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.