Help support the HOA redistricting plan

Peter they split Overland Park away from the rest of Broadlands again. The only plan that did not do that was the HOA plan which the majority of supervisors just tossed aside as not really what residents wanted. The plan that was an effort by some on the BOS to protect candidates they wanted to run, make the rural precincts believe they were preserving 2 rural districts (when in fact what they did will make sure that by the 2nd election cycle there will be no rural voice left in Loudoun) and protect Leesburg. They split 6 major HOA's.

Please email the BOS Thursday will be the last chance we get for the next 10 years to undo this awful plan for all of Loudoun!

Staci

 

Why Sally Kurtz voted for the Miller 5 plan
Basically Land over people

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The Board of Supervisors has adopted a redistricting Plan, called the Miller 5 Plan. I supported it.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]As I evaluated the various plans I kept the following guideline criteria in mind: create districts with equal representation, comply with the Voting Rights Act, have compact and contiguous districts, preserve communities of interest, do not split incorporated Towns when possible, and use geographical or physical features, especially arterial roadways for district and precinct boundaries.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]I personally spent hours trying to make all the pieces fit together, and I'll be the first to admit it isn't perfect. Leesburg was too big. Then when you threw in the boundaries of large suburban HOA's it was indeed a gigantic puzzle and many hours were spent trying to fit aspects of other plans into one plan that met as much as possible the criteria. And I found that when one change was made it created a domino effect.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]At the end of the process I supported a Plan that continued to have two districts with small Towns, Villages, rural residential residents and suburban residents generally in the northern area of the county and the southern area. I thought based on the large geographical area west of Route 15, the "Town/Rural" areas are generally divided by Route 7. Route 7 as a distinguishing boundary fulfills one criteria of using arterial roads as a boundry between districts. More importantly since it is over an hour from Lovettsville to Middleburg I thought that the southern area of the county is organized along Route 50, while the northern area of the county is organized along Route 9 and Route7 and the plan should reflect that.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]I supported a plan that expanded the Leesburg district as much as possible to its Town Limits as the criteria advised.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]The Miller 5 Plan I supported, shows much more compact districts in the east than the competing plans that came to be known as HOA Plans. The various HOA plans had one eastern district that stretched from south Leesburg taking in part of the Town all the way to Route 28 and one district that went from University Center on Route 7 to Raspberry Falls north of Leesburg. In it, the Town of Leesburg district included the precincts of Waterford, Clarke's Gap and Lucketts. Essentially what was left of Catoctin District became Leesburg District. And there was one massive "Western District" that went from Lovettsville to Middleburg and the South Riding area, effectively lumping all six small Towns together.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]In the end our Catoctin District remained much as it has before with the pleasant addition of Hamilton to join Lovettsville as our incorporated Towns, and our Villages remain with the addition of Neersville and Between the Hills. Catoctin still includes the wonderful subdivisions of Evergreen Meadow, Oaklawn and Stratford, Potomac Station (outside Town limits), Spring Lakes, Northlake, Lakes of Red Rocks, River Creek, and West Lansdowne around Leesburg. Also, North and South of the Town of Leesburg, Catoctin will continue to include Raspberry Falls, Courtland Rural Village, Rokeby Hamlets, Grenata and Hamlets at Red Cedar. I have always thought that having a magisterial district with many diverse neighborhoods enriched my thought processes as I evaluated the issues that come before the Board.[/FONT]

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[FONT=&quot]My warm regards,[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Sally [/FONT]

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Sent it Staci. Sorry couldn't make the meeting.

 

I sent the following to Supervisor McGimsey, with copies to Supervisors York and Miller.



Dear Supervisor McGimsey,
Thank you for accepting input on the IMPORTANT issue of Redistricting Loudoun County in accordance with new data published from the 2010 Decennial Census.

It is my understanding that the Overland Park section of the Broadlands Neighborhood has been gerrymandered away from the rest of the Broadlands. My Home Owners Association dues are set by and paid to the Broadlands HOA. I rely on the HOA to be an advocate on my behalf for items of interest to my subdivision and to the neighborhood as a whole. By splitting Overland Park away from the rest of the Broadlands area, you are effectively creating a situation where my HOA will need to spend more time, energy and money, communicating with multiple Board of Supervisor members and their staffs regarding issues of importance to all of the Broadlands community.

Unfortunately, I am dismayed by your vote to support a plan to break up COMMUNITIES along boundaries which make no logical sense. Furthermore, I am deeply concerned about the lack of visual data put forth in the maps showing the new areas (specifically this map: http://www.loudoun.gov/Portals/0/docs/Redistricting/Loudoun County 2011 Redistricting Plan.pdf). The creation of district 3 appears to be haphazardly drawn with no respect to the needs of the underlying communities. Creating this amoeba-like area dismantles communities and will provide the Supervisor with too many competing priorities to effectively represent their constituents.

I work with Census data daily and I am also responsible for creating maps of the data that my office provides. Therefore, I believe that I am qualified to comment on the lack of detail available in this map. I believe that the map referenced in the link above is intentionally vague so that citizens have a hard time figuring out the effects of the new district boundaries before it is too late. Additionally, I have yet to see a single report that shows why COMMUNITIES have been split up and more importantly, I have yet to find any documentation that shows the average citizen what the old boundaries are and what the ramifications are for the new districting plan. I am most concerned about what this new redistricting plan will mean to the drawing of School Zone boundaries. By allowing this current plan to move forward, I can only assume that the next step is to redistrict school zones along these same lines which means that my children will not attend the same schools as other children in my COMMUNITY.

It is also my understanding that you will be the incumbent Supervisor for this new district at the time of the next election. Rest assured that I will VOTE AGAINST you in the next election cycle as well as against any at-large members who support this plan.

I strongly urge you to reconsider your current position and vote for an amended redistricting plan that keeps communities together as a whole. Any plan that you support that does not keep Overland Park together with the rest of Broadlands will be met with a VOTE AGAINST you in the next election.

I welcome and anticipate a response from your office.

Sincerely,
Peter Kahn
Broadlands (Overland Park) Resident since 2003

 

Hi All
The major HOA's have planned a protest tomorrow evening at 5:30 in front of the Government Building. The goal is to put pressure on the Supervisors who voted for the Miller 5 amended plan that breaks up Broadlands and 5 other major HOA's as well as guarantees that the rural residents will have no representation after this year, to ask for a reconsideration and put the residents before politics. We have made up several signs for people to hold and have invited the press to be there. We are hoping this last ditch effort does something to help form a compromise. I know that many residents have all come into this process late and have not had much of an opportunity to be heard so I wanted to pass this information on to you.

Please feel free to pass it on to as many of your friends and neighbors who reside throughout Loudoun County. Our Goal is to have at least 100 people turn out as the Supervisors tend to act differently in front of a crowd then when there is only a few in the room.

Thank you
Staci Kapinos

 

RALLY: Homeowners from Broadlands and homeowners from Kirkpatrick Farms, Brambleton, South Riding, and other HOAs will rally at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 24th, outside the Loudoun County Government Center (1 Harrison Street, S.E., Leesburg) in an effort to persuade the Board of Supervisors to reconsider the redistricting plan they adopted and to substitute the HOA Plan 4 (which would keep Broadlands and other communities united.)
We need as many Broadlands residents as possible to join us there. The rally should be about 1/2 hour, no speeches by any of you are expected or required - just bring yourself and any homemade signs. We will have some signs available that say People, Not Politics; For the People, By the People; Please don't split my community!!!; Similar Communities, Similar Districts; Communities First!!!
Let's see if we can have success as we team up with other large Loudoun HOAs.

Hope to see you there. Thank you.

Staci Kapinos

 

Can we see "the HOA plan"? I looked online at HOA 3 and HOA 4, what I thought you guys are talking about, and both of them have Overland Park's precinct (102, Ashburn Farm) in a separate district from the rest of the Broadlands. Since Precinct 102 Ashburn Farm contains part of Farmwell Hunt (but not all) and part of Ashburn Farm (but not all), there's no plans that have all three communities in one district that I see anywhere ever proposed. The only way for ALL of Broadlands to be together (and all of Farmwell Hunt and Ashburn Farm) would be for Precinct 102 to be split so Overland Park is not part of it anymore. My impression is it's too late in the process (over 3 months now) to consider a precinct split, and it won't be considered. The Broadlands HOA is listed as supporting both HOA 3 and HOA 4 on Loudoun.gov's flickr site, and both have Overland Park in a separate district from the rest of the Broadlands, just like the adopted Miller 5 Amended Plan.

 

The HOA plan uses a revised version of the County's proposed 102 split
containing 102 and 122. 102 contains Ashburn Farm and Farmwell and 122 contains Overland park and Carisbrooke. The split proposed by the county goes from Ashburn farm parkway down Claiborne to Broadlands Blvd and then out Hemingway back to Ashburn farm parkway. What we did in our plan was come down Broadlands Blvd but instead of crossing over Ashburn Rd and disrupting Farmwell we stopped at Ashburn Rd and came back to Waxpool. Thus pulling 1642 residents that make up Overland park and Carisbrooke

Staci

 

Thanks Staci. We all really appreciate all your work to get this right. When I just look at the accepted map, it didn't jump out as something to rally against. It looked pretty good, actually (from the newpapers I read, I expected much worse).
I saw that Brambleton was split, and definitely got the impression from published accounts and Supervisor Miller's blog that he and Supervisor Waters (the Ashburn supervisors now) felt their districts' best interests were not represented.
There is A LOT of information online but it's in Flickr and PDFs and tools and very hard to gather. For example, the County split of 102 is not in the Map Gallery for proposed precinct splits, and I don't see it on the accepted plan. So, right now, I just have to trust you know what you're talking about (which I do).
Thanks again. Hope it all works out.

 

Thanks Joy
Here is the proposal by the county. I know that website too well right now
http://www.flickr.com/photos/omagi/5476764190/in/set-72157625886196043/
Is the Miller 5 plan the absolute worst thing that could have happened? I don't think so but I also think that they could do much better. It splits 6 major HOA's. In and of itself not huge but when you are only giving a few hundred residents a different voice out of 39,039 plus it makes it hard to be heard. For example according to the census there are 695 residents in Overland park but that includes both adults and children so you are probably looking at only 300 people out of 10 of thousands that are trying to get a supervisors attention. The other problem is this will also be the boundaries for the school board members as Ashburn Farm and Lansdowne have already discovered this was not in their best interest to have 2 different representatives. Lastly I think it is very deceiving to the residents of the west. Using the census numbers the blue ridge district has 39676 residents. Of that 16366 are living in what they consider to be a rural area and 14417 live in what they consider to be Suburban and then there is 8893 residents of Purcellville. Knowing the population growth that has already occurred in Brambleton since the census was taken this means the Suburban already out number the rural. Will this really represent their needs? It is a very similar break down for the new Catoctin district as well. I just do not believe that the areas created really represent what the majority of the residents want and we could do better.

Staci

 

So, what's the name of our proposed district (excluding Overland Park)? Are we Ashdowne, Dean, Broad Run or what? None of the news outlets really has it on a map, except for Ashburn Patch and then I have to toggle between map and key-- It's sad that I'm too lazy for that today.

 

Most of Broadlands is now Broad Run
Overland park is now Ashdowne

Staci

 

maybe it's a dumb question but does that mean the Broadlands kids that were going to briar woods HS are now going to broan run HS?

 

What's really crazy is that Ashburn Farm precinct, which votes at Broad Run HS, is still not in the district called Broad Run. You'd think they could have at least made that less confusing.