The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Budget woes define election in Virginia’s largest jurisdiction

October 31, 2015 at 8:59 p.m. EDT
Jennifer Chronis, right, talks to voter Juleann Bieniek while canvassing in McLean on Saturday. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Virginia’s largest county is grappling with a problem that has become familiar to suburban communities across the country:

How to redefine itself amid aging neighborhoods, sweeping demographic changes and a sluggish economy that has sparked debates over raising taxes or significantly cutting into residents’ quality of life.

When Fairfax County voters head to the polls Tuesday, they will be doing more than choosing new political leaders — they will be weighing in on what types of schools and government services the county of 1.1 million residents and several Fortune 500 companies can afford.

Fairfax is trying to pull itself out of an economic hole that includes an office-vacancy rate of 16 percent and has triggered cuts to the celebrated public schools, libraries and other services that have made the area a magnet for federal government leaders and wealthy professionals.

Some older neighborhoods are deteriorating. Traffic is getting worse. School enrollment is growing and increasingly includes children who are poor and in need of extra services. And after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man in 2013, county officials are contemplating potentially expensive law-enforcement reforms and ways to preserve public trust.

The fiscal challenges mean that the long-comfortable county will have to increase tax revenue or significantly cut costs in the next several years — unpopular decisions that will fall to the new Board of Supervisors, including whoever is elected to fill the seats being vacated by retiring veterans Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) and Michael R. Frey (R-Sully).

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“It’s going to be a very heavy lift for everyone,” said the board’s chairman, Sharon Bulova (D), who has been a county supervisor for nearly 27 years.

Bulova is a solid favorite to win her bid for a third term leading the board. She is opposed by Republican Arthur Purves, 66, who heads the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance budget watchdog group, and retired U.S. Air Force officer Glenda Gail Parker, 68, who is running as an independent.

Purves, who characterizes the still-affluent county as fraying at the edges amid wasteful government spending, has tried to tap into frustrations over escalating residential property tax rates and deteriorating schools.

Those concerns are resonating more strongly in some other races, including a tight contest in the wealthy Dranesville District, where Supervisor John W. Foust (D) hopes to win a third term over Republican Jennifer Chronis.

Chronis, an executive with IBM, has received substantial support from Republican leaders eager to win the seat.

Since January, she has outraised Foust $324,000 to $293,000. Among her backers is U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Fairfax), who defeated Foust last year in the race for the 10th Congressional District seat.

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Chronis calls the county’s bureaucracy too cumbersome and says that not enough is being done to cut waste in schools and in other government agencies. She says homeowners are paying too much in property taxes. Since 2008, rates have gone from 89 cents per $100 of assessed value to $1.09.

“The county is on an unsustainable financial and economic path,” Chronis said. “It requires stronger leadership on the Board of Supervisors to address those challenges.”

She and Foust say Fairfax must diversify its economy away from federal contractors in the wake of sequestration and other cuts.

“We have to recognize that the gravy train of the federal government is ended,” Foust said. He cited plans by the Inova hospital group for a cancer-research complex in Merrifield as an example of how the county can become a hub for the health-care industry.

The Dranesville race recently took an ugly turn over a McLean gun shop that opened in September near an elementary school.

Opening of gun store stirs parents’ anxieties

Foust’s campaign accused Chronis of ignoring parents’ concerns about the location and mailed a flier to voters depicting a bullet-pocked traffic sign of a child running.

Chronis called the mailer “reprehensible” and said it misrepresents her desire to broker a peaceful solution to the controversy. “The only thing we can do as leaders is calmly address the fears and concerns of the parents and balance that with the rights of the business,” she said.

Foust, who joined protesters at the store when it opened, noted that Chronis remained silent when the gun store posted on its Facebook page that residents should vote for her if they wanted to support the Second Amendment.

Northern Va. state races come down to guns and tolls

Another major theme in the county is how to address the often-punishing traffic congestion.

In the Sully District, Democrat Kathy Smith said she will push hard to steer state transportation dollars to her steadily growing western Fairfax district. She said that the idea of extending Metrorail’s Orange Line into the district should be further investigated.

Her opponent, Republican John Guevara, advocates more public-private partnerships to alleviate traffic. He created a Web site, www.sullystreets.com, that allows residents to report pressing road problems.

“The number one issue that everybody talks about is transportation and the congestion concerns,” Guevara said.

Both he and Smith oppose approving an agreement with the state that would allow tolls to be levied on Interstate 66 inside the Capital Beltway, calling the idea unfair to working-class commuters.

The candidates clashed early in the campaign after Smith — a School Board member — declared that she’d work full time as supervisor if elected, saying the job requires that kind of commitment.

Guevara, who plans to keep his job as a manager at AT&T Consulting Solutions, responded by saying that Smith’s family income allows her that kind of flexibility, remarks that Smith called “outrageous.”

Other board races are not as competitive.

In the Braddock District, incumbent John C. Cook (R) has raised three times as much money as former School Board member Janet Oleszek (D), who is pushing a restaurant meals tax to raise money for schools. Independent Carey Campbell is also in that race.

Schools advocates not a major force in supervisor races

In the Mason District, five-time incumbent Penelope A. Gross (D) has raised six times as much her opponent, Mollie Loeffler, who is running as an independent.

In heavily Democratic Mount Vernon, Dan Storck (D), a School Board member, is favored to beat Republican Jane Gandee. In Springfield, Republican Pat Herrity is facing only minimal opposition from Corazon Foley, an independent.

Supervisors Jeff C. McKay (D-Lee), Catherine M. Hudgins (D-Hunter Mill) and Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence) are running unopposed.

Frey, who will step down in January after 24 years in office, predicted that the new board will find it increasingly difficult to preserve Fairfax’s high quality of life.

“Just to keep up with what we’ve got is going to be a challenge,” Frey said. “There is going to be a lot. I don’t know that I’ll miss it.”