Trio Pushes Conditions, Delay on Metro

Loudoun Supervisors Janet Clarke, Ken Reid and Geary Higgins offered a list of 21 terms they believe should be integrated with the county’s decision to participate in the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. They offered their list toward the end of a work session Monday on potential ways to finance the project.

The Loudoun Board of Supervisors now has a July 4 deadline to make a decision. A lack of action by that date would commit the county to the project.

Some of the conditions proposed by Clarke (R-Blue Ridge), who is the board’s vice chairman, Reid (R-Leesburg) and Higgins (R-Catoctin) include items that are in progress or require action by another entity, such as giving Virginia two additional seats on the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority board or calling for a permanent inspector general for that body.

Other board members balked at the notion of making demands that may not be within the control of supervisors or any of the partners in the proposed rail project, the second phase of which would extend the Silver Line now under construction from Wiehle Avenue to Ashburn.

Among the requests is one calling for the state to commit more money and another to oppose project labor agreements, a move previously made.

“I think we need to ask for an extension on the decision on Dulles Rail,” Higgins said Monday. “I cannot vote for this project until we decide tax-wise who’s in and who’s out and who’s going to pay for it.”

But some board members said the 21-point letter should have been presented earlier in the process, not at 4 p.m. the day of one of the last work sessions on rail.

“I got this at 4 o’clock today. This is a wish list,” said Supervisor Matt Letourneau (R-Dulles). “Some of these things are already in the queue. Some of them are things we cannot possibly resolve prior to this vote.”

Supervisors also learned about the preliminary results of a survey that indicated support for rail by a majority of residents in both eastern Loudoun and the rural area. Clarke questioned whether the 1,000-person sample was large enough for accurate results.

Attached is the letter with the 21 terms proposed by the Clarke, Reid and Higgins.

For complete coverage of the Silver Line, go to Patch's Metro Silver Line Project archives.

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[Correction: Supervisor Letourneau's party affiliation was incorrectly listed in the original version of this story. Patch apologizes for the error.]