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Face-Off Over a High School
Purcellville Lawsuit Challenges County on Location
By Sandhya Somashekhar
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Purcellville Mayor Robert W. Lazaro Jr. said last week's municipal elections showed that voters support the town's lawsuit against Loudoun County involving a proposed high school, and he predicted that the issue likely will be resolved by the Virginia Supreme Court.
Town and county officials are slated to meet tomorrow to continue efforts to negotiate an out-of-court settlement of the lawsuit, which centers on the location of Woodgrove High School. But Lazaro, who won reelection Tuesday, said he doubts an agreement will materialize before the dispute is taken up by the state's highest court next month, unless the county has substantively changed its position.
“Maybe the county had an attitude adjustment since Tuesday,” said Lazaro, who garnered 62 percent of the vote. “The political elite lost. The people said, 'We support the Town Council's position to put the town first.' ”
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Last-Minute Campaigning
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Although many voters in Loudoun's incorporated towns didn't show up to the polls Tuesday, Purcellville was the exception. Here, voters make their way inside Emerick Elementary School to cast a ballot. (Meghan Louttit)
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Purcellville Mayor Robert W. Lazaro Jr. makes his way to the poll on Tuesday. (Meghan Louttit)
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Purcellville mayoral candidate Karl R. Phillips speaks with voters Tuesday outside Purcellville's only polling place. (Meghan Louttit)
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Freshly cut grass dots this reelection sign for incumbent Purcellville Mayor Bob W. Lazaro. The heated contest between incumbent Lazaro and challenger Karl Phillips is what drew many Purcellville voters to the polls on Tuesday. (Scott Den Herder)
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A table for Leesburg Mayor Kristen C. Umstattd set up so she could campaign for Town Council candidates she supports was unstaffed Tuesday afternoon outside the polling place at Loudoun County High School. Umstattd ran unopposed for her fourth term. (Scott Den Herder)
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Purcellville mayoral candidate Karl Phillips, visible in the background, gets in some last-minute campaigning outside of Emerick Elementary on Tuesday. (Meghan Louttit)
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Karl Phillips, a candidate for Purcellville mayor, stands outside Emerick Elementary on Tuesday to talk to voters as they head to the polls. (Meghan Louttit)
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Charlie Douglas, left, and Jane Simpson help voters on Tuesday at Emerick Elementary School in Purcellville. (Meghan Louttit)
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The C.S. Monroe Technology Center was one of 11 polling places in Leesburg. (Meghan Louttit)
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Lazaro said the election amounted to a referendum on the town's handling of the school issue. Voters also elected to the council newcomer Joan S. Lehr and incumbents Christopher J. Walker III and Gregory Wagner, all of whom agree with Lazaro on the issue. Mayoral challenger Karl Phillips, along with his unsuccessful slate of council candidates, had promised to drop the lawsuit against the county.
The 35 percent voter turnout in Purcellville was much higher than the overall turnout of 13 percent in the Loudoun towns holding elections Tuesday. In Leesburg, where four Town Council candidates were running for three seats and Mayor Kristen C. Umstattd was unopposed, only 8 percent of voters showed up at the polls.
“I know there was quite a bit of campaigning, but there wasn't really one pressing issue” in the Leesburg election as there was in Purcellville, said Loudoun election supervisor Jennifer Roberts.
Lazaro has long criticized the county's proposal to build western Loudoun's next high school just outside the town borders at Fields Farm. He and others contend that it would worsen traffic in the area, and he has repeatedly said the property is a “lousy” location for a school that is unlikely to serve a majority of teenagers living in Purcellville.
Most important, the site's critics have argued, the plan to build the school violates a land-use agreement between the town and county. County officials disagree, which is the dispute currently making its way through the courts.
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Town officials, including Lazaro, have said in recent months that they might be willing to accept the school if the county met certain town demands. Purcellville is planning the construction of a new sewage system, and town officials want it to connect to the school. In addition, they have asked for some road improvements.
County Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge) said the county has accepted 95 percent of the town's conditions.
“I think [Lazaro believes] that because of the election, we are obliged to give them everything they've asked for,” he said. “Well, that's not the way negotiation works.”
Burton added that he remained optimistic an out-of-court settlement could be reached.
County officials say they have pushed their case for the school in part because of the urgency of the need to relieve student crowding. If the project is finalized, construction could begin by the summer and the school could open its doors by 2010, school district officials said.
Lazaro last week also criticized Loudoun Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott K. York (I), who has been an ally of Lazaro's in the past. He accused York of being “hypocritical” for pushing for the Fields Farm location after earlier saying he opposed it.
York acknowledged that he did not relish the idea of building a school at Field Farms, and said his ideal solution would be for the school district to find a new location. But school officials have not identified any acceptable alternatives, and York said Fields Farm provides the best way get the badly needed school built as soon as possible.
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