Tax tax tax tax tax. I think this may be the only word these nitwits know.

Posted by askgees (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 10:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)

it's time to fire the government. That would save millions!

Posted by knight1977 (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 10:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)

If you knowingly moved to an area where there were no schools or crowded ones, then you do not have my sympathy. "South of Dulles" = South Riding = "I moved to an overpriced prefab house knowing that there were no schools within a 30 minute drive but now I want the rest of the county to pay for closer schools I obnoxiously feel entitled to."

Posted by Justthefacts (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 10:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Loundon county being one of the fastest growing counties in the country will face serious infastructure problems in the future if measures aren't taken soon. As Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac) said a tax on meals and beverages could help alleviate the burden on homeowners, because the county collects most of its revenue through real estate taxes. The budget office estimated that a meals tax of 4 percent could bring in as much as $13 million annually. Honestly, this is a good step that will help alleviate the burden on homeowners. Loundon county will only continue to grow in the years to come and measures must be taken now to alleviate the financial pain in the future. It is either small steps now or huge ones in the future. Who will be complaining then? Surely, the same people who are complaining now about paying for anything. If we don't start making early steps in all areas of this countries shortfalls we will face serious problems in our future and most importantly our children's future. All I can say is stop leaving problems on the table for your kids to pick up later in life. It is irresponsible and unfair.

Posted by cwil1 (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 10:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Don't misunderstand - I believe that a good education is mandatory. However, I don't have any children, and it's really starting to bother me that the education budget appears to be completely out of control. Education czar Hatrick really should learn how to budget properly. My income does not rise according to his golden plan. Maybe there should be some sort of "step" system. If you put 3 kids in the system, you have to pay a bit more.

Posted by ms1234 (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 11:08 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Pantoufle: Do you not understand how many people live/will live in South Riding/Stone Ridge/Brambleton? Tens of thousands.

You put the schools where the people are -- maybe not next door, but in the vicinity. This is not rocket science.

Posted by koolkat_1960 (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 11:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Does anyone ever cut wasteful spending before asking us to pay even more in taxes?

I don’t think I have heard of a single substantive program EVER begin cut due to wasteful spending...

SAY NO TO EVERY SINGLE BOND THEY PUT OUT UNTIL THEY LEARN TO BALANCE A BUDGET!

Posted by GoodIsDumb (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

DONT BUILD IT AND THEY WONT COME. On the one hand the county supervisors have been encouraging the builders the exploit Loudoun by building more and more subdivisions while asking little in return. Now that the growth momentum (by which the developers have profited immensly and for which Loudoun Cty homeowners are holding the bag) necessitates building more schools, let the taxpayers pay for it.

Sales taxes on prepared meals in this case is a terrible ideal. First of all, the South Riding area and other areas in the county where the schools are needed are close to Rte. 28 and all the restuarants in western Fairfax. where do you thing people will go to save 5% tax on their meals - Fairfax. The Loudoun restuarants will suffer and people from the very area where the schools are to be funded will go to Fairfax to dine and avoid the Loudoun tax.

Somebody should be fired for the utter stupidity of the idea.

Posted by ButterBeansBacon (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 1:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

As a County employee I know first hand how much money the Board of Supervisors and Department Heads waste on frivolous things such as flat screen wall mounted tv's, full size refrigerators for departments, etc. The citizens of Loudoun County need to wake up and hold their Board responsible for the wastefulness.

Posted by clibbybaseball (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 1:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Who are these people that are driving 10-20 minutes further (eat in Fairfax vs Loudoun), eating at new restaurants to save 5% on a luxury item? Nobody is going to change restaurants based on this tax, they will just stop going as frequently.

Posted by localman (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 1:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I thought this board was going to solve the revenue problem by attracting new businesses. I don't recall anyone campaigning on the 'we will find new ways to tax you' platform. What joke this board is turning out to be. Can't seem to make a decision, their campaign promises were ridiculous to start with. Now we all get to suffer for 4 years.

Posted by deanzywicki (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 2:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Do we really need new schools? It seems to me that there are plenty of vacant homes in areas of Loudoun County with existing schools. New Loudoun County residents can move there, and people who knowingly moved to neighborhoods without schools, roads, amenities, etc. can pay for the consequences of their decisions themselves.

Posted by kpschroe (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 2:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I have lived in LoCo for 25 years. My wife was born and raised in LoCo. We do not have any school aged children. At what point in time will it be when we have paid our share for all of these new schools? I will do everything I can to convince everyone I know to vote NO for these bonds. Everytime there are schools on bond referendums, people act like its an ad with babies and puppies, and they vote for it. Not knowing they already pay taxes for these services. VOTE NO!!!

Posted by strictly_liberal (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 4:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I have always voted no except on emergency department needs, police and fire. I would like to thank the BOS for the additional taxes. My water has gone up, (and your being sued over it) My electric has gone up, my property taxes have gone up, my trash pick up has gone up, now you want meals and drinks to go up because you know they just pass it on to the consumer. Please vote NO TO ANY AND ALL TAXES!

Posted by Funnyguyva (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 4:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Why are some of you mixing the new taxes in with school development and bonds. If voters choose to vote NO on bond referendum's for schools, it just means that it will cost more to build the schools. A no vote for bonds, just means they have to look at other means to pay for the schools and those will be more expensive than bonds.

Posted by deanzywicki (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 7:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Aren't restaurants struggling and going out of business in Loudoun because high food costs and also people cant afford to eat out as much!? So we tax them?
We need to look at what Prince William did in limiting county services to citizens. They saved millions and reduced the strain on their schools.

Posted by sydnorg (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 7:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)

pantoufle, glad to see the "you shouldn't have moved here" argument is still undead.

Maybe you can get the GA to pass a law making it illegal to move to Loudoun! They are so good at getting things done after all.

One good thing the BoS is looking at with this item: they were discussing modifying the open space land use deferral ripoff, with limitations on parcels under 20 acres. Right now if you have 5 acres you can get a tax deferral--ridiculous.

Good place to start on that one, since I can be relatively sure that they fully intend to keep giving at least SOME people a "land use" break for "open space", i.e. not USING land, just HAVING it.

Posted by BarbaraMunsey (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 8:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Why are we looking to approve ANOTHER $82 million for ANOTHER high school in the east end of the county when the ONLY high school in the west end -- Valley High School -- is so overcrowded that they're having to move high school students back into the intermediate schools just to find space? They're embroiled in a battle with the Town of Purcellville who won't allow them to build the new high school. Why not take the $82 million & buy another plot of land out west & build? Also, there was an article last week in a Leesburg paper saying that the county was overpaying for that $82 million plot of land by MILLIONS. They were even upping their offer price by 20% ABOVE what the land was appraised at "just because". And as a firefighter here in the county, there is NO need for yet another county-built, county-staffed fire station in Hillsboro. The station in Neersville, which is now county-staffed 100% of the time, runs very few calls. This government is wasting BILLIONS in our tax money, mainly in the schools, and we keep getting asked to give more & more & more. All at a time when the economy is in a complete downturn. Yeah, great plan, B.O.S.

Posted by SpongebobSquarepants (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 9:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)

There are plenty of schools in South Riding. We have three elementary schools and a high school.

Posted by kmccorma (anonymous) on July 16, 2008 at 10:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)

spongebob, the voters approved money to build the western high school years ago. (I doubt it is any longer enough, but there is money approved to build).

Unfortunately, the last no growth board (99) bought the Fields site without consulting either Purcellville or the school board.

The county owns the land; would you write that off as waste? It already has a school on it, and a sports complex approved.

When the HS site was going through the process, several dozen people came from Lovettsville to say put it in their town. Some others lobbied hard for Round Hill.

Guess what? Although the Planning Commssion invited the western towns to participate in discussion of the Woodgrove plans, none did.

It was very hard to watch the Chairman have to tell those passionately committed people "I'm sorry, but we need to hear the sovereign entity of LOVETTSVILLE say "Lovettsville wants the high school.""

The ongoing fiasco that began with the secret purchase of the property (at $1M over asking price, BTW) does not change the fact that another school is needed in another part of the county.

Posted by BarbaraMunsey (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 6:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)

p.s. spongebob? Please don't confuse the building cost of the school with the purchase price of the land--the land purchase was approved by the voters two years ago, and the contract is for 80% of what was approved.

Posted by BarbaraMunsey (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 6:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)

MORE taxes? Give me a friggin' break. CUT BACK SCHOOL SPENDING, or find a way to assess a tax on families of public school students since they're the ones constantly pushing for more school spending. The rest of us are sick to death of our money being sucked into the black hole known as LCPS!
No... it's NOT 'about the children', it's about your sense of entitlement to have everyone else pony up for your kid. Get over it.

Posted by Hoqenishy (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 8:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)

hoqenishy, three things and three things only the government should be funding: transportation, safety, education.

Because each is a bureaucracy, each in its own way is inefficient.

Whether you agree with education or not, EVERYBODY ponies up. Whether you agree with the current war or not, EVERYBODY ponies up. People who disagree with abortion still pay for it through taxes, and that probably distresses those with a religious objection far worse than the schools distress anyone here.

Sorry, but true. Argue for efficiency, but as for the FACT of what the taxes are supposed to pay for, that's a "get over it" thing on its own.

I don't like my taxes paying for what are probably now $20K apiece seats for people who also get tax breaks for having a big yard written off as "open space".

But that is a rule that CAN be changed.

Posted by BarbaraMunsey (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 12:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I'm curious why the author of this post didn't report on the actual vote that was taken. In addition, I'm curious why the decision was made to quote two Democratic supervisors when Republican Lori Waters and Indy Scott York, for example, also voted for this.

It's that type of selection, while probably innocent, which makes people question the local media.

Posted by louiebird (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 1:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Barbara, I'm calling bullcrap - primarily because the government is insufficiently funding transportation, but more than adequately funding education - and raising taxes all the while. It's imbalanced. Stop making this into a binary issue, where we either give more money to the schools or give them nothing. The school system MUST cut back its spending - my "get over it" statement is still valid, while yours is flawed; simply because the government is required to provide education does NOT require them to spend at the level they currently are. The entitlement mentality parents have in this county is that our school systems must rival that of a private school, but they don't want to actually have to pay for it. I'm suggesting that it's time that parents either start being made to pay more of their fair share in this, or that we start cutting services and/or increasing class sizes so they're more in line with the national average - NOT that we levy additional tax burden on the entire county and drive away restaurant business.

Posted by Hoqenishy (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 1:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)

BarbaraMunsey, my dear you are wrong.
Bureaucracy is the structure and set of regulations in place to control activity, usually in large organizations and government. As opposed to adhocracy, it is represented by standardized procedure (rule-following) that dictates the execution of most or all processes within the body, formal division of powers, hierarchy, and relationships. In practice the interpretation and execution of policy can lead to informal influence. Much like the power you feel you have. That is until the votes are counted!

Posted by Funnyguyva (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 3:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)

hoqenishy, I won't disagree with you on some of the spending IN the buildings.

But they are required to provide structures, and to conduct classes in them.

Right now I am focused on buildings, which are needed in Dulles South at the secondary level.

I think there is a great deal of resume-building IN the buildings that has too little to do with core education.

I can see your point on the get over it, and feel much the same on the small private schools that grossly skew the average, thereby drawing wrath over the cost of the system in general.

The fact remains that secondary relief is need here, and it is overdue on the middle school.

A jihad against building the schools won't solve the problem. It will only make them more expensive in the long run.

The other taxes, particularly on business, fly in the face of recent campaign promises, but what else is new with this board?

Posted by BarbaraMunsey (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 5:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Funnyguy, do you drink with Ben Dover?

I have no power other than freedom of speech.

Why not just ignore me?

Posted by BarbaraMunsey (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 5:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)

It seems to me this debate is mixing two things. Education expense, and land acquisition/building schools expense. Barbara is doing a yeoman's job trying to get folks to focus on how complicated AND expensive it can be to build schools. What I hear in response is a bunch of vitriol about taxes and rising expenses for a Loudoun Education. Folks, the reality is in the numbers... we need classrooms, this debate will not change how fast our kids are growing up, or how many kids we have. Focus on that, focus on efficient land acquisition, focus on efficient building, that is a major issue. And when we look at that issue, Barbara's analysis and views are right on. We can debate what happens in those classrooms as a separate subject.

Posted by maravetz (anonymous) on July 17, 2008 at 9:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Barbara,
I sympathize with your crusade to build secondary schools in certain areas, but the hands-down fact is that the school system is consuming too much money. Rather than trying to raise taxes YET AGAIN to build schools, the system needs to deal with its internal issues FIRST, and show that spending can be cut back and that money can be allocated responsibly. Without this "good faith" measure, I see no other choice than what you call a "jihad" against the school system in general - no tax increases, no bonds, no support for the BoS. Believe it or not, in some counties it's not uncommon to be bussed 45 minutes to school each way. The BoS and entitlement-mentality parents need to realize that reducing expenses means not getting Grade-A-Premium everything. The taxpayers of Loudoun are already stomaching a bloated increase in property taxes in an economic recession, and to foist another tax upon them is frankly unreasonable. If the LCPS parents don't like having to cut back, perhaps they should start sending their kids to private school to realize just how expensive education really is when you don't have the chance to make someone else foot most of the bill.

Posted by Hoqenishy (anonymous) on July 18, 2008 at 7:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I pay enough taxes in Loudoun County. Lets try something new. The county gives the schools way too much money for questionable activities. Lean out the budget and then come back to us. What a concept.

Posted by lewandow (anonymous) on July 18, 2008 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I'm not saying "you shouldn't have moved here." Just that if you knowingly moved to an area where you knew there were no schools - guess what, there still are no schools!!! So deal with it. If you made your bed, you can lie in it. I am not going to buy you a Tempur-Pedic because you don't like the bed you bought from Mattress Discounters.

Posted by Justthefacts (anonymous) on July 18, 2008 at 9:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I am sure there is some other country with lower taxes in the US, like Somalia (no taxes as they have no government!), Bolivia, Guatemala, Congo, Burundi, etc. Sounds like great places to live right? I was just in Florida, they have no state income tax, but hey their school system sucks raw eggs. We can, if we try hard enough like by electing another governor like Coleman, get our school system just like Florida's. And if you have examples of education waste, please don't claim it exists, try documenting it next time people! I have one for you -- they buy all the students text books! Can you believe that? The parents can just get them at Barnes and Noble, just like in college.

Posted by mconfoy (anonymous) on July 21, 2008 at 5:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)

mcconfoy, you're trapped in a logical fallacy. Nobody is suggesting that we do away with taxes, or that we stop funding schools. We're saying that the school system needs to cut its bottom line. It's not my responsibility to document waste, as I'm not an authorized individual to do so. However, I know there's waste based on the amount we spend on the school system relative to neighboring counties. You may not see this as a waste, because you have a vested interest in having me foot the dime for your kid in getting a better education. However, anything that goes beyond the legal minimum state and federal requirements for education is something that warrants close scrutiny, especially in tough economic times when the school system SHOULD be tightening its belt.

Posted by Hoqenishy (anonymous) on July 22, 2008 at 2:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)