If You Build It They Will Come971130

Many western Prince William County residents probably noticed the bulldozers starting to clear the land along Rt 234 just east of Catharpin last week. It would appear clearing has begun for what may well be the first pit stop on the Powerline Corridor.

The project was before the planning commission in October 1996, and approved by the Board of Supervisors 19 November 1996. The project was billed as a replacement for Alvey's store--and people around here respect the business.

What was not exactly clear was that a 16,500 square foot plaza with 5 stores and n gas pumps (where n was reported as being 12 at one time and 8 at another) was simply an expansion of Alvey's store. It was also not noted what the 4 other business would be...the developer apparently mentioned dry cleaning and barber shops but it appeared the remarks were more off-hand than anything else.

The future traffic pattern will bear some watching. Because the plaza will be to the east of Catharpin and Pageland Lane, there may be some conflicts between the Rt 50-Gum Springs-234-Pageland-Rt 29 cut through commuters and traffic entering and exiting the plaza. There already has been some discussion of adding a traffic light. Local residents will no doubt be very careful when transiting the area on Rt 234.

In other news this holiday week, be sure to see what the Prince William County Democratic Committee has done with Republican Supervisor Ed Wilbourn. If you look along the left hand side of their home page, there is a link for "Wilbourn News Reports."

This has also been a banner month for "label assignment." CARD tries real hard to avoid that sort of thing. It is intesting to note how many people have spoken out against the practice. CARD has also noted the link between such label assignment and the practice of excluding the general public in the decision making process in local road decisions. Label the citizens as "radicals" and then put the matter in the hands of your own secret society.

CARD´s bottom line goes something like this. Those that practice label assignment probably don´t have anything of substance to say. Label assignment does not say a thing about the position you are trying to put forth or defend, it merely attempts to describe some how your opposition. Further, local road decisions that will not stand in the light of day on their own merit are those that must be made in secret. A project in the interest of the public can easily be approved by the public. A project in the interest of a few at the expense of the public will not stand such scrutiny--and those are more likely to succeed when hidden from the public, omitted from meeting agendas--and when reporters are ejected from the room.

As an exercise, we did attempt to better understand what a MAD is; that is a "myopic antagonistic dissenter." Using a dictionary, we concluded:

From this we conclude that a MAD is someone that disagrees with me and thus is my opponent and oh by the way they need glasses or contact lenses. Sounds like society is in grave danger to us folks.

You can always learn a lot on the world wide web however.


Enough of that. Some final notes:

Our friends working the ICC in Maryland sent us a reference this week. It is a guide to project compliance with the Environmental Protection Act. The consideration is timely as VDOT moves ahead with the Environmental Impact Study phase of the Wester Bypass whoops its not a Bypass its a Developer´s Corridor. We have not had time to go through it yet but we will be taking a look. For those interested we offer the Region 3 Environmental Guidebook.

We heard a rumor this week that the Prince William County board of supervisors asked Supervisor Ed Wilbourn just what his personal interests were in development projects in Prince William County. The rumor went on that Supervisor Wilbourn has yet to answer the question.

CARD wishes a happy thanksgiving to all.

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