Jump in Tax Rate Looms as Home Values Plunge
20 Cent Increase -- $257 Extra in Average Bill -- Required to Pay for Schools Plan and Other Priorities
By Christy Goodman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page PW01
Prince William County residents will see an increase in next year's property tax rate, no matter what.
County officials estimate that real estate values will drop by 14 percent on average, requiring at least a 13 cent increase to the 78.7 cent property tax rate to keep revenue stable. But to properly staff public safety agencies, pay for technology upgrades and build roads approved in a 2006 bond referendum, the tax rate would need to be closer to 95 cents. And to fund the county schools plan, the rate would need to grow to nearly 99 cents, for a $257 increase in the average tax bill. These rates don't take into account the Police Department's need for $14.2 million over five years if a crackdown on illegal immigrants is carried out, or the costs of defending a lawsuit filed by civil rights organizations over the clampdown.
The projected rates do include cuts to employee benefits and delays in expanding the public safety training center and in constructing schools.
"We will be looking at declining values of residential real estate for four years in a row," County Executive Craig S. Gerhart said to the county supervisors during a meeting Thursday to discuss financial matters.
County staff members estimate a 30 percent drop in average home values between fiscal 2008 and 2012. And the real estate woes have led to a "ripple effect" in sales and business taxes collected by the county, said Christopher Martino, the county's finance director.
Despite what Supervisor W.S. Covington III (R-Brentsville) termed a "pretty scary" outlook, the chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, Corey A. Stewart (R), refused to consider a less-expensive, staggered implementation of the illegal-immigration crackdown. A vote on the program is set for Tuesday.
"It all has to do with priorities," Stewart told the board.
"All you are doing is a quick shot," Supervisor John D. Jenkins (D-Neabsco) said to Stewart. Jenkins said he favors the staggered plan, in which officers would be hired and trained as money becomes available.
Vice Chairman Martin E. Nohe (R-Coles) noted that the police's illegal-immigration plan would cost $2.8 million in each of the next five years. "We just spent the last six hours discussing how we don't" have the money, Nohe said.
Stewart proposed using money in the county's contingency fund for the program, which would cover it for fiscal 2008 but offered no solution for paying for the program in the following years. "We'll have some tough decisions to make," he said.
The contingency fund, usually used in emergencies, is a percentage of the budget that the board sets aside. The fund has about $796,000; it would drop to $221,000 if Stewart's proposal is approved.
Tough decisions also will have to be made about the schools. The School Board has said the system will be $32.1 million in the hole in the next fiscal year. At Thursday's meeting, Supervisor Maureen S. Caddigan (R-Dumfries) said the deficit figure represents what the schools need, not what they want.
County staff members said the schools' projected shortfall does not include such perennial requests as smaller classes, a technology upgrade, salary increases for teachers and staff members, or money for the local share of state revisions for the Standards of Quality.
"There is going to be this argument that is destined to happen. . . . We are the ones who are responsible for the tax rate," said Stewart, who then lamented that not enough schools are being built.
The supervisors also are set to vote Tuesday on payments from developers to the county to mitigate the impact of new housing, which include a fee for parks and open space, and to decide on the county's open-space provisions. The Planning Commission approved a county goal of having 25 acres of open space per 1,000 residents by 2030, which would require $790 million. The county staff plans to present a goal of 15 acres per 1,000 residents, which would cost $346 million. The county now has less than 10 acres per 1,000 residents.
"Why set a low standard now? Are we guessing we'll have budget trouble for the next 30 years? That doesn't make sense," said Kim Hosen, planning commissioner for the Occoquan District and executive director of the Prince William Conservation Alliance. Hosen said the county is well behind neighboring jurisdictions' open-space goals.
LJB
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Governor Signs Bill to Tighten Employment Standards for Illegal Immigrants
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
ADVERTISEMENT
OKLAHOMA CITY —
Gov. Brad Henry signed an immigration bill Tuesday that tightens employment standards to prevent illegal immigrants from finding work.
Henry called the legislation, passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate, a stopgap measure to deal with an illegal immigration problem that is the responsibility of the federal government.
"States can take some actions on their own, but until the U.S. Congress enacts a comprehensive, national immigration policy, citizens will see little progress on this issue," he said.
The measure requires state and local agencies to verify the citizenship and immigration status of applicants for state or local benefits.
It also requires public agencies starting Nov. 1 to use a program to screen Social Security numbers to make sure they are real and match up with the job applicant's name. Private companies must comply by July 1, 2008.
The measure would not affect emergency medical and humanitarian services, such as visits to hospital emergency rooms and enrollment in public schools, that are required by federal law.
More than 100,000 illegal immigrants are estimated to live in Oklahoma.
Immigrant groups said the measure is was a vain attempt to stop illegal immigration and can lead to discriminatory barriers to housing and jobs.
The groups are considering a challenge to the new law's constitutionality, saying that immigration policy is the domain of the federal government, not the state.
"It's going to take us back," said Ray Madrid, state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "I'm sure there's going to be neighbors turning neighbors in."
Posted by Mark
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
ADVERTISEMENT
OKLAHOMA CITY —
Gov. Brad Henry signed an immigration bill Tuesday that tightens employment standards to prevent illegal immigrants from finding work.
Henry called the legislation, passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate, a stopgap measure to deal with an illegal immigration problem that is the responsibility of the federal government.
"States can take some actions on their own, but until the U.S. Congress enacts a comprehensive, national immigration policy, citizens will see little progress on this issue," he said.
The measure requires state and local agencies to verify the citizenship and immigration status of applicants for state or local benefits.
It also requires public agencies starting Nov. 1 to use a program to screen Social Security numbers to make sure they are real and match up with the job applicant's name. Private companies must comply by July 1, 2008.
The measure would not affect emergency medical and humanitarian services, such as visits to hospital emergency rooms and enrollment in public schools, that are required by federal law.
More than 100,000 illegal immigrants are estimated to live in Oklahoma.
Immigrant groups said the measure is was a vain attempt to stop illegal immigration and can lead to discriminatory barriers to housing and jobs.
The groups are considering a challenge to the new law's constitutionality, saying that immigration policy is the domain of the federal government, not the state.
"It's going to take us back," said Ray Madrid, state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "I'm sure there's going to be neighbors turning neighbors in."
Posted by Mark
Robbers Stalk Hispanic Immigrants, Seeing Ideal Prey
By Ernesto Londoño and Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 26, 2007; Page A01
By the time they set upon Victor Hernandez, knocking him to the pavement and kicking him furiously, the teenagers were deep into a weeks-long spree of robbing Hispanic immigrants.
They coined a term for the assaults, one that reflected the uniformity of the victims they selected: "amigo shopping." The teenagers recorded some of the attacks with a cellphone camera, saving one of the videos under the file name "amigo," a source familiar with the case said.
Hernandez, a dishwasher in Montgomery County, was an ideal target that August night in a type of robbery that law enforcement officials say has become alarmingly common in parts of the Washington region. Hispanic immigrants are being targeted, often in gratuitously violent attacks by non-Hispanics, because they are thought to carry cash rather than use banks and to be reluctant to report crimes to police, the officials said.
The attacks are occurring with such frequency that police in Prince William County have created a task force, and Montgomery police have assigned a specialized unit to tackle the problem. The crimes are having profound effects in the neighborhoods where they occur, causing some residents to alter their routines.
"Everyone leaves with someone else, in groups of two or three," said Woodbridge resident Joaquin Rodriquez, describing the change that has occurred since the fatal shooting of a Mexican immigrant during a robbery in September 2006.
Authorities say the teenage assailants in that case targeted Serafin "Pedro" Alvarez Negrete after agreeing to "get an amigo." They attacked Negrete, 32, as he walked home from a shopping center.
"Like alligators waiting for the gazelle to cross the river," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney John B. Arledge said as one of the men was sentenced last week.
Police say recent immigrants, particularly laborers who return home on foot at night, are most vulnerable. Assailants have been known to lurk between shopping centers, even sometimes outside of cash-checking businesses on payday, police say.
Policing experts expressed concern that attacks on immigrants, already believed to be under-reported, might be reported less and less as local police agencies become increasingly involved in enforcing immigration policy.
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"The reason that this issue is becoming so acute is the fear that people who are here illegally will stop reporting crime or will be afraid to serve as witnesses," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank in the District. "That only puts that population at greater risk for greater harm."
A suspect in one such robbery recently told police in Prince William that he had robbed several other Hispanics in the same area over several months, said 1st Sgt. Daniel Hess, commander of the county department's street crimes unit. He said police then searched department files but found no record of the robberies, suggesting they had not been reported.
"We've had people severely injured for less than a hundred dollars in their pocket," Hess said. "It's nonsensical. No one should have to worry about, 'If I walk to the convenient store tonight, I might be jumped by a group of thugs and killed for having to go down and buy a half-gallon of milk.' "
Despite their brutality, the robberies are not necessarily motivated by ethnic bigotry, authorities say. Rather, they are typically crimes of opportunity. While the majority of the perpetrators have been identified as black men, Latinos and whites have also been charged in some cases, authorities said.
"All you need is a shadow and a victim," said Warren Jensen, a Montgomery police officer who is a member of the unit assigned to combat such robberies.
Jensen spoke as he and a fellow officer patrolled on foot recently in a Silver Spring apartment complex. Members of the unit say that, even when the robberies are reported, the investigations are often hindered by the language barrier.
Many of the assailants who are charged are juveniles, which means they are not in custody for as long as they would be if they were charged as adults.
Hernandez, 59, a legal immigrant from Honduras who works at two restaurants on Rockville Pike, was attacked within blocks of his home shortly after midnight Aug. 23. The teenagers approached and asked him for money. He said he had none and kept walking.
"They ganged up on me, throwing punches," he said in an interview.
Curled up on the ground, Hernandez was kicked repeatedly in the face and lost consciousness. The teenagers made off with about $160, but detectives recovered a prized possession, his work authorization document, which they delivered to him in his hospital room.
Police arrested two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old, charging them as juveniles with robbery, assault and conspiracy to commit robbery. Each has since admitted responsibility in court or agreed to do so.
According to a source with knowledge of the events, one of the youths told investigators that he and his friends used the phrase "amigo shopping" to refer to the search for victims. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because aspects of the investigation remain open.
The arrests of the three juveniles, and the discovery of the videos, allowed police to close investigations into four similar robberies in the preceding weeks. Five teenagers were charged.
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Rene Sandler, an attorney for one of the three teenagers, said her client took responsibility for his actions and has cooperated with police. Though the juvenile's parents are not Hispanic immigrants, she said of her client, "He keeps thinking this could have happened to one of his parents."
Negrete, the victim in the Prince William case, arrived from Mexico in 2005, moving into a room in a faded trailer park and sending money back to his wife and three children. He was walking to that room, a simple space furnished with little more than a bed with no sheets, in September 2006 when he was confronted by the teenage robbers.
At the entrance to the trailer park, Negrete was shot at least eight times. A weathered shrine marks the spot where his body fell. Fastened to a chain-link fence is a wooden cross covered with white lilies, plastic and permanent.
Georgino Napier, who was 18 at the time, and Carlito McToy, who was 17, were charged as adults with first-degree murder. They have pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 28 and 33 years in prison, respectively.
Much in the neighborhood has changed since the slaying. Overhead lighting was installed, police began to patrol the area more aggressively and residents learned to change their habits. Relatives of Negrete have returned to Mexico.
When Negrete was killed, Prince William police had already noticed a spike in robberies of immigrants. The county's crime rate in 2006 was the lowest in five years, but robberies were up 40 percent. Of the 351 reported, 83 percent were street robberies, many of which involved Latino victims.
In Montgomery, 285 robberies reported last year were committed by three or more people, police said. The majority of the victims in the "pack robberies" were recent immigrants, county police said.
In both counties, police said they remain concerned about the robberies but believe recent efforts to curb them have been effective.
After several men were robbed in her Manassas neighborhood last year, Yanette Herrera said the victims spoke of possibly striking back. They figured that if they retaliated, hurting one of the assailants, it might send a message, she said.
"We are very patient, but when we see something not changing . . .," she said in an interview. "You know how bad it is working 12 hours a day and someone just takes it in a minute?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502740_3.html?referrer=emailarticle
-MN
By Ernesto Londoño and Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 26, 2007; Page A01
By the time they set upon Victor Hernandez, knocking him to the pavement and kicking him furiously, the teenagers were deep into a weeks-long spree of robbing Hispanic immigrants.
They coined a term for the assaults, one that reflected the uniformity of the victims they selected: "amigo shopping." The teenagers recorded some of the attacks with a cellphone camera, saving one of the videos under the file name "amigo," a source familiar with the case said.
Hernandez, a dishwasher in Montgomery County, was an ideal target that August night in a type of robbery that law enforcement officials say has become alarmingly common in parts of the Washington region. Hispanic immigrants are being targeted, often in gratuitously violent attacks by non-Hispanics, because they are thought to carry cash rather than use banks and to be reluctant to report crimes to police, the officials said.
The attacks are occurring with such frequency that police in Prince William County have created a task force, and Montgomery police have assigned a specialized unit to tackle the problem. The crimes are having profound effects in the neighborhoods where they occur, causing some residents to alter their routines.
"Everyone leaves with someone else, in groups of two or three," said Woodbridge resident Joaquin Rodriquez, describing the change that has occurred since the fatal shooting of a Mexican immigrant during a robbery in September 2006.
Authorities say the teenage assailants in that case targeted Serafin "Pedro" Alvarez Negrete after agreeing to "get an amigo." They attacked Negrete, 32, as he walked home from a shopping center.
"Like alligators waiting for the gazelle to cross the river," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney John B. Arledge said as one of the men was sentenced last week.
Police say recent immigrants, particularly laborers who return home on foot at night, are most vulnerable. Assailants have been known to lurk between shopping centers, even sometimes outside of cash-checking businesses on payday, police say.
Policing experts expressed concern that attacks on immigrants, already believed to be under-reported, might be reported less and less as local police agencies become increasingly involved in enforcing immigration policy.
ad_icon
"The reason that this issue is becoming so acute is the fear that people who are here illegally will stop reporting crime or will be afraid to serve as witnesses," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank in the District. "That only puts that population at greater risk for greater harm."
A suspect in one such robbery recently told police in Prince William that he had robbed several other Hispanics in the same area over several months, said 1st Sgt. Daniel Hess, commander of the county department's street crimes unit. He said police then searched department files but found no record of the robberies, suggesting they had not been reported.
"We've had people severely injured for less than a hundred dollars in their pocket," Hess said. "It's nonsensical. No one should have to worry about, 'If I walk to the convenient store tonight, I might be jumped by a group of thugs and killed for having to go down and buy a half-gallon of milk.' "
Despite their brutality, the robberies are not necessarily motivated by ethnic bigotry, authorities say. Rather, they are typically crimes of opportunity. While the majority of the perpetrators have been identified as black men, Latinos and whites have also been charged in some cases, authorities said.
"All you need is a shadow and a victim," said Warren Jensen, a Montgomery police officer who is a member of the unit assigned to combat such robberies.
Jensen spoke as he and a fellow officer patrolled on foot recently in a Silver Spring apartment complex. Members of the unit say that, even when the robberies are reported, the investigations are often hindered by the language barrier.
Many of the assailants who are charged are juveniles, which means they are not in custody for as long as they would be if they were charged as adults.
Hernandez, 59, a legal immigrant from Honduras who works at two restaurants on Rockville Pike, was attacked within blocks of his home shortly after midnight Aug. 23. The teenagers approached and asked him for money. He said he had none and kept walking.
"They ganged up on me, throwing punches," he said in an interview.
Curled up on the ground, Hernandez was kicked repeatedly in the face and lost consciousness. The teenagers made off with about $160, but detectives recovered a prized possession, his work authorization document, which they delivered to him in his hospital room.
Police arrested two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old, charging them as juveniles with robbery, assault and conspiracy to commit robbery. Each has since admitted responsibility in court or agreed to do so.
According to a source with knowledge of the events, one of the youths told investigators that he and his friends used the phrase "amigo shopping" to refer to the search for victims. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because aspects of the investigation remain open.
The arrests of the three juveniles, and the discovery of the videos, allowed police to close investigations into four similar robberies in the preceding weeks. Five teenagers were charged.
ad_icon
Rene Sandler, an attorney for one of the three teenagers, said her client took responsibility for his actions and has cooperated with police. Though the juvenile's parents are not Hispanic immigrants, she said of her client, "He keeps thinking this could have happened to one of his parents."
Negrete, the victim in the Prince William case, arrived from Mexico in 2005, moving into a room in a faded trailer park and sending money back to his wife and three children. He was walking to that room, a simple space furnished with little more than a bed with no sheets, in September 2006 when he was confronted by the teenage robbers.
At the entrance to the trailer park, Negrete was shot at least eight times. A weathered shrine marks the spot where his body fell. Fastened to a chain-link fence is a wooden cross covered with white lilies, plastic and permanent.
Georgino Napier, who was 18 at the time, and Carlito McToy, who was 17, were charged as adults with first-degree murder. They have pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 28 and 33 years in prison, respectively.
Much in the neighborhood has changed since the slaying. Overhead lighting was installed, police began to patrol the area more aggressively and residents learned to change their habits. Relatives of Negrete have returned to Mexico.
When Negrete was killed, Prince William police had already noticed a spike in robberies of immigrants. The county's crime rate in 2006 was the lowest in five years, but robberies were up 40 percent. Of the 351 reported, 83 percent were street robberies, many of which involved Latino victims.
In Montgomery, 285 robberies reported last year were committed by three or more people, police said. The majority of the victims in the "pack robberies" were recent immigrants, county police said.
In both counties, police said they remain concerned about the robberies but believe recent efforts to curb them have been effective.
After several men were robbed in her Manassas neighborhood last year, Yanette Herrera said the victims spoke of possibly striking back. They figured that if they retaliated, hurting one of the assailants, it might send a message, she said.
"We are very patient, but when we see something not changing . . .," she said in an interview. "You know how bad it is working 12 hours a day and someone just takes it in a minute?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502740_3.html?referrer=emailarticle
-MN
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