The Park Antics Continue
By Greg L | 14 December 2006 | Rack & Roll Scandal | 6 Comments
If you can follow the sequence events outlined in todays Manassas Journal-Messenger article, you’ll see that the ongoing fued between the Manassas Park City Council and Dave Ruttenberg, operator of Rack & Roll Billiards is heating up. It seems that because of some differeing viewpoints which have developed within the city administration, Mr. Ruttenberg has managed to pit one entity of the city government against another — namely the city council and the board of zoning appeals. Now the city of Manassas Park is trying to figure out how it can sue itself using taxpayer funds.
Talk about self-inflicted head wounds. The electorate must be absolutely thrilled.
Now the council is suing the board of zoning appeals, Ruttenberg is suing to have the denial of his conditional use permit, and he also has a five million dollar civil rights suit filed against the city in federal court. It looks like it’ll be a nice Christmas season for local attorneys. So far there’s no talk about just unincorporating the financially weak city of Manassas Park and returning it to the jurisdiction of Prince William County, but incidents like this definitely lend weight to the arguments I expect to be raised.
In other Manassas Park news, I’ve been trying to track down a rumor that Manassas Park has secretly been participating in the federal Section 287(g) program but wanted to keep this quiet for fear of damaging it’s relationship with the hispanic community. So far I’m getting carefully worded official denials in response to my inquiries, and the Manassas Park Chief of Police John Evans came out earlier in opposition to participation in the program and there’s been no action by the Manassas Park city council to join with the city of Manassas in it’s initiative. The public impression given is very much at odds with the private information I’ve received.
If this is true, although it’s great to hear that Manassas Park may have been proactively trying to deal with the impacts of illegal immigration, citizens should be fully informed about what their government is doing. If it’s not, the divisions in the city government which the Rack & Roll have exposed may run a lot deeper than a BZA vs. City Council disagreement.
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When I see ‘personal’ opinions create an agenda to remove a business from a 14 year existence one has to questions others true motives. Basic ingnorant thinking is pool is wasting ones time, is golf not, is tennis, or does it have to be someone thinking their way is better than others. 30% of all high school students do not compete or interact in any competitive or sports activity, what is the school doing about them. They preace how important activities are to the socialization of the individual but only adress current/existing programs. If you ever want to see the true social impacts of billiards, have a party with your office workers where playing pool is part of your gathering. One will find out allot more about their co workers in one hour than they ever realized. We see one dimension characters of those around us, but put them in any competitive situation and their true character surfaces. What feel like is happening hear is “emminent” domain removal of ones enjoyment of something another thinks should be directed in another direction. They are trying to remove tag from grade schools in some parts of the country, what other so called important moves will our bretheren make next. Leave this exisiting business alone and deal with more important issues that life needs attending too.
As far as that shopping center goes, Rack and Roll Billiards is the least of the problems there.
I’m surprised there’s still even a Radio Shack there.
As a member of the voting electorate, I am not pleased about the situation between the BZA and the Governing Board. I am even less pleased about people suggesting its unincorporation. What financial problems is the city experiencing? If you know something clouding our fiscal future, I would hope that you would share it with your Manassas Park readers.
As a citizen, I love and support this community. First and foremost, I want to see it survive and thrive. I would never, in a million years, want to become part of the behemoth that is Prince William County. If that day ever did come to pass, I would be long gone from here.
My understanding is that Manassas Park gains almost all of it’s tax revenues from residential property taxes. Most other localities have more balance between commercial and residential tax bases, which has forced MP to have a relatively high residential tax rate and consistently tight budgets. With social services, education and public safety demands in part stemming from the influx of relatively less well off immigrants the budgetary problem is worsening.
Unless MP can develop some sort of decent commercial tax base, the long-term financial picture for it as an independent city is in some doubt. They can’t tax their way out of this problem without forcing all of those who actually contribute to move to other nearby jurisdictions where the tax rates are more favorable. And if they tighten their belt to the point where quality of services declines significantly, the same thing will happen.
Unless MP can solidify it’s long-term financial future, about the only option left is to retrocede into Prince William County. Manassas City can’t take the burden, but the county might be able to.
Granted, I haven’t had the opportunity to really dig deep into the financial picture for MP, so a lot of this is based more on conjecture than hard numbers, but that’s my understanding of the situation. I may take some time to start gathering data and do a post on this if time permits.
Take a look at Connor Center (Euclid Ave. north of Manassas Drive) with the satellite view at maps.google.com. There is a lot of land in there that is not being used at it’s full potential. Dump truck yards and the like. These uses made sense in 1986 but they don’t make sense in 2006, since the surrounding areas are now all built out and this heavy equipment must travel that much further to where the construction is happening. If the city can redevelop Connor Center with land uses that provide more of a tax base, it would begin to solve the tax base problem.
I know that Connor Center and other business areas can and should be better developed. I am optimistic that the Governing Board and the city manager are pursuing those options. I think the appointment of Mr. Miller, the small businessman, (even though I didn’t like the process) was a step in the right direction. I am hoping he can bring his insight to develop a larger business tax base.