Vision

A Unique Understanding of the District
Pat Herrity was raised right here in the Springfield District.  He attended St. Bernadette’s grade school in Springfield, graduated from West Springfield High School in 1978, and graduated from Virginia Tech with a Bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1982.

He is raising his family here as well.  He lives in Little Rocky Run with his wife of 17 years, Nancy, their son, Sean, and their daughter, Valeria.  Both children attend Liberty Middle School.  Pat and his family are members of St Andrew’s Catholic Church and he is pro life. Clearly, Pat has a deep understanding of our district.  He grew up in the eastern part and is raising his family in the western part.  It is his home.

Pat’s mother Justine, along with brother John and sister Mary Beth Burger—as well as their families—also live here in the Springfield District.  His brother Tim, a schoolteacher, relocated from Springfield to Richmond several years ago for higher teacher pay. Pat’s other brother Tom lives in Arlington.  

Being lifelong residents of Springfield District, the issues that face us are of critical importance to Pat and his entire family.

As a business leader in Fairfax County, Pat has been active in confronting some of the county’s most pressing problems.  He has chaired the Transportation Committees for both the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Virginia Technology Council, he actively promoted the Techway (a new bridge crossing between Maryland and Virginia), was a co-drafter of the first Northern Virginia Transportation Compact (signed by all of the business organizations in Northern Virginia), promoted the I-495 HOT lanes for their carpooling and mass transit benefits, and was on the steering committee of the first annual Washington Area Conference on Telework.

Pat has a thorough understanding of the transportation issues facing the county from his leadership and experience promoting solutions with the business community.

As the son of the former Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of County Supervisors, Jack Herrity, Pat grew up attending community meetings and county budget hearings.  Pat was raised with the issues of Fairfax County regularly discussed at home and he did not have to look far for a mentor on how to lead and give back to the community.  Until Jack’s death a year ago, Pat and his dad would regularly discuss county issues.

Making Transportation a County Priority and Holding Developers Accountable

Despite his opponent’s claims to the contrary, Pat is and has been on record as opposing the current abuser fee law. Pat was on record before the online petition made this a campaign issue.

The biggest issue facing Fairfax County residents is the need for meaningful transportation fixes. Transportation gridlock impacts our lives every day of the week, degrades our quality of life and should be a priority of the county.  We need to continue to fight for our fair share from Richmond.  Our biggest mistake in Fairfax County has been waiting for Richmond to solve the problem, and then blaming Richmond when nothing is done.

It is time for Fairfax County to take some of the responsibility for the transportation issues that affect us all.  Pat believes:

• The county should use more of its bonding authority for transportation improvements.
• Land developers should be required to contribute (proffer) to transportation improvements as a part of re-zonings.
• We can and should find creative ways to improve our transportation options and infrastructure. Solutions include:
  • A network of HOT lanes for those willing to pay while giving everyone additional road capacity and the ability to implement mass transit and carpool solutions.
  • Encouraging and promoting Telework.
  • Encouraging our county employers to stagger their work hours.
  • Use of creative Public-Private Partnerships.
  • Creation of Special Tax Districts to fund localized improvements.
  • Increased use of reversible lanes.
  • Opening up shoulder lanes and HOV lanes when congestion dictates (including weekends on I-66).
• The County must become a leading voice in promoting solutions.

Pat also believes transportation solutions are as much about leadership as they are about money.  As an example, there are no current studies or movement toward solutions for I-66 outside the beltway.  Pat will be relentless in his drive to find a solution to I-66 where many Springfield District residents waste their lives away both during the week and on weekends.  In addition, Pat also has already made several innovative proposals to address the influx of traffic as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) at Ft. Belvoir in the southeastern end of the district. These include a public private partnership that will result in enough money to fund the transportation and school improvements that the BRAC will require.

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Protecting Our Neighborhoods and Families
Fairfax County was built to be a safe, suburban area that offered a superior quality of life to its residents and those who work here—but in recent years it appears the county leadership has lost sight of that goal.  Pat supports measures to protect our suburban neighborhoods by:

• Giving our zoning inspectors the tools, resources and support they need to address the multi-family dwelling issue that is invading our neighborhoods with the loss of home values, drugs, crime and other problems they often bring.
• Giving our police the resources to crack down on gangs that make school, work, and play areas unsafe for Fairfax County residents.
• Combating high-density residential development that threatens to urbanize Fairfax County—and bring further tax and transportation issues along with it.  Pat believes Fairfax County officials need to start listening to their residents and taking action to preserve the county’s suburban neighborhoods and lifestyle.
• Keeping illegal immigrant work centers out of our neighborhoods and opposing the use of county funding for these centers.
• We need to strongly consider using the federal 287(g) program which will allow our sheriff’s department to hold for deportation illegal immigrants who have criminal records.

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Fighting Illegal Immigration
We are a country of immigrants and I fully support LEGAL immigration and our ethnic communities.  Indeed, my dad was a nationally recognized leader in bringing the ethnic American community into full partnership in this county and I will be proud to continue that legacy.

However, illegal immigration is a major issue threatening the quality of life in the Springfield District. Most of our neighborhoods, including mine, have been affected by illegal immigrants moving into single family homes with multiple families or groups of unrelated people.  Too often this is accompanied by crime, drugs and gang activity.  And this depresses the property values of those homes in the area. Illegal immigration also has a huge impact on the budget and our homeowner taxes. Our police have not been given the option of holding criminal illegal aliens but instead release them back into our neighborhoods.

Currently Fairfax County is a magnet for illegal immigrants because they can find good work, attend great schools and enforcement of our zoning laws is lax or non existent. I want to work to close Fairfax County and the Springfield District to illegal immigration by:

• Insuring no county support or funds will be used to support illegal immigration work sites
• Implementing the federal 287(g) program which will allow (and partially fund) our sheriff’s department to hold and deport criminal illegal immigrants - Gerry Connelly and the current board have refused to implement this and have given it little to no public attention or discussion.
• Working to purge illegal aliens from our voter rolls.
• Giving our zoning enforcement officers the tools, resources and legal support to attack illegal boarding houses and multifamily homes.  On July 1 the County will get the power to subpoena documents to enforce local health and zoning ordinances, yet our current Board of Supervisors has taken no action to implement this new power.If elected I will pursue implementation of these powers so we can begin to shut down these illegal boarding houses.
• Working to further increase the penalties for illegal boarding houses and multifamily dwellings. Fines are just viewed as a cost of their business - i.e. it is not a deterrent.  We need to add much heavier fines and jail time for repeat offenders.
• Calling for an analysis of the true impact on the county budget of the illegal immigrant problem so the public and the Board of Supervisors can make informed decisions.  

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Controlling/Prioritizing Spending and Lowering Homeowner Taxes
Residential real estate taxes have doubled since 2001, but most of the citizens of Fairfax County and Springfield District do not believe they are receiving twice the benefits, and there has been little visible investment in essential areas such as transportation and enforcing our zoning rules and regulations.  There are numerous examples of wasteful spending in the county—from the excessive number of county-owned automobiles to the county’s 12 employees to support their lobbying efforts in Richmond.  One answer from the Board of Supervisors was an across-the-board 2% reduction in salaries—including cuts for those who serve in our police and fire departments and the zoning enforcement officials dealing with multifamily dwellings.  Pat believes across-the-board cuts have a negative impact on those who risk their lives every day and is an abdication of leadership responsibilities rather than making the hard decisions on which programs to cut.  Pat will use his experience as a businessman and a Chief Financial Officer to attack the budget with a scalpel instead of a meat cleaver.  Pat will work tirelessly to align Fairfax County’s budget priorities with those of its citizens.

In addition, there is a significant imbalance in the county’s tax base…one that threatens to make funding continued investment in fundamental services for county residents very expensive to homeowners. 

• The commercial tax base has shrunk from approximately 27% of total revenue in 1990 to just 17% last year, thus shifting the tax burden to homeowners. The county has a target of 25% but has not focused discussion or energy on reaching or exceeding this target.
  • At a basic level, the county must spend more on residential taxpayers than it receives in residential taxes. 
  • Historically, the county has balanced this deficit with taxes from the commercial sector, which requires less county spending for taxes paid. 
  • This imbalance means increased residential real estate taxes on homeowners.  This imbalance needs to be addressed.
• Meanwhile, Fairfax County is approving the conversion of large tracts of land from commercial to residential zoning.  This high density residential rezoning threatens to:
  • Further increase the imbalance in tax revenue.
  • Further increase homeowner’s taxes.

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Additional Legislative Priorities

Field User Fees
Pat understands the importance of promoting healthy, productive lifestyles for our county’s children.  User fees associated with youth sports are a barrier between our children and healthy activities.  We should be working to fight childhood obesity and gang participation—and working to give children a productive way to channel their energy—not creating obstacles for healthy youth activity.  Pat believes that Fairfax County should do away with field user fees, which not only deter children from participating in healthy recreational activities, but are not even fully dedicated to the development and maintenance of new fields.  A child’s participation in these activities shouldn’t be dependent on parents’ ability to pay the field fees.

The County should encourage private businesses to improve our sports fields and award these corporate citizens such benefits as “naming rights” for such things as new fields, score boards, seating capacity, etc.

Education
At one time, Fairfax County public school teachers were the highest-paid in the region—and it showed in the quality of our schools and impact on our children.  But over the years, salaries have not kept pace with cost-of-living changes.  As a result, good schoolteachers—including Pat’s brother and sister-in-law, who now teach in the Richmond area — have relocated to other areas of the state that offer higher salaries and a lower cost of living.  Pat believes we need to invest in education in the right places.  Our focus should be on attracting qualified, capable teachers to our schools and compensating them adequately for the jobs they do—which means a better education for our children. 

Since the Board of Supervisors devotes well over 50% of the county budget each and every year to our school system, Pat believes that providing some oversight and scrutiny on how that money is spent is both reasonable and necessary.

Other Springfield Issues
South County has a desperate need for an elementary and middle school.  Creative use of county assets through public-private partnerships should be a centerpiece to resolving some of our school construction needs. Pat has been working for and is committed to getting South County a middle school. He has met with businesses capable of public-private partnerships, officers from Ft. Belvoir, the local Chamber of Commerce, as well as our elected officials to pursue an answer. Pat is not just talking the talk…he’s walking the walk.

Pat will also continue to protect the Occoquan Watershed by working with the community leaders in this part of the district who have worked so hard to maintain the uniqueness of this environmentally sensitive area.

Gangs are recruiting in our schools.  We must confront this problem with tough laws and law enforcement.  Violent gangs must be stopped.

Hundreds of millions of new dollars will soon be available for transportation here in Fairfax County. We must prioritize our needs in Fairfax County and the Springfield district so we spend this money efficiently and effectively as part of an overall long-term congestion-relief plan.

Please click here to see the Republican “Seven Commitments” signed by Gary Baise, candidate for Chairman, and endorsed by the Republican candidates for Board of Supervisors

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