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Manassas City Town Hall Meeting Monday
By Greg L | 4 May 2008 | Manassas City | 7 Comments
There will be a town hall meeting in Manassas at Round Elementary School at 7:00PM Monday evening, and it’s a perfect opportunity for citizens to get some answers from their elected officials. After being told that Gaudencio Fernandez has been cited for violations of the building code in regards to the billboard on Prince William Street, we’ve learned that all the city has actually done was ask Mr. Fernandez to apply for a building permit. This fear-based response by the city has done nothing but further encourage Fernandez and his Mexicanos Sin Fronteras cohorts to continue their acts of civic vandalism in the city’s historic district.
Some background on this sad saga might be helpful.
The location was the site of an beautiful old house built in 1900, and part of the traditional African-American neighborhood in Manassas, as well as being within the city’s Historic District. Although the property is listed as being owned by a Ms. Delia Alvarez in Manassas City tax records, Mr. Gaudencio Fernandez has been managing the property and remodeled the basement into several independent living areas. Extension cords were observed running from second-story windows to basement windows, and after the Manassas City Fire Department responded to a fire at the structure, they reported the cause on their website as being electrical in nature and that the house was overcrowded.
The fire-damaged house was never properly protected from the elements, and after some long-running discussions about whether the house could be restored, it was eventually ordered demolished. Fernandez demolished all but one wall of the structure, and attatched this billboard to that wall in mid-September of 2007. That sign was vandalized in October, and replaced with one containing quotes from Ghandi. In November, 2007, the Manassas City Council started talking about how they were taking action to resolve this problem.
The billboard was again replaced with this one recently, and Fernandez started talking about his intention to apply for a permit for an even larger sign — this one measuring two hundred feet long. We’ve recently learned that the City hasn’t actually done anything other than ask Mr. Fernandez to apply for a building permit, indicating that this outrage is pretty much guaranteed to continue indefinitely, as long as Mr. Fernandez feels it is a good idea for him to outrage Manassas residents by calling them ridiculous names. There is no indication that any legal action has been filed by the city regarding this billboard.
I’m pretty sure this is going to be a major topic of discussion at the town hall meeting, and I hope the residents of Manassas City are able to get some answers from their elected officials about how long the city is required to tolerate this outrage. Caution in dealing with sensitive topics is a good thing, but this degree of caution resembles cowardice more than any kind of rational approach to resolving a clear problem.
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7 Comments
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Your commentary is just a little wrong, Greg. The house was not beautiful, it was aluminum sided, run down and shabby. Because of the modifications to the structure over time, it weas not listed as an historic structure. The African-American community did nothing to preserve it when they had the chance. There was no basement. It was not overcrowded when the fire occurred. It was protected from the elements by blue tarp. Greg, try for accuracy, please.
One more thing, Greg. Before Fernandez had the property, the City found white and black squatters living in the house without the permission of the absentee owners. They lived there without water and electricity. It was termite ridden then and the yard was a mess. So you see, it was not the moral equivalent to Annaburg manor.
anon ++,
May I suggest you strive for
more accuracy — former councilman Col. White
led a group of local African-Americans who spent
no small amount of time and money attempting
to save the historic house. They met with
Mr. Fernandez several times, but he declined
their offers to either purchase the property and/or
help restore it.
“It was not overcrowded when the fire occurred.”
That’s probably true. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were nobody inside.
Isn’t this the same house that burned down AFTER all the tenants conveniently moved out?
The best response to the sign is apparently another sign, which will insult hell out of the illegals and their sympathizers. Hopefully in a non-racist way.
I sure don’t recall that house ever being beautiful. Our baby sitter lived there and it was in very ill repair as far back as the late 60’s and probably longer ago than that. I just cannot speak to it prior to then. It also had multiple families living there, which was not untypical of houses that size. It was a large house.
I have stated before, this is not a house to romanticize about.