Anonymous
Post 12/22/2020 14:15     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many McLean neighbors don’t support this for valid reasons. If the MCCA members want to live in a exclusive club, go ahead and live on Entitlement Fantasy Island. Access is by boat only.


It would be more like living in a place where you know where you could would attend school and the schools would actually be maintained than an exclusive club, but if you want to keep being a doormat there is no shortage of people in the county who will gladly take your money and spend it to benefit anyone other than kids in McLean and Great Falls. Or upzone your neighborhood to allow for greater density while doing nothing to plan ahead for the additional infrastructure this necessitates.

I used to think spreading all the resources around the county was better, but having seen just how little attention those in control of FCPS pay to our kids and schools compared to those in other parts of the county I’ve concluded One Fairfax is a sham.


You sound ridiculous. This is what it's like living in NoVa supporting the rest of the state. Living in CA ad NY, supporting the rest of rural states. This is how it works in America. You're free to move.


You sound ignorant. A change would be more like living in much of the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Midwest, and a little less like living in the South where county-wide government is the norm and counties operate county-wide school systems (the difference being that those counties are usually considerably smaller than giant Fairfax County). You’re free to do more research next time.
Anonymous
Post 12/22/2020 12:24     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many McLean neighbors don’t support this for valid reasons. If the MCCA members want to live in a exclusive club, go ahead and live on Entitlement Fantasy Island. Access is by boat only.


It would be more like living in a place where you know where you could would attend school and the schools would actually be maintained than an exclusive club, but if you want to keep being a doormat there is no shortage of people in the county who will gladly take your money and spend it to benefit anyone other than kids in McLean and Great Falls. Or upzone your neighborhood to allow for greater density while doing nothing to plan ahead for the additional infrastructure this necessitates.

I used to think spreading all the resources around the county was better, but having seen just how little attention those in control of FCPS pay to our kids and schools compared to those in other parts of the county I’ve concluded One Fairfax is a sham.


You sound ridiculous. This is what it's like living in NoVa supporting the rest of the state. Living in CA ad NY, supporting the rest of rural states. This is how it works in America. You're free to move.
Anonymous
Post 12/22/2020 12:20     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm the pp who pointed out the tax base issue wrt commercial taxes. Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear - I don't think this makes everything cost prohibitive. You can make it work. But it's a safe assumption that the property tax rate will need to increase by a substantial amount. Most NOVA jurisdictions tax at roughly 1% of assessed value, with commercial taxes providing roughly 40-60% of the tax base (outside of purely bedroom communities)

I think a new residential property tax rate of 1.5-2.5% is within reason. So for a million dollar house that is an extra $10k a year in taxes. It's easy to see why people might be hesitant


The rate in FCC - which operates a school system and provides other city services with a population under 15,000, is 1.355%. A new jurisdiction in northern Fairfax would have at least 4X that many people and include more expensive properties.


But that 1.355% is only because FCC already owns its school buildings and the land that they sit on. McLean would have to spend many millions to buy its schools and the land they sit on from Ffx Cty before it could charge the 1.355% (or similar) rate.


+1

And it doesn’t stop with the schools: Park land, library buildings, other county-owned property. These are the kind of expensive details conveniently overlooked or forgotten.


All negotiable. The county would be relieved from the expense of maintaining the properties and providing services to those using them.


For just McLean HS alone, the bill would be $43 million dollars up front, according to the assessment, assuming it was sold at fair value. Now, add at least 2 or 3 elementary schools, at least 1 or 2 middle schools, a police station, a library, a courthouse, some parks, etc. That’s an awful lot of start-up taxes the residents of McLean would have to pony up to secede.

MAP #: 0304 01 0019
SCHOOL BOARD OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 1633 DAVIDSON RD
Values
Tax Year 2020
Current Land $25,636,000
Current Building $17,686,880
Current Assessed Total $43,322,880
Tax Exempt YES
Note


So it generates no tax revenues and has a bunch of ongoing expenses associated with its upkeep and operation. The actual transfer would reflect those liabilities as well as the putative value of the asset.

If this were to move forward, the county could use title to these facilities as a bargaining chip, but it also doesn’t want to have a protracted fight with McLean and Great Falls - which would receive far more publicity than some DCUM thread - about the dissatisfaction of a significant number of its residents with county services and schools. It certainly won’t be something the Fairfax County EDA would welcome, nor would it facilitate in any way their efforts to turn Tysons into “America’s Next Great City.”
Anonymous
Post 12/22/2020 12:07     Subject: Re:McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Right, it’s basically mismanagement at both ends of the county. They have never justified publicly why it makes sense to expand West Potomac to 3000 seats, ensuring the continued negative perception of Mount Vernon, while keeping McLean under 2000 permanent seats as schools all around it are built out to higher capacities.

It’s not like people haven’t been trying to work within the system to get them to focus on their responsibilities. Hell, even members of the Board of Supervisors called them out, although of course they didn’t actually do anything about it. It is a bloated, mismanaged system, and the School Board elected in 2019 has only made things worse now by changing TJ admissions with no consideration of the enrollment impacts on other schools.

Just imagine, in comparison, how much more manageable a school system that didn’t have 198 schools would be, or how much more responsible and less frazzled the local School Board would be.
Anonymous
Post 12/22/2020 07:07     Subject: Re:McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Falls Church City says otherwise. It’s a smaller jurisdiction than a new McLean City would be and people move into FCC to avoid the horrible bureaucracy and mismanagement of FCPS.

Either McLean and Great Falls organize hard to separate from FCPS or they watch their communities deteriorate as FCPS lets McLean HS stagnate and eventually finds a way to shovel 1/2 of Great Falls out of Langley HS into Herndon HS. Lackluster do-nothing elected officials like John Foust and Elaine Tholen won’t do a thing for us and, even if they had a backbone, they’d get steamrolled by those in control of FC/FCPS now - a coalition of SJWs and pork-barrel politicians from southern Fairfax United in their desire to deliver as few services to Great Falls and McLean as possible, but more than happy to take our tax dollars.


Yowza. I'd hate to live in your mind or household.


I’m sorry for your children, too.




Pork and slop food from spoiled meat. December FCPS school board meetings and presentations. Food chain of responsibility and then dates:
Jeff Platenberg, Assistant Superintendent, Facilities and Transportation Services < Marty Smith, Chief Operating Officer <Scott Brabrand,
Division Superintendent

And then we have the Regionals for 1 and 2. Let us not forget Tholen, Fritsch, maybe Hunter Mill plus 3 at large school board members.

Mclean High School Boundary Adjustment page https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/facilities-planning-future/school-boundary-adjustments/mclean-high-school-proposed

December 7, 2020 https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/FINAL_Presentation%20for%20McLean%20Langley%20Dec%207%202020.pdf

And 342 feed to TJ from Mclean and Langley. 10 days after that Boundary Document was the TJ vote. That TJ process has been the subject of board meetings for months. Was the Mclean boundary study updated with scenarios from the vote or even presented with scenarios that included potential impacts?

Go to Storck and Mackay recorded n the 6/25/2019 Board of Supervisors meeting discussing the FCPS 2019 bond referendum. I didn't say it - they did about the now out to bid West Potomac addition and yet here we are.

http://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=7 Italics copied and pasted from closed captions
2:32 storck-to allow not to have to create a
3,000 seat school more or less,
I'm frankly concerned about that.

2:32:52 mackay-completely agree with what
supervisor storck just said.
I know shooting the messenger here, I add that the obvious
elephant in the room there is a
school adjacent to west potomac with capacity. When we talk about the cip and
needs, some capacity constraints are driven by the academic...just about the money, and
clearly if you know the history
between mount vernon high school and potomac high school a big
chunk of the capacity issues
don't deal with the capacity but deal with perception, false



>
Anonymous
Post 12/22/2020 05:31     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm the pp who pointed out the tax base issue wrt commercial taxes. Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear - I don't think this makes everything cost prohibitive. You can make it work. But it's a safe assumption that the property tax rate will need to increase by a substantial amount. Most NOVA jurisdictions tax at roughly 1% of assessed value, with commercial taxes providing roughly 40-60% of the tax base (outside of purely bedroom communities)

I think a new residential property tax rate of 1.5-2.5% is within reason. So for a million dollar house that is an extra $10k a year in taxes. It's easy to see why people might be hesitant


The rate in FCC - which operates a school system and provides other city services with a population under 15,000, is 1.355%. A new jurisdiction in northern Fairfax would have at least 4X that many people and include more expensive properties.


But that 1.355% is only because FCC already owns its school buildings and the land that they sit on. McLean would have to spend many millions to buy its schools and the land they sit on from Ffx Cty before it could charge the 1.355% (or similar) rate.


+1

And it doesn’t stop with the schools: Park land, library buildings, other county-owned property. These are the kind of expensive details conveniently overlooked or forgotten.


All negotiable. The county would be relieved from the expense of maintaining the properties and providing services to those using them.


Negotiable? For what? Something less than fair market value? Lol.
Anonymous
Post 12/22/2020 05:19     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many McLean neighbors don’t support this for valid reasons. If the MCCA members want to live in a exclusive club, go ahead and live on Entitlement Fantasy Island. Access is by boat only.


It would be more like living in a place where you know where you could would attend school and the schools would actually be maintained than an exclusive club, but if you want to keep being a doormat there is no shortage of people in the county who will gladly take your money and spend it to benefit anyone other than kids in McLean and Great Falls. Or upzone your neighborhood to allow for greater density while doing nothing to plan ahead for the additional infrastructure this necessitates.

I used to think spreading all the resources around the county was better, but having seen just how little attention those in control of FCPS pay to our kids and schools compared to those in other parts of the county I’ve concluded One Fairfax is a sham.


+100
Well said. I think the people claiming to live in McLean and saying they’re against this are just trolls. What, exactly, would be the downside?


Of course you do, because you and your fellow MCA bullies can't deal with fellow McLean residents (like me) who think this is a bad idea, so you simply start mocking them or saying that anyone who disagrees with you MUST be a troll. Very telling...

The downside? Amassing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to pay for all the costs associated with incorporation (e.g., legal fees, studies, purchase of county property and facilities, establishing a city government, etc.) without any real guarantee that McLean could actually govern itself better as a city and provide better services, including school services, to its residents.

I've lived in McLean for over 20 years. I still have kids at McLean HS - both of whom are doing quite well and have bright futures ahead. I like my house. I like my street. I like my neighbors and neighborhood. Fairfax County isn't perfect, but I'm not going to support an "initiative" that seeks to significantly jack up my property taxes just so other people who failed to make it into Chevy Chase or ("insert gated community of choice here") can feel better about themselves. And I know from talking with my neighbors that I'm hardly alone.
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 23:44     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Many McLean neighbors don’t support this for valid reasons. If the MCCA members want to live in a exclusive club, go ahead and live on Entitlement Fantasy Island. Access is by boat only.


It would be more like living in a place where you know where you could would attend school and the schools would actually be maintained than an exclusive club, but if you want to keep being a doormat there is no shortage of people in the county who will gladly take your money and spend it to benefit anyone other than kids in McLean and Great Falls. Or upzone your neighborhood to allow for greater density while doing nothing to plan ahead for the additional infrastructure this necessitates.

I used to think spreading all the resources around the county was better, but having seen just how little attention those in control of FCPS pay to our kids and schools compared to those in other parts of the county I’ve concluded One Fairfax is a sham.


+100
Well said. I think the people claiming to live in McLean and saying they’re against this are just trolls. What, exactly, would be the downside?
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 23:15     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm the pp who pointed out the tax base issue wrt commercial taxes. Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear - I don't think this makes everything cost prohibitive. You can make it work. But it's a safe assumption that the property tax rate will need to increase by a substantial amount. Most NOVA jurisdictions tax at roughly 1% of assessed value, with commercial taxes providing roughly 40-60% of the tax base (outside of purely bedroom communities)

I think a new residential property tax rate of 1.5-2.5% is within reason. So for a million dollar house that is an extra $10k a year in taxes. It's easy to see why people might be hesitant


The rate in FCC - which operates a school system and provides other city services with a population under 15,000, is 1.355%. A new jurisdiction in northern Fairfax would have at least 4X that many people and include more expensive properties.


But that 1.355% is only because FCC already owns its school buildings and the land that they sit on. McLean would have to spend many millions to buy its schools and the land they sit on from Ffx Cty before it could charge the 1.355% (or similar) rate.


+1

And it doesn’t stop with the schools: Park land, library buildings, other county-owned property. These are the kind of expensive details conveniently overlooked or forgotten.


All negotiable. The county would be relieved from the expense of maintaining the properties and providing services to those using them.


For just McLean HS alone, the bill would be $43 million dollars up front, according to the assessment, assuming it was sold at fair value. Now, add at least 2 or 3 elementary schools, at least 1 or 2 middle schools, a police station, a library, a courthouse, some parks, etc. That’s an awful lot of start-up taxes the residents of McLean would have to pony up to secede.

MAP #: 0304 01 0019
SCHOOL BOARD OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 1633 DAVIDSON RD
Values
Tax Year 2020
Current Land $25,636,000
Current Building $17,686,880
Current Assessed Total $43,322,880
Tax Exempt YES
Note
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 22:39     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:Many McLean neighbors don’t support this for valid reasons. If the MCCA members want to live in a exclusive club, go ahead and live on Entitlement Fantasy Island. Access is by boat only.


It would be more like living in a place where you know where you could would attend school and the schools would actually be maintained than an exclusive club, but if you want to keep being a doormat there is no shortage of people in the county who will gladly take your money and spend it to benefit anyone other than kids in McLean and Great Falls. Or upzone your neighborhood to allow for greater density while doing nothing to plan ahead for the additional infrastructure this necessitates.

I used to think spreading all the resources around the county was better, but having seen just how little attention those in control of FCPS pay to our kids and schools compared to those in other parts of the county I’ve concluded One Fairfax is a sham.
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 22:19     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:Many McLean neighbors don’t support this for valid reasons. If the MCCA members want to live in a exclusive club, go ahead and live on Entitlement Fantasy Island. Access is by boat only.

Agreed. Another McLean resident here who does NOT support this idea.
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 22:15     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Many McLean neighbors don’t support this for valid reasons. If the MCCA members want to live in a exclusive club, go ahead and live on Entitlement Fantasy Island. Access is by boat only.
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 22:00     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why are people assuming McLean is some fount of massive tax revenue? At least in Arlington the residential areas are all cost centers. The county budget gets almost half its revenue from commercial taxes. McLean is woefully short on retail and commercial centers and lacks the big employment centers that Arlington has. I'm not seeing where McLean gets the funding it needs unless they raise property taxes to 2-3%


Clearly you don’t realize that half of Tysons Corner is in McLean.


Lol. Half of Tysons has a McLean mailing address. That doesn’t mean half of Tysons is in McLean. McLean itself (at best) is arbitrarily defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The lines currently run along the Dulles Access Road and Spring Hill Road, and doesn’t include any part of the Tysons CBD.

The PP is right. The McLean area does not have a strong commercial tax base. In the unlikely event that it would succeed in incorporating as a separate city (and forget any wild fantasy that McLean could somehow grab part of Tysons), the new city would be overly reliant upon residential property taxes - much more so than Fairfax County as a whole.


FCC isn't exactly Wall Street, and it gets by as an independent jurisdiction. McLean has more expensive residential properties than FCC, and its retail/commercial area is concentrated in a core area that in the aggregate is larger than the commercial area along Broad Street.

As for the residential population, for sure there are a lot of families with children (indeed, the desire for more control over schools that get ignored and left to run on auto-pilot by FCPS is one driver of the initiative to explore incorporation), but it also has singles in apartment buildings in downtown McLean and on the edge of Tysons, as well as older residents who no longer have school-age children.

So I don't think the inability to include the Tysons core in a new jurisdiction would be a show-stopper. You really need to let those who want to explore this see what they can come up. The effort to pre-emptively claim it would be cost-prohibitive is premature and does seem to reflect a desire to keep McLean's tax base within the county or opposition on the part of some to higher taxes. If there were a case that we'd get better schools and services in exchange for higher taxes, I'd gladly pay more in taxes, as would many others.


Well, I live in McLean and I don't support this. And I know others who live in McLean that don't support it as well.


DP. Ok? There are plenty of people living in McLean who *would* support it.


+1.
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 21:56     Subject: McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why are people assuming McLean is some fount of massive tax revenue? At least in Arlington the residential areas are all cost centers. The county budget gets almost half its revenue from commercial taxes. McLean is woefully short on retail and commercial centers and lacks the big employment centers that Arlington has. I'm not seeing where McLean gets the funding it needs unless they raise property taxes to 2-3%


Clearly you don’t realize that half of Tysons Corner is in McLean.


Lol. Half of Tysons has a McLean mailing address. That doesn’t mean half of Tysons is in McLean. McLean itself (at best) is arbitrarily defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The lines currently run along the Dulles Access Road and Spring Hill Road, and doesn’t include any part of the Tysons CBD.

The PP is right. The McLean area does not have a strong commercial tax base. In the unlikely event that it would succeed in incorporating as a separate city (and forget any wild fantasy that McLean could somehow grab part of Tysons), the new city would be overly reliant upon residential property taxes - much more so than Fairfax County as a whole.


FCC isn't exactly Wall Street, and it gets by as an independent jurisdiction. McLean has more expensive residential properties than FCC, and its retail/commercial area is concentrated in a core area that in the aggregate is larger than the commercial area along Broad Street.

As for the residential population, for sure there are a lot of families with children (indeed, the desire for more control over schools that get ignored and left to run on auto-pilot by FCPS is one driver of the initiative to explore incorporation), but it also has singles in apartment buildings in downtown McLean and on the edge of Tysons, as well as older residents who no longer have school-age children.

So I don't think the inability to include the Tysons core in a new jurisdiction would be a show-stopper. You really need to let those who want to explore this see what they can come up. The effort to pre-emptively claim it would be cost-prohibitive is premature and does seem to reflect a desire to keep McLean's tax base within the county or opposition on the part of some to higher taxes. If there were a case that we'd get better schools and services in exchange for higher taxes, I'd gladly pay more in taxes, as would many others.


Well, I live in McLean and I don't support this. And I know others who live in McLean that don't support it as well.


DP. Ok? There are plenty of people living in McLean who *would* support it.
Anonymous
Post 12/21/2020 21:50     Subject: Re:McLean to Explore Separating from FC & FCPS
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The MCA (and GFCA) have a lot of members with the skill set to map out what the potential budgets might look like. There are some services that might require higher spending than average in the county, but also others where a new jurisdiction could operate more leanly and certainly more efficiently than the county and FCPS.


LMAO.


+1

Running a citizens’ association and a city are entirely different. And this post clearly demonstrates how clueless some of my fellow McLean neighbors are. Perhaps well-intentioned, but utterly clueless.


What bothers you is that they aren’t clueless. For whatever reason, you prefer the idea of an area that’s captive to a massive county that provides the community with poor services and unresponsive government in exchange for its tax dollars.


Exactly this. Whether or not this proposal ever comes to fruition, the insecurity and resentment is dripping from some of these posts. It’s clear that the idea of McLean/Great Falls forging their own path is not popular - among those who would simply miss the cash they bring in.