Congratulations to the winners of today's City Council election.  Of course, when you don't have any opposition, there is no surprise that you will get elected.

I know that when you have no opposition, H. Parrish, S. Smith, J Way and M. Wolfe have no initiative to make any kind of outreach to voters unless your personal compass suggests that you ought to campaign and ask voter what direction they think think this City ought to be going in.  None of my neighbors ever heard from any of these gentlemen.

More to the point, I was surprised to see NONE of these white guys out at my precinct to campaign and ask for my vote.

I did find what they did say to voters as revealing.  Check out these published comments: 

Hal Parrish, who is going to be our next mayor, could not even reply to the question of what he saw as the biggest issues facing Manassas and what he would do to address them.  What hubris!  I know he has a popular political name in town, but, please, do something to earn my support and not rub my face in the fact you have no challenger.

Steve Smith says that we need to "present a positive image." But wait, hasn't he been on Council for at least 4 years?  Yikes,  if he doesn't think Manassas has a positive image in 4 years, why should be re-elected?  Sounds like he hasn't done anything to help improve the city.

Jon Way says that we need to "control taxes to inflation plus citizen-supported initiatives."  Wait a moment, did he not vote for a 23% increase in the personal tax rate?  Golly, what a candidate will say when he has no opponent.  And he says he is Republican.   With that kind of tax hike, who could afford 4 more years of Mr. Way?

Newcomer Mark Wolfe says that Manassas' quality of life comes from, among other things, "an effective and efficient local government."  Guess he has never seen how many trips it takes the city utility department to change a street light...three iseprate trips with three different trucks in my neighborhood.  Or watched various city inspectors go to a job site only to get into 2 different vehicles and drive away despite the cost of gas these days...or wait over 20 minutes for city police to respond to a gang fight which included destroying local property.

I would have been happy to share all this with these candidates, but since none of them chose to campaign, it is tough to discuss these issues with ghosts.  

My prediction is that with the re-election of Parrish, Smith and Way and election of newcomer Wolfe, I can expect higher taxes, continued government inattention, and no interest in what residents and property owners need and expect unless they can sum it up in the pitiful 3 minutes tossed like a bone to citizens during "Citizen Time" at City Council meeting.