I GUESS that I am in the minority of people my age, but when I turned 18 I was excited to be able to vote. Perhaps it was the notion that I was now finally an adult and able to exercise some form of choice in our government.Since I turned 18 I have voted in every election in which I was eligible to do so.Fast approaching is the Nov. 4 local election which may not seem very important to many students at this University, but that is not to say that it is not.
Up for grabs are seats in the Virginia Senate and Virginia House of Delegates along with a myriad of local positions. While it has been recently reported that many of the Virginia Assembly seats are running unopposed, this does not mean one should avoid the polls.
In the state's most populous county, Fairfax County, a certain race has been heating up in recent days: The race for the chairman of the board of supervisors. Mychele Brickner is running opposite Gerry Connolly for the top spot on the board.Connolly's main strategy in opposing Brickner seems to be to cast her as an extremist which is simply not the case.
Many people are quick to categorize her as some sort of monster who will ruin the county, but it is, in effect, a smoke screen to cloud the real issues.
The first major issue is, of course, taxes. As anyone who lives in Northern Virginia is painfully aware, property values and the associated property taxes have been rising like a hot air balloon. Many people simply cannot afford to live in Northern Virginia due to the immensely high cost of living.Property taxes in Fairfax County have increased by a massive 53 percent in the past four years, and continue to increase at a massive rate. The average homeowner will pay $329 more this year despite "tax cuts." The simple fact of the matter is that despite percentage cuts, the value of property is rising so quickly that each year the government is taking a disproportionately large sum of the homeowner's funds.
Opponents of Brickner are quick to criticize her goal of cutting taxes, claiming that they will severely cripple the county.This is absolutely ridiculous. A new concept to some on the left is the fact that not every special group needs their own "program and bus." Smart spending makes tax cuts possible.
No one can drive in Northern Virginia without realizing there is a traffic problem, and a candidate for office cannot run without a plan to fix it. Connolly promises to fix transportation utilizing large sums in, "expected federal, state and some county funding." The mere fact that Connolly feels the need to qualify the county's commitment to fixing its own problems as "some funding" proves that he subscribes to the general "blame Richmond" theory of transportation. The truth of the matter is that Fairfax County needs to work to fix its own problems.This is not a socialist republic where the wealth is distributed from more populous counties to the other counties and certainly not the other way around.
Brickner's plan for transportation involves making use of the nearly $50 million in voter-approved bonds that have yet to be cashed in, to immediately start improving traffic. Connolly has served on the board for 8 years and has yet to make use of these funds which were approved as far back as 1992.
Connolly and his supporters are fond of the strategy of criticizing Brickner's school board record which is indeed quite amusing. Brickner was originally elected to the school board in 1995. In 1999 she was re-elected to a second term by an even stronger majority.
Brickner has proven her worth numerous times. She was a strong opponent to the superintendent Daniel Domenech's race-based plans for admissions at TJ (a Fairfax county magnet school) and worked to keep the family in "family life education." The term "book banner" is thrown around Brickner a fair amount, but it is ridiculous to think that the school board does not have the right and the obligation to oversee the books being read by the children in public schools.
Considering the fact that the school system receives more than half of the county's budget, Brickner's many years of experience on the school board is proof enough of her qualifications.
I encourage all of my fellow students to cast their ballots in the coming general election regardless of their political affiliations or place of origin. A voting block of young people can only serve to increase our influence in the country and the world.For those of us from Fairfax County, I urge caution when analyzing the propaganda sent forth by certain parties and join me in casting a vote for Mychelle Brickner for chairman of the board of supervisors.
(Daniel Bagley is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at dbagley@cavalierdaily.com.)
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