LTE: Finding Metro Bucks

To Mr. Flannery and anyone else who cares about a particular program or about Loudoun County spending in general, hear this: Metro to Loudoun will forever have a dominant effect on spending priorities, second only to schools, if it comes to Loudoun.

It is a one-time mega-purchase managed by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), who Congressman Frank Wolf calls ‘unaccountable.’ It is also a partnership with WMATA, which runs Metro, but is chronically underfunded and is desperate to get its hooks into Loudoun to help with the rehab costs of the entire system.

In early January, Supervisor Buona was quoted in comments made at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast. “The budget process would to have to be viewed carefully, as the board works to drill down to core services and working to trim programs the government should not be responsible for,” he said.

People, it is time to wake up. He apparently considers Metro to be a core government service and Master Gardeners to be dispensable. It is worth noting that Buona works for a CEO and a company that is gaga for rail. He intends to deliver the Metro prize to them and the business community, bought and paid for with program cuts and, eventually, with tax hikes.

Metro riders pay little to offset the cost of their ride. Developers are offering to pay NOTHING toward this project that promises to funnel vast profits to a few landowners and contractors. Do the people of Loudoun want to terminate things like Master Gardeners programs to make this happen?

Rail has an insatiable appetite for money and Buona and others refuse to discuss some of the largest potential costs, like the cost of long term payments to Metro that the current Gazette poll is asking about.

We cannot allow this push to find Metro bucks to crowd out Master Gardeners, drug courts, FLES language, schools, pay increases, libraries, parks, ball fields, commuter buses, and funding needs for Lyme remediation. Remember too, that when State money goes to Metro, it defers the road projects that are needed. AG Cuccinelli said it is not a transportation project; it is a "real estate deal."

Metrorail to Loudoun is a black hole for money. Please ask your Supervisor to opt out and do what is best for the people of Loudoun.

David LaRock
Hamilton