Health & Fitness
Pragmatic Journey to "Utopia"
Will Radle stands for fair treatment of Fairfax County taxpayers and students.
Recently, Democratic Committee Chairman Rex Simmons acknowledged I want the very best for our community. Simmons said, “[Will] seems to be offering utopia.”
Simmons clearly likes the vision I present for Fairfax County’s future, and does not understand how our community will achieve important milestones.
I want to thank Brian Logwood and Kristin Michael, the Budget Directors of Virginia Department of Education and Fairfax County Public Schools respectively, for helping me perform a thorough analysis. Fairfax County taxpayers subsidize other taxpayers to meet a state mandate for basic education at a cost of over $501 million annually.
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While Richmond is driving up our real estate taxes by over 31.5 percent, my opponents remain silent.
The argument used by advocates for the status quo is that Fairfax County is rich and other localities are poor. However, localities do not pay taxes; taxpayers pay taxes. Localities balance their budgets.
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The argument ignores community needs assessments consistently showing 25 percent of Fairfax County households cannot meet their basic needs at least one month per year.
Twenty-five percent of Fairfax County’s population is over 270,000 Virginians. As a comparison, the total population of most localities in Virginia is significantly fewer than 270,000 people.
Do you want to tell people who cannot meet their basic needs throughout the year that they are rich? No. Neither do I; I choose to stand and fight for them and our entire community.
Fairfax County is one large community with diverse regions and neighborhoods. In fact, we are so large the voters of Fairfax County elect 22.5 percent of Virginia state senators and 17 percent of our state delegates. My plan leverages our strength.
I have enjoyed speaking with Democratic and Republican state senators and delegates. They have shared with me we need a unifying force. That unifying force should be the chairman and the Board of Supervisors standing up and speaking for our community.
The best interests of Fairfax County and our people are clear. We will strike the grand bargain in the General Assembly and achieve generational milestones for our local priorities in education, transportation, public safety and tax relief.
