Polls – here we go again

In the early spring of 2006 I was credited/accused (your choice of words) of being responsible for the first ever political poll taken during Leesburg Town elections. I only wish I had the talent and the money to put something that professional together. Now, more in keeping with my talent and pocket book, I have recently added a poll to Leadership Talk. You, the readers, get to be the professional pollsters. First vote and watch the results. (This not Chicago, so your vote will only be counted once.) Then comment here on the results (click on the comment link below), and send me ideas for future polls. If it proves popular, I will change the poll every few weeks.

A little history, when the polls of last spring began, many were amazed that something like this could happen in little old Leesburg. Never mind that polls are common in state-wide and national elections. Even some friends who suspected my hand in what they called mischievous doings called me names like Skunk. Even though I cannot take credit for the earlier polls, I do take credit or blame for this poll on Leadership Talk. But please, if you want to call me a name, I would prefer “Pole Cat”. Perhaps some might think of Leadership Talk as the “Skunk Works”.

A little history on that name; as an aviator it has a special meaning to me and others of this persuasion. The name has its genesis at Lockheed Aircraft. The story is told on the Lockheed Martin Website:

When Kelly Johnson, a Lockheed engineer, brought together a hand-picked team of Lockheed engineers and manufacturing people at Burbank in the wartime year of 1943, each team member was cautioned that design and production of the new P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter must be carried out in strict secrecy. No one was to discuss the project outside the small organization, and team members were even warned to be careful how they answered the telephones.

A team engineer named Irv Culver was a fan of Al Capp’s newspaper comic strip, "Li’l Abner," in which there was a running joke about a mysterious place deep in the forest called the "Skonk Works." There, a strong beverage was brewed from skunks, old shoes and other strange ingredients. Johnson’s organization operated out of a rented circus tent next to a plastic manufacturing plant that would produce a strong odor which permeated the tent.

One day, Culver’s phone rang and he answered it by saying "Skonk Works, inside man Culver speaking." Fellow employees quickly adopted the name for their mysterious part of Lockheed, where the new jet fighter program was brewing. "Skonk Works" became "Skunk Works." The once informal nickname is now the registered trademark of the company: Skunk Works®.

There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Love

So goes the popular Country song. At a recent meeting of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, the question of too much mixed-use development was raised. In my opinion “mixed-use” can be added to the list of things we can not get too much of.

Mixed-use development is not new. Downtown Leesburg is as mixed as it comes. Residences are built over shops. Leesburg was planned and built before the automobile during a time when you walked to work. Horse dung was the pollutant du jour, not exhaust fumes. As our country industrialized and the automobile replaced the horse tract housing development became the norm. The demand for housing and roads accelerated at a phenomenal rate after World War II when 16 million veterans returned home. The baby and housing boom was on. Bill Levitt understood the tidal wave of demand for housing and the market for large low cost housing developments. Roosevelt talked about the dream of a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Eisenhower introduced the Interstate Highway System. The idea of walking to shop and work was lost on everyone except those living in very dense urban cities like New York where a car just does not work very well.

In the mid 1960s developers began to see that the old mixed-use model could actually work in the modern world of mass transit and the automobile. Employees were attracted to companies with offices close to where they could work and shop. Robert E. Simon was one of the early visionaries and his dream took shape in the form of RESTON. Others like Jim Rouse conceived Columbia, Maryland, a self-contained planned community. Columbia, which in the 1960s was almost entirely rural farm land, has a population of over 90,000. Reston’s population exceeds 56,000. Reston Town Center has become the focal point for retail and commercial businesses as well as a cultural center hosting summer concerts and recreation, like ice skating, in the heart of the project.

The Peterson Company watched this happen and developed Fairfax Corner at Fair Lakes, the Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg, and has given rebirth to downtown Silver Spring. The newest Peterson project, National Harbor, is attracting literally Olympic fame.

So why aren’t our leaders more receptive when mixed-use projects like Village at Leesburg, One Loudoun, and Crosstrail are proposed? We should stop treating developers as devils. They have done more to improve our quality of life than government – local, state or federal. These developers deserve our support and encouragement not the negativism that they are confronted with at every turn.

The Ghost Map

I never thought I would read a book about sewage, but I did and can not stop thinking about what I learned about the past and what the future might bring. The Ghost Map, The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Steven Johnson is a fascinating story about a terrible disease and two men who solved the mystery of how Cholera infects and kills in usually a day. Johnson tells about ancient Sanskrit writings in about 500 B.C. that told of a “lethal illness that kills by draining water from its victims". His main story centers on Victorian London and the Cholera outbreak in the summer of 1854.

Johnson is a best selling author. His previous book, Everything Bad is Good for You, made him a popular figure on television and radio talk shows, and a much requested speaker at events around the world. He has the ability to explain complicated scientific issues in terms that mere mortals like me can understand.

While the story of Dr. John Snow and Reverend Henry Whitehead and how they solved the mystery is a page turner, Johnson’s discussion of the development of cities and their infrastructure, both physical and social, is what I found even more fascinating. He takes the reader from the past into the present and finally into the future of our modern world. Terrorism whether it was Cholera in 1854 or al-Qaeda today may be dealt with similar scientific tools.

Maps and digital tools today in dense cities like New York are improving city life. Johnson tells of Michael Bloomberg’s 311 service in New York City built around the tech support for his financial computer terminals. He explains that 311 is, “kindler, gentler version of 911.” For example New Yorkers call 311 when there is a homeless person sleeping in a park, or they can call to find out if a concert in Central Park has been cancelled. It is a two-way system and 311 operators learn from the callers – where potholes have developed, where noise from constructions and parties are a problem. A side benefit was that calls to the overburdened 911 service decreased for the first time in New York’s history.

The part that touched me the most was Steven Johnson’s dedication:

For the women in my life. My mother and sisters, for their amazing work on the front lines of public health; Alexa [my wife] for the gift of Henry Whitehead, and Mame, for introducing me to London so many years ago.

You see Mame is my mother, and Steven Johnson is my nephew. (Read more about Steven in my earlier post "Birth of the Blogs".)

All Roads Lead to Home

I first knew Loudoun County growing up on my father’s dream come true, Courtland Farm. It was named by my grandmother. It was where my dad courted my mother. (My father was a Washington lawyer who grew up in Texas. “Don’t Fence Me In” was his theme song.) The farm buildings are still there today. The house he built, now owned by the Pomata family, still sits on a hill with some of the most beautiful views of Loudoun County. My oldest memories of Loudoun County are driving from our home in Washington on Route 50 to the farm. Route 50 was the shortest and fastest way. Later as Fairfax County began to develop, we switched to Route 7, a two lane road that we picked up at Tysons Corner where we often gassed up at the only commercial business there, an ESSO station.

After World War II, the growth spurt, first fueled by the war, accelerated and has never stopped. Northern Virginia was home to a growing number of federal workers. In those days there was no beltway, no Interstate Highway System, and four lane roads were almost unheard of. The Eisenhower congress passed the Federal Highway bill and the automobile industry exploded. City workers could live in the county. Today not much has changed, except everything. Tyson’s Corner is now a city, larger than Washington of the 1940s. The drive from my home in Washington to the farm on Saturday morning took an hour. Today the same drive takes an hour. But then my father could leave the farm at 8 AM and be in his office at 15th and K Street by 9 AM. Try that today.

Traffic and funding roads has always been a major issue for Loudoun County and Northern Virginia. Stopping residential development, as some would like, will not solve our transportation problems. Most of our automobile traffic does not originate in Loudoun County. Much of it does not even originate in Virginia. Traffic from West Virginia, Maryland, Northwestern Virginia (Winchester, Berryville, Purcellville, Hamilton, etc.), and from the south (Manassas, Warrenton, etc.) and the developments on the land where Disney once planned a theme park, all converges at Leesburg.

What to do? We need many solutions to this transportation problem. Outside-of-the-box thinking from the private sector like the Greenway and the Route 28 special tax district are desperately needed. The State and Federal Governments will not solve this problem for us. The Dulles South CPAMs can be part of the solution. Crosstrail, Riverside Park, and maybe even Meadowbrook can be part of the solution. The developers of these properties can bring the creativity we need, and the funds we don’t have.

What Happened to Free Markets?

“Drivers Seeing Red Over Greenway Toll” reads the headline in the Washington Post. The article reveals that the State Corporation Commission (SCC) has received over 100 letters opposing the Greenway’s owner’s application to increase tolls over the next six years. The Republican-controlled Loudoun County Board of Supervisors are screaming foul, and my good friend Republican Frank Wolf has written a letter, which he uses in his campaign ads, opposing the toll increase. It is an election year and Frank has a tough fight in a year when Republicans are being depicted as devils around the world. Let’s put politics aside as the SCC must do and consider some facts.

In 1988 when the private toll road legislation was passed to permit the first private toll road in the United States since before the Civil War, State Route 267, later named the Greenway, was not even on the VDOT 20 year plan. A year before Ralph Stanley, President Ronald Reagan’s Urban Mass Transit Administrator, left his government job to develop the Greenway and sell his idea to legislators in Richmond and to the public. Ralph setup a small office across from the Courthouse in Leesburg. I met with him often and we shared ideas on right-of-way issues. We became good friends. I was personally very interested in seeing this project happen. At the time I was commuting on Route 7 from Chevy Chase Maryland to the Leesburg Airport, an increasingly frustrating and dangerous journey. I could also see the benefits this road would bring to Loudoun County, Leesburg, and my business at the airport.

When the Greenway opened in 1995 it was toll-free for the first month or so. When a toll was levied, trips on the Greenway dropped as commuters and other drivers returned to Route 7. But slowly back they came to the Greenway as traffic increased on dangerous Leesburg Turnpike. My point is that they had a choice.

So why is the SCC even involved in setting toll rates? The Greenway is not a monopoly like Dominion Power or other utilities. It was not built with public funds. The owners of the Greenway pay for the State Police to patrol the road. If drivers feel the toll is too high, they can take alternates like Route 7 or Route 50. If VDOT and the State Legislators want to compete with the Greenway, they can raises our taxes (a government toll) and make Route 7, Route 50 and other roads competitive. Fat chance – we have just spent a year of gridlock in Richmond over these transportation issues.

No Sausage Factory Here

Watching government in action has often been compared to the production of sausage – not a pretty sight. The 9/11 meeting of the Loudoun County Planning Commission meeting to consider the Crosstrail rezoning application should be a case study for the Harvard School of Government. Despite being held on the 5th anniversary of our nation’s most disastrous day, at the same time as the Redskin’s opening game, a major Presidential address to the nation, and the second installment of ABC's controversial, highly promoted, and widely watched mini-series, “The Path to 9/11”, the members of the Planning Commission, County staffers, two member of the Town Planning Commission, Town staffers, senior officers (including the CEO) of the Peterson Companies, and several dozen consultants worked until midnight to approve Crosstrail: 5 for, 2 opposed, 1 abstention, and 1 absent.

Chair Teresa White Whitmore should have the Harvard chair in Meeting Management. She brought warring parties not only to the peace table, but conducted an orderly debate where all parties had an opportunity to express their views and resolve differences. After the final vote was tallied, I had the feeling that even the two opposed were not violently opposed. One said almost nothing during the whole five hours and gave no reason for his opposition. The one abstention did so because she had only been on the commission a few weeks and had not heard the entire debate. Judging from her questions and observations, it was my feeling that she leaned toward a Yes.

The Crosstrail application now goes to the Board of Supervisors. If this body works as hard and as responsibly as the Planning Commission, the process and the results will make Loudoun County and Leesburg a better place to live, and will hopefully set the tone for better government. Sausage production is not a permitted use in the County Government building. Take note Leesburg: Your zoning laws on this use should conform to the County’s.

There are strange thing done…

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By men who moil for gold

So begins a poem by one of my favorite poets, Robert Service, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”. If Service were alive today and lived in Leesburg, his poem might have read something like this:

There are strange things done in the midday sun
By a Council that that covets gold;
Leesburg’s trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
Loudoun’s folks have seen queer sites,
But the queerest they ever did see
Were the Council forums on the banks of the Goose
That out numbered the residents ten to three.

The strangest sight I ever did see was at the recent Town Forum at the Senior Center in Leesburg. Picture four members of the Town Council (Umstattd, Burke, Martinez, and Reid), eight Town staff members, and one County staffer (a total of 12) making a thirty minute pitch to four seniors who had just finished a bridge game. Twenty other seniors folded up their tables and chairs, and left before the Town group uttered a word.

After much whining about the unfairness of having no vote in the Crosstrail land planning process, not withstanding the fact that Mayor Umstattd has always opposed annexing any land into the Town, I asked if I might say a few words. “No you may not,” exclaimed Council member Burke. “You were not invited.”

Four seniors pitched, one senior muzzled. Indeed, a strange thing at a public meeting in a public building.

Softball at Woodlea

The recent Town Hall Forum at Woodlea Manor turned into a game of softball. Some members of the Leesburg Town Council are making the rounds of HOAs expressing their frustration over the lost opportunity to provide water and sewer to Crosstrail and to receive the enormous tax revenue that this proposed development will produce not for Leesburg but for Loudoun County. Seeming to forget that Woodlea is in Loudoun County and that we all benefit from a more fiscally sound County, the Town vs. Peterson game began on a recent Thursday night.

Susan Horne, managing Team Leesburg and actually pitching some very nice compliments about the Peterson Companies by noting the wonderful mixed use developments they are known for, sent Susan Swift to the plate. Town planner Swift took a swing at transportation, airport, and utility issues. Despite pitchers planted by Team Leesburg in the audience who delivered several underhanded softballs, Swift whiffed each toss. The umpire called three strikes.

Hoping to get a hit for the Town, Kelly Burke assumed the pitcher’s mound and sent a curve ball to Swift on roads, which Swift fouled to left field.

Sandy Kane was then sent in as a relief pitcher and asked Swift with a slow slider about residential traffic. Swift bunted a foul.

Sensing a need for yet a better pitcher, manager Horne called on Bill Whyte from the airport commission. After warming up with an explanation of the effects of Gelignite, he stated the first Leesburg Airport had closed because of noise. This was ruled a foul ball which actually traveled backwards over the catcher’s head. The ump explained that Arthur Godfrey, who owned the original grass strip runway, wanted a longer paved runway for his soon-to-be-acquired DC-3, which accounted for the new airport location.

This sent retired pitcher Burke into contortions of body and face that worried some in the audience that a medical emergency was about to occur.

The inning ended. Team Peterson was up to bat. Leading off was Jeff Saxe with Mike Banzhaf on deck. Saxe lit up the big screen with an impressive PowerPoint presentation of all the features of Crosstrail - restaurants like Coastal Flats, a 12 to 14 screen movie theater, well known stores and shops all closely connected to high-end class A office space, a residential community, a school site, and parkland. Three bases, Live, Work, and Play were all tagged. A homerun for Saxe.

Banzhaf looked ready for a fight as he strode to the plate, and hit three long balls on annexation, water, and roads. As he swung at water, Burke again came unglued and questioned his source of information from the Town staff. Some poor staffer may be cut.

All this was too much for manager Horne who tried to call the game on account of too much raining good news from Peterson. The umpire ruled that that Peterson had the right to finish the inning.

Despite heavy promotion, so few fans turned out at Woodlea, future minor league games like this may be in doubt.

Birth of the Blogs – from Feed to Plastic

Back in the stone age of the Internet, May of 1995, to be exact, my nephew Steven Johnson, who was working on his PhD at Columbia University, started the first on-line magazine, FEED. Steven assembled some of his friends, many of whom were college classmates from Brown and up and coming writers and journalists, raised some capital from friends and family, and built a website. This was a time when there were no HTML editors like FrontPage and Dreamweaver, which today make designing a Web site almost as easy as writing an essay in Word. No $10 a month hosting companies existed.

In addition to FEED’s professional staff of writers, FEED had a section called “Filter”. This was where anyone could express their thoughts by writing short articles on subjects that struck their fancy. Other readers could comment on these Filter posts. Often lively discussions developed.

Reviewers in major media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Newsweek, heaped praise on this leading edge and edgy “E-zine”, a word FEED helped coin. In 1995 Newsweek ran an article on the pioneers of the then new Internet. Among those singled out was Steven Johnson along with Bill Gates and other household names.

Steven’s business model was based on ads that would be placed on FEEDs website and the revenue would pay the overhead costs, including website design, maintenance, hosting, rent, and stipends for the writers, and a return on the investors’ investment. However, advertisers were skeptical about spending anything but meager amounts on web ads. In July 2000 as the economy weakened FEED merged with another popular media website, suck.com, and became Automatic Media in order to consolidate overhead. Lycos provided an infusion of capital and for a very short while it appeared that Automatic Media coupled with yet another Johnson Concept. “Plastic”, would be the “new new” thing in the world of on-line literature. Plastic was to be a community weblog, authored by thousands of people.

In the heat of this battle for survival Steven Johnson went to San Francisco to pitch an idea to Evan Williams. Williams was working with a couple of friends on a Web-based software concept they called Blogger, which they had developed to make the expensive and complicated process of creating a weblog or “blog” easy and relatively simple. Steven wanted to connect Blogger and Plastic. His idea was to have the two connect to each other, so that interesting ideas and links would "trickle up" from the individual blogs to the group blog at Plastic.

Data on the Internet moves at the speed of light and while Evans was considering all this, the dot com meltdown was building at Internet speed. By the spring of 2001 Automatic Media was history with only a post on their website that created almost as much attention as all the articles posted over the past six years. Johnson’s farewell said, “We are feeling the effects of the recent chill. As of today, we are in suspended animation, cooled to a temperature at which our metabolic rate is near zero.” Suck said simply, “has gone fishin’.”
Remember that great line from The Graduate, “Son, the future is plastic”.

Evan Williams sold his web-based software, Blogger, to Google for pre IPO Google stock, worth – use your imagination. (You are reading this on a site developed with Blogger.)

Steven Johnson became a best selling author, (Everything Bad is Good for You, Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life, Emergence: the Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, and Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate.) His newest book, The Ghost Map will be released in October.

Today you can find Steven Johnson writing his blog.

Water Water Every Where, but…

I think it was former Leesburg Mayor Kenneth B. Rollins who said, “Control the toilets and you control growth.” I know Kenny, who died in 1988, is looking down on us today with a big grin. Kenny was a first rate politician. He served 14 years (1963-1973 and 1978-1982) as Mayor of Leesburg. He was also a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for many years. He sat on the State Water Control Board. Ah, the fun he is missing. The Town of Leesburg and Loudoun County are locked in a battle royal over who has the right to provide water and sewer service to certain parts of the County adjoining the Town.

The show begins with four of the Town Council members and a cadre of staff showing up at Home Owner Association (HOA) board meetings, whining of unfair treatment by the County. Often their allotted 15 minutes stretches on to well over half-an-hour with HOA board members checking their watches knowing that issues on swimming pool throw-up, trash can containment, and dog poop are still on the agenda and are the priority concerns of their constituents. Not sewer service to some foreign land.

Where’s the beef? Call it Crosstrail, Phil Bolen Park, and Riverside Park. Crosstrail is in the Town’s swat team’s cross hairs as the County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors are soon to vote on this rezoning. The Town gets no vote and no revenue from Crosstrail. Why not? Simple, not so many years ago a former Town Council urged on by today’s Mayor Umstattd refused to annex any more land into the Town. Land you don’t own you can not tax or rezone. Now that a source of major tax revenue appears, the Town Council wants to bring The Peterson Company’s land into the town.

Understandably Peterson has said, “No thank you”. Why start the rezoning process all over again with the Town and wait two years for a decision? As for water and sewer? Town water delivered to the County costs twice as much as Town water delivered to property within the Town. Go figure, but better yet go to Loudoun Citizens for Fair Water Rates. The folks from The Peterson Companies have, and they don’t like what they read. So will anyone else owning land along the Town boundaries.

Judgment Day

Recently the Town of Leesburg lost a round in court when Loudoun Circuit Court Judge James Chamblin ruled in favor of Centex Homes who had filed a by-right development plan for the Meadowbrook property. Once again the Leesburg taxpayers are bearing the cost of litigation that should never have taken place. It all started a year ago when the Town Council down-planned this land in the face of pleadings by Centex that a compromise was possible. This left Centex with only the option, to develop this land as “by-right” with one home per acre instead of a density level that would be negotiated through a proffered rezoning.

By down-planning the R-1 zoned Meadowbrook property from a recommendation of 2 to 5 dwelling units per acre to not more than 1 dwelling unit per acre, the last Town Council basically forced Centex to go with by-right, un-proffered development with no regional road improvements, no dedicated school sites, no parkland, no cash proffers, and no mixed use non-residential components. Undoubtedly, the Town does not like the specter of over 300 acres of this by-right development at its southern entrance and would prefer Centex to keep the land in sod farm use. But, Judge Chamblin apparently saw the Town's motives at play and ordered the Town to start processing the Centex by-right plan without delay.

I hope this new Town Council will be more flexible than the last. If not, it is likely the Town will be spending over $20 million to bring Battlefield Parkway to Rt. 15, and millions more to widen Rt. 15. An invitation to Centex by the Town to develop a Plan Amendment for this property might avoid continuing litigation and open this proposal up for reasonable negotiations.

Now more litigation is being threatened by some Council member over the right to provide water and sewer service to the proposed Crosstrail development. As I have said before, that horse left the barn years ago when Mayor Umstattd and her supporters on the Council rejected the idea of annexing any more land into the Town. The Town can not shove pipes into the County unless the County agrees to it. The Town can not make zoning decisions on land that is in the County. Of course the Town can petition the County and make their views known, just like any other citizen, but the Town does not have a vote on County land use issues.

If all this was not enough, threats of more litigation are being made over an easement granted long-ago by the Town for access to Peterson’s Crosstrail property. This relatively small part of this planned development is within the Town, so the issue needs to be resolved with the Town. Let’s hope the Leesburg taxpayers do not once again have to pay for more expensive litigation.

Unheard from yet are our neighbors in the NE quadrant just outside of the Town boundary who are served by Town water and sewer. They are still smarting from the 100% increase in their utility bills from the Town. Stay tuned.

Sign of the Times?

Last year at this time, we had Town signage advising tourists of August Court Days. This year, we have signs up advising them to be concerned about pandemic flu. Brilliant. This will ensure that those tourists spend their dollars in Leesburg.

Submitted to Leadership Leesburg by one of our roving reporters

Fiction and Fact

Unfortunately there are a few individuals who are spreading untrue information, which I will politely call “Myths”, about the proposed Crosstrail development. I’ve seen the presentations by both sides. There are some myths that need to be corrected.

Myth:
Crosstrail is shoving a bunch of houses up against the Leesburg airport.

Fact:
Everything that I have read, seen and heard about the residential uses in Crosstrail shows that the residences are more than 1,000 feet from the runway. This was explained by a Peterson representative to the Loudoun County Planning Commission at a public meeting, which I attended. I have measured this distance myself and the statement is correct. It is also a fact that all of the residential property is outside of the 65 dba noise area. The FAA, Loudoun County, and the Town of Leesburg recognize this line as the boundary for residential building near airports whether it is Dulles or Leesburg.

Myth:
The Leesburg airport provides over five times greater economic impact than the Peterson Development will on an annual basis.

Fact:
When completed, Crosstrail will have over 6,500 employees. This was publicly stated by a senior Vice President of Peterson at a Planning Commission work session, which I attended. The airport has less than 200 employees. A fiscal impact study was done for Crosstrail that measured only the net tax benefits for the project, not the total economic impact. The $40 million economic airport impact, which is often quoted by airport commission officers, measured such things as salaries for all the employees at the airport and applied a multiplier to this number. Crosstrail will have more than 30 times the number of employees that the airport has now. Considering the office and other uses planned there, Crosstrail’s economic impact to the County will be many, many times greater than the airport’s economic impact. All the land at the airport is owned by the Town and as a result generates zero real estate taxes and minimal personal property taxes for the Town and the County.

Myth:
Not one single element of the Crosstrail plan is aimed at commercial office uses or aviation business needs.

Fact:
At the Loudoun County Planning Commission public hearing, a company with their current corporate headquarters in Herndon announced that they were moving 250 employees to Crosstrail - mainly due to the mixed use nature of the project. This one new employer that Crosstrail has attracted to Loudoun County (and just one of many that will be at Crosstrail) is bringing more employees than the airport currently has or will for many years. Peterson has stated that there will be over 1.5 million square feet of office space at Crosstrail, plus they have offered to sell or lease land to the airport if the Town wants it. The FAA has given this land offer the highest priority in the new updated airport master plan, which means that 98% of this land could be acquired with Federal and State grants.

These are the facts, plain and simple.

Dinner and a Movie

I took my wife and daughter out for dinner recently explaining that where we were going was a metaphor for Crosstrail. There was only one question on the way home, "When will all this be in Leesburg?"

We were at Fairfax Corner, a retail development very similar to what The Peterson Companies are planning to develop at Crosstrail. The wait at Coastal Flats, a restaurant owned by the same company owns Sweet Water Tavern in Sterling, would have made us late for the movie. So we had an excellent dinner at Rio Grande. As we took a casual stroll to an amazing 16 screen multiplex, my wife and daughter were enthused the over shopping opportunities.

On our way into Fairfax Corner, we passed Fair Lakes and very attractive office buildings with marquee names like Nortel Networks, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and IBM. We also saw residential clusters that were tastefully incorporated within walking and biking distance of the offices as well as all the great shopping and dining.

The 500 plus acres between the Greenway, Battlefield Parkway, Crosstrail Boulevard and the Leesburg Airport is the perfect location for this type of development. It will improve our economy and our quality of life. Dinner and a movie anyone?

What Are These Ads?

You will notice small “Ads by Google” at the bottom of the side bar to the right. We allow Google to serve us ads and they pay us for every click on these ads from this site. Google has “web crawlers” that look at every site that subscribes to this program, determines which advertisers’ ads fit on which sites, and servers up the ads. Advertisers get their message to the most interested eyeballs. (Click on the ad and see what you get.) This is targeted marketing at its finest and the reason your Google stock has increased a 1000% in value. Of course the content of the ads does not always reflect my views, but that’s the case in almost any media.

If you want to learn more, check out Google Advertising Programs.

Why Support Crosstrail

The Leesburg Airport has a few problems - the largest of which is a huge financial drain on the Town of Leesburg. The airport lost $537,000 in 2005 which was an increase from $501,000 in 2004. The Town Council is concerned about this. Some have asked me how this loss could be turned into a profit, or into at least a breakeven situation. Their suggestion was that perhaps increasing the personal property tax on airplanes to the same tax rate for farm and construction equipment, etc., charging landing fees and other user charges might be a solution. I said I disagreed. My solution is Crosstrail.

Crosstrail will make it possible for companies that own business jets to locate in the Class A office space that the Peterson Company is planning to develop. Their executives and employees can live in Crosstrail, shop in Crosstrail, and even walk or bike to work, eat in fine restaurants, and enjoy entertainment. Think Reston Town Center or Peterson’s Fair Lakes development. Neither of these communities is near an airport, which market research shows will be a strong selling point to major corporations. These are the companies that own and operate business jets. The Peterson Company has a Gulfstream.

Two hundred or even 300 small airplanes will never make the Leesburg Airport profitable. A few business jets will. My business has given me the opportunity to work with almost every major general aviation airport in the US and many smaller ones. I understand what works and what does not. I have been following the Crosstrail development for over a year and have studied it carefully. I am convinced it will be the biggest boost to the airport since I negotiated the deal to bring the Flight Service Station to the airport the early 1980s. The Flight Service Station will be gone in February.

The Peterson Companies does not want to see the airport stagnate or close as some have suggested. Bringing major companies to our community will make the Leesburg Airport a center for business aviation. No longer will we have to wait 16 years for life-saving improvements like a glide slope and a control tower.

Noise and safety are two other issues that are being debated. Pilots do not fly inside the Greenway on a downwind to runway 35. The downwind leg is west of the Greenway. An off-airport landing or accident is extremely rare. This has never happened on the Crosstrail property, at least in the last 30 years that I can attest to. Lawn mowers in Crosstrail will make more noise than airplanes. Noise contours compiled by the FAA confirm this.

Finally a personal note - I spent 12 years of my life managing and developing the Leesburg Airport on a full-time basis. I did it 24/7. It was my only job. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money transforming the airport from a bankrupt recreational airfield into an airport capable of handling business jets. This airport is in my blood. No one wants it to succeed more than I do. I will do everything I can to ensure the airport's success.
Originally posted June 13, 2006

Transition Time

We now move on to a new era. A new Town Council took office on July 1st. I wish them well, each and everyone. I know everyone wants what is best for Leesburg and Loudoun County, and I know there and many different views on how to get there. I hope you will join me by expressing your views and debate the issues here on Leadership Leesburg’s new Blog. Enjoy the new look, but most importantly the new content. I will begin by posting some of the articles that were posted on our old Blog after the election. The comments to these postings are not easily transitioned, but you are welcome to jump back in again if you left a comment on any of these postings.

Finally, if you would like to originate new material or new postings, contact me and I will set it up so you can do so. It is very easy to contribute.