Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Northern Virginia U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly applauds the decision.
The U.S. Postal Service will keep operations running on Saturdays, after the service's Board of Governors formally accepted Congressional actions that eliminate the chance to move delivery to five days a week. The Postal Service Board met Tuesday and issued a news release about their decision: "Congress has prohibited implementation of a new national delivery schedule for mail and packages, which would consist of package delivery Monday through Saturday and mail delivery Monday through Friday, and which would have taken effect the week of August 5, 2013," according to the statement. "The Board believes that Congress has left it with no choice but to delay this implementation at this time. The Board also wants to ensure that customers of …
Monday, April 1, 2013
Barn manager Allison Mills' business is going to stay.
The horse boarding program at the Meadowood Special Recreation Area will survive for at least another year. Barn manager Allison Mills signed a one-year lease for the Bureau of Land Management's Stables At Meadowood last Friday and is no longer tied down to her previous contract, which limited the number of horses allowed on the property to 15, as the Bureau makes its long-awaited final determination on future barn renovations. Mills was down to 15 horses at the barn, and has a waiting list of 34 horses. It will take several months to introduce the animals to their new home. "BLM has made every extraordinary effort to accommodate the community desire and the needs of the on-site businesses at the barn," said Mills to Patch. "And it's …
Friday, March 22, 2013
Connolly got a legal opinion from the Government Accountability Office on the matter.
The U.S. Postmaster General does not have the authority to cut mail delivery service across the country from six to five days per week, according to a Government Accountability Office legal opinion requested by Northern Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-11th). "Unfortunately, the Postmaster General continues to stonewall Members of Congress, withholding his legal justifications for eliminating Saturday delivery from Postal customers and the American public," said Connolly, a ranking member on the Subcommittee on Government Operations, in a statement. “The GAO legal opinion clearly rejects the Postal Service’s attempt to circumvent the law." The postal service announced last month that starting Aug. 5, 2013, it would reduce mail …
Monday, March 18, 2013
It was a who's who of the party faithful...
Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-11th) hosted more than 800 guests, including dozens of local politicians, on Sunday for his 19th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Fete at the Kena Shriners Temple in Fairfax. At $40 a person the event is one of the largest campaign fundraisers Connolly holds every year. "It is time we clean house in Virginia," said Connolly to the audience. "Elections matter, and every day I am reminded of the effects of the 2010 elections. It is not OK to leave billions of dollars on the table and 300,000-to-400,000 Virginians go uninsured because the idealogues don't want to expand Medicaid." Terry McAuliffe, Virginia's Democratic candidate for governor, said that his race will be focused on job creation. "I have a …
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The event will be held Sunday at the Kena Temple in Fairfax.
Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-11th) will host his 19th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Fete on Sunday at the Kena Shriners Temple in Fairfax. The event, which is one of the largest annual Democratic gatherings in Northern Virginia, is his biggest campaign fundraiser of the year. The fete began in 1995 in Connolly's Fairfax home, but the festivities soon outgrew the venue, and the Kena function hall has been home ever since to hundreds of the party faithful. The event will be held from 7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., and tickets cost $40 and include a full Irish dinner of corned-beef, cabbage and other traditional Irish fare. Are you following us on Facebook and Twitter? It takes less than a minute...
Friday, March 1, 2013
The March 1 deadline for sequestration is here.
Northern Virginia Congressmen Gerry Connolly (D-11th) and Jim Moran (D-8th) said Congress is "dysfunctional," as the midnight deadline on sequestration steadily approached. "It's a dysfunctional Congress," said Moran, who spoke with Patch at a ribbon-cutting Friday in Lorton. "I think it ill-serves the people of the United States today. It's very frustrating, very disappointing. It's an institution that is not serving its functions." Connolly does not expect a last-minute compromise on $1.2 trillion in debt reduction, and the U.S. military will be forced to cut $46 billion and domestic defense spending will be cut by $85 billion this year alone. "It is the consequence of a dysfunctional Congress," he said. "It's the consequence of …
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
President Obama spoke in Virginia today, and targeted Congress for putting "games" over the jobs of tens of thousands of Virginians, and asked for help to prevent sequestration. Here's how to contact your congressman.
President Obama dropped by Virginia on Tuesday, railed against Congress for yet another "manufactured crisis" -- this time sequestration 2013 -- and asked for help pressuring lawmakers to solve the budget impasse that could cost the state more than 200,000 jobs. "If you agree with me, I need you to make sure your voices are heard," Obama told employees and television cameras at Newport News Shipbuilding. "Let your leaders know what you expect of them. Let them know what you believe." The company receives Defense Department funding that's being threatened by drastic, mostly indiscriminate cuts that begin March 1 if no agreement is reached on debt reduction. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner has already warned that sequestration will be "worse than …
Sequestration could affect every traveler at airports nationwide, say U.S. Reps. Jim Moran, Gerry Connolly and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine speaking from Reagan National Airport Monday.
Federal sequestration will mean fewer flights and increased wait times at airports, Virginia lawmakers said Monday. Further, it threatens to close small- to mid-sized airports across the country. The massive, indiscriminate spending cuts Congress put in motion to force a budget compromise would cut $600 million from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) if they go into effect Friday. Jobs on the Line Under sequestration, the FAA would have to furlough employees for 11 days — with as much as 10 percent of its workforce furloughed on any given day — and the agency would be unable to hire replacements for the 30 percent of its workers eligible to retire. Up to 2,200 air traffic controllers would be furloughed, forcing airports to reduce …
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Connolly writes letter to Postmaster General, asking for legal justification; cites study that says reducing mail volume will lead to revenue loss of $5.2 billion in first year.
Stopping the mail on Saturdays? Not so fast, say two members of the Northern Virginia Congressional delegation. U.S. Rep. James P. Moran (D-8th) and U.S. Rep Gerald Connolly (D-11th) expressed concern Wednesday afternoon about the U.S. Postal Service's announcement that it plans to suspend delivery of first-class mail service on Saturdays beginning in August. “I have great concerns about eliminating Saturday mail delivery," Moran wrote in an email to Patch. "The Postal Service is grappling with major forces outside of its control: an economy increasingly relying on email and the Internet for communication, and a Congress that refuses to address the redundant pension pre-funding requirement." The USPS released a fact sheet Wednesday. For …
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
What will Congress do?
The threat of sequestration - $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts to defense and civilian programs over the next decade - looms large for Northern Virginia. U.S. Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-11th) had grim news Tuesday evening for constituents in his telephone town hall meeting, and said that the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives refuses to come to the table to find a solution before the cuts kick in on March 1. "The Republican leadership in the House has shown almost no willingness to work with us (Democrats) to avert it," said Connolly. "Until recently, the House Majority solution has been to shift all of the cuts from Defense to the domestic investment side of the ledger, cutting Education, Transportation and …
Janet
5:08 pm on Wednesday, April 3, 2013
This is the most beautiful stable and riding space in the local area!! I am overjoyed about this decision and look forward to taking lessons there in the near future. more ›