There is no justification for West Potomac expansion - the board of supervisors knew that yet NONE spoke up and allowed this monstrous decision. MacKay and Storck are 2 votes. 10 on BOS and 12 on school board. Sully District did not exist until after the 1990 census. Mclean, Chantilly, and Oakton boundaries are simply outrageous. 35 million here and there adds up to what could have been major funding fr the western high school. That should have been built on land now occupied by the Saudi's that used to occupy the Old Mount Vernon HS. Now that thing is being made into a community center. NO special tax district. |
Anonymous
I didn't say advocating for yourselves was bad form. I am just trying to explain why responses like the one I directly referenced trigger responses. I fully support your case study and Quixotic effort, I just resent the presumptions I cited. |
Anonymous
Your presumptions mischaracterize the assumptions of those who wish to explore incorporation in order to justify your attempt at justified indignation. #1 - McLean schools are overcrowded because FCPS isn't investing in as many additional permanent seats there as it is in other parts of the county or adding seats wisely when it does expand a school. The prior anecdotes regarding the number of kids in certain McLean neighborhoods are no substitute for data. #2 - Everyone accepts that the tax rate is a flat rate, but the area in the county where residents are, in fact, writing the largest checks is, on balance, not receiving even an average level of services and investment from FCPS. We are expected to ascribe to a philosophy that the needs of our kids come last because we can somehow compensate for FCPS's shortcomings on the side. You should be happy people are pushing back; increasingly, they now just send their kids to private schools or leave for public school systems that spend more time considering the basic needs of students and less time focusing on fringe issues. #3 - The situation at Chantilly relative to McLean was discussed above. Both are overcrowded and those in both pyramids have ample reason for dissatisfaction with the FCPS-supplied trailer parks, but Chantilly is a nicer facility than McLean with significantly greater capacity. If the situation at Chantilly were as severe as that at McLean, it's unlikely FCPS would still be operating a large Academy program at Chantilly that pulls in kids from many neighboring pyramids. And none of the overcrowding "solutions" offered McLean add permanent seats to MHS, while most of the options increase the likelihood that, in a few years and especially with the upcoming changes in TJ admissions, FCPS will also have to redistrict kids out of Langley. #4 - Most of those posting in favor of exploring this initiative assume that the county would retain control of the business areas in Tysons and the Silver Line stations; it is mostly those who oppose the idea who keep saying the MCA would craft a plan that assumes the transfer of these areas and buildings to a new jurisdiction (in order, perhaps, to keep arguing that the county would never let that happen). #5 - Discussed already. Those who wish to explore incorporation speak only for themselves, just as do those who oppose even the idea of exploring it. But the idea did not originate with the OP of this thread or, most likely, those who have since posted in support. It is a project that the MCA has explored periodically over the years and is again considering in response to current dissatisfaction with the direction of the county and the current priorities of FCPS. Yes, it may be tilting at windmills, but perhaps that is preferable to staring blankly ahead at the utter mediocrity that the BOS and FCPS have in mind for our part of the county. |
Anonymous
WELL SAID. At this point, I honestly could not care less what the negative Nellies think of those of us who feel this way. Many of us tried to speak out about the SB candidates in the last election, and were immediately branded “racists.” Enough. Those who voted for the current clown car that is the SB got exactly what you deserved. I’m just glad that my youngest is almost only has a few more years left in this absurd school system. If we had much younger children, we’d be moving or planning on private school. |
Anonymous
Exactly. Nothing is preventing parents in other parts of FCPS from speaking up in order to affect change. Apparently, they can’t be happy unless *everyone* is unhappy. If the entire country would protest what FCPS has become, maybe things would change. But it seems some just prefer to roll over passively and let FCPS do what they will. |
Anonymous
+1,000,000 |
Anonymous
| I'm in Great Falls and I wish the people in McLean on this thread would stop trying to lump us in with them. We have no desire to form a separate "city" with McLean. |
Anonymous
You don’t speak for everyone in Great Falls. Groups in Great Falls have reached out to groups in McLean in the recent past about some of the exact concerns leading to the MCA review. |
Anonymous
| We are in Great Falls and we would support this. Fairfax County has gotten too big and impersonal and our local supervisor only seems to listen to Tysons developers. |