Metro Special Tax District-Vote NO!

http://www.loudoun.gov/index.aspx?NID=390

Meeting online

 

Request to Delay attached.

If anyone is planning to go to the meeting tonight at 5:00 PM, we need support still and might be making some headway. Sup. Williams proposed a purple line district which he says excludes our neighborhood, and hopefully any existing housing.

In the meeting last night, they made a revelation that the Silver Spring Metro has shown HALF of their projected revenue. HALF, so that means it's running a deficit already. The tote board the Supers use to input tax scenarios will be updated and online today by noon. If you have a knack for numbers, I suggest you take a stab at this, maybe someone other than a Super can find the right combination for financing. Please keep this in mind and reduce the revenue by half so you'll come in with a conservative estimate.

The OTHER revelation they made last night was that your increase in value (if any) is ALREADY baked in, per Planner Mays. Even the condos (within a half mile) not yet built will obviously be sold at a price with the metro benefit baked in. They will also be subject to a special metro tax per the plan as it is now.

The good news is that's one less tax increase for us, the bad news is those of you banking on a huge increase are not likely to see that happen.

 

Article regarding the latest proposal to pay for metro:

http://www.loudountimes.com/index.p...istrict_comes_in_play_for_metro_financing424/

 

According to a few different BoS members, all options including existing residential in a tax district is off the table.

 

That wouldn't surprise me. Never thought it would happen anyway.

 

Suzanne Volpe and Tim Helmstreet (sp?) held a meeting on Wednesday where they presented to her district the two mile tax district and the revenue projections from us.

I heard them say in the BoS meeting it was off the table, but why would she present this two days AFTER the BoS meeting? Seems like it's playing out exactly how Roland Gunn planned it.

And Buona says the completion of Gloucester will take 15k cars off waxpool each day. The cost there is $15MM, so let's say $1MM=1K cars. That's more cars than the total projected ridership of metro,(12k in year 2025). 5000 parking spaces, 5000 riders. So $1.5B for 5000 cars. Wow...that's a smokin' deal!

Hopefully they'll learn the tax districts are illegal.

 

Donzi-
But all those cars still end up on RTE 28.
Tax districts ARE NOT illegal. We have them in the county now, and Fairfax has several.

 

Cliff, I rec'd this today:

Paragraph 4 of 15.2-2403 allows the locality to contract to provide government services, reaffirming that it must be government services (not interstate compact services) -- also corporations are considered a "person" under the law, but "personhood" is narrowly construed, and I do not think MWAA nor WMATA are technically considered "persons" and they are not a municipality or state agency... this is what the code says:


"4. To contract with any person, municipality or state agency to provide the governmental services authorized by subdivisions 1 and 2 and to construct, establish, maintain, and operate any such facilities and equipment as may be necessary and desirable in connection therewith."

basically 15.2-2403 allows a local government to set up a service district for government services within the district.


Only transportation and transportation services within the district that are provided by the local government can be paid for with taxes from the district. The statute specifically says that the taxes can be used to build roads that will be then the responsibility of VDOT, but the statute does not allow the creation of a district to collect taxes to pay for construction of a metro system owned by entities not governmental, or to pay for operating costs of a system not owned by the local government or VDOT.


A service district cannot be set up to pay for or operate a non governmental system with non governmental services (WMATA is not a government)...

I wish that sometimes I had a translator, but that's it, however you interpret it.

 

Go TeamDonzi! I think we should allow the illegal tax districts to pass, then all of us who are paying extra illegal taxes need to take the county to small claims court to recoup the illegal overpayments. Or we could just do a class action.

 

Sorry, but that one piece of one section of code does not invalid tax districts.
I think earlier in this thread, or another one, rthe relevant code sections about tax districts was listed.
Fairfax already has one in place to pay for Metro. They got residential units exempted legislatively.

 

The law states the county must be larger than 500,000 residents. I'm getting this from a lawyer, I am not one. LoCo is too small, and we can't opt out residential bc the general assembly must do that and they are not in session.

Bottom line is the 2 mile district is still very much in play, the STRAW POLL they took doesn't mean much other than words to quiet everybody down. If we weren't out here telling ppl that they considered this, it would have passed by now because Shawn says 100% of Broad Run district wants metro. (I'd be thrilled if they took a real vote on it).

These 4 supes cannot be trusted, especially RB, who is a pony for the develper, Comstock. Williams' new district would cost each landowner .43/100 to cover what they need. Who on earth would pay that? These guys are not fiscal conservatives, and they are doing some fuzzy math. Fuzzy math is very very bad.

A question to everyone pro rail, how much are you willing to add to your tax bill to pay for this? Only Homeowners please.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. TJ

 

Donzi - above are the statues I stated earlier in this thread. The VA Codes specifically allows localities the option of creating them. While you might "feel" it is illegal, it is in fact legal tax mechanism that our County (and others in the Commonwealth) can levy.

Before I try to debate you on the 500,000 #...do you have the specific state statue that you sourced that number from?

 

Lilpea:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+33.1-430

"County" means any county having a population of more than 500,000.

[under #12]

 

Also:
"Half of the funding ($253,000,000 in 2012 dollars) should be generated by a Tysons-wide tax district, whose boundary would be the same as the Tysons Corner Urban Center," the proposal states. "The Tysons-wide Road Improvements will be contained within this boundary and will serve to benefit the entire community within Tysons."
The proposal also says: "The Tysons Corner Urban Center would by law also include residential property owners. These residential property owners are currently exempt from the Dulles Phase I Rail District taxation*, but would be subject to this service district. As of January 1, 2012, residential property owners make up approximately 10 percent of the total assessed value of properties in Tysons."
More…http://mclean.patch.com/articles/fa...district-to-help-finance-transportation-costs

Hocus Pocus!

 

Donzi:

Do you understand that the above link you provided above is explicitly for the governance of the CTB: Commonwealth Transportation Board?

The CTB only charter is: "Special provisions pertaining to interstate, national highway system, and federal-aid primary highways"

Clearly the 500K County number you have cited is not applicable to Tax/Transportation Districts. Those two items are different chapters in the VA Code (respectively 1-3221.3 &33.1-430).

And for the other topic:. Please stop with the hysteria and try to understand that a typical Mix-Use application, such as the one's approved for Loudoun's (potential) Metro stops are usually luxury apartment rental or very high-end condos. Just because you see the word "residential" does not always mean it is privately owned. In most cases the "residence" is an apartment couples and the Corporate owner will tack on the additional C & I tax, that said locality has levied into the monthly rent.

 

I am new to this discussion but I saw this post on a friends facebook page and think it should be a concern to station area residents. Mr. Gray is real if you search his name.

A former prosecutor: With Metro comes crime
Daniel Gray
Ms. Ciliberti,

I see you are from Wilmington, a big union town which died
because of union labor, and came back to life as a financial services center when Pete Du Pont made war on taxation as governor. The metro is not going
to bring economic activity to Loudoun by itself. Metro runs all over Prince George's County, and through eastern Montgomery County, and what is mostly brings is crime. As a former prosecutor, I can walk you through the Robbery Track of Metro, and the Homicide Track of Metro, if you want me to. It is
so bad near Wheaton Station at the formerly prosperous Wheaton Mall, that
the criminal defense lawyers whom I got to know when handling a civil
wrongful death suit, told me they have to put extra security in their
building, and outside their office door, because criminals from D.C. and
P.G. County invade Wheaton Mall where their office is, looking for easy
victim marks. Your Kensington area is now getting pressured by criminals
coming along Veirs Mill Road from the east. There is crime cascading into Rockville along Veirs Mill Road, and it won't be long before Kensington is
not very safe. Loudoun will draw its first serious crime wave ever just
from people riding the Metro from D.C. and P.G. County. When light rail
was built in metro Baltimore out towards what was then rural Owings Mills 20 years ago, liberals scoffed that crime would never get to Owings Mills. Criminals now dominate retail establishments around Owings Mills, as I found
out when I tried to find a place to eat. The malls and restaurants were crawling with punks.

Daniel M. Gray, Esquire, West Falls Church

 

He forgot to mention that Metro is also responsible for WWII, Hurricane Katrina and the wildfires in Colorado.

 

All credibility is lost when it starts with the "union" bs then morphs into the incredible crime that is coming.
Nice try, Bob.

 

I don't want want to ride the metro from west falls church to dc, but I have to for work. A criminal is going to explicitly ride it from PG county to loudoun just to commit crimes? If so, they'd better have $20 on their fare card because that is one expensive ride and one long trip each way!

I admit, crime will probably go up. Is it really a selling point for my home to say "crime is lower becuase we have fewer transportation options than they do in Reston"?

I always have to fall back on the fact that we have concealed carry laws here in Virginia that they don't have in Maryland and DC. If they want to take a chance with a serious crime with me or my house they should know its not going to be a fair fight......

 

That was actually written by someone with a JD? The grammar is horrible.