The Purcellville High School Fight Continues

Loudoun experienced very low turnout in the local elections yesterday. This may be understandable, considering there have been three elections in seven months (Board of Supervisors/Assembly in November, the Presidential Primary in February and yesterdays local contests), with two more to go before we're done this year (Congressional Primary on June 10th and the General Election in November). Nonetheless, the results from this election will echo more loudly in the lives of Loudoun's residents than most other votes that could be cast.

The key result from yesterday's elections was in Purcellville, where Bob Lazaro, who is using every legal tactic available to prevent constructing a desperately-needed high school outside of town, won re-election along with many of his allies on the Town Council.

Incumbent Mayor Robert W. Lazaro Jr. prevailed in Tuesday's mayoral race in Purcellville after a months-long campaign that centered on plans to build a new high school north of town.

Lazaro had 921 votes, or 61.5 percent, to challenger Karl Phillips' 577 votes.

"I think [my reelection] says to the county that they need to be serious about working with the town," Lazaro said Tuesday evening. “The public has sent a very strong message that enough is enough … and they do not want to be put in this position of having to pay for the infrastructure for a school that their children will never attend, because our kids will always stay at Valley." - LoudounExtra

To quote a friend who knows a thing or two about how things work in Loudoun, "Now we'll never get the high school built!"

Mayor Lazaro's re-election was a repudiation of the efforts of some on the school board and elsewhere to end the fight over Woodgrove high school at Fields Farm. The residents of Purcellville will continue to pay Town taxes to fight against the high school in court, and County taxes to fight for the high school in court, in one of the most bizzare wastes of money in the history of local fiscal management. More than any other factor, it is lawsuits like this and continued fights between Towns and the County that reduce the amount of local revenue available for local services. Not to mention the impact on our students.

As my class of 500 graduates in June [2007], we will be replaced by the current freshmen, whose class has about 660 students this year at Harmony Intermediate School. It is a challenge getting to class with out colliding with another person. In some of my classes, students have to sit backwards to see the board, all so the class can fit 30 students. During assemblies, there is no room in the auditorium for the three grades. The sophomores have to watch a televised version in classrooms.

The school's facilities become a challenge to use. Going to the restrooms turns into a five-minute process since the bathroom with the most stalls only has four. Each is constantly used by the long line of girls, at least until one runs out of toilet paper. - Lea Colburn in Leesburg Today

We are slowly improving how Loudoun is run, but pockets of irrationality remain. It is difficult, sometimes, to realize that the Loudoun of 2008 is not the Loudoun of 1988. But this is where we are. We need more schools, we need better management of land and planning, and we need to pay for teachers, police, firemen, roads, zoning enforcement and all the other basic duties of local government. It is our local elected officials who make these decisions. It is our local officials who can make the right decisions or the cheap and easy decisions. But it is we voters who must decide which direction we want to go at the polls.

Today, in Purcelville, our County may have taken a small step backwards, but these things are to be expected in a representative Democracy. And it simply means we must redouble our efforts in the future.