A controversial group of Falls Church City residents with ties to current city council members David Synder (Team Dave) and Nader Baroukh has asked federal agencies to investigate Falls Church City elected officials and staff for alleged unfair housing violations in connection with the City Center South initiative.
Sam Mabry, Lou Mauro, John W. Kennedy, Carl Anderson, George Bromley, and Pam Callison drafted a complaint alleging that, in passing the City Center South initiative, the City Council and staff "intended to restrict families" and "perverted" federal laws to prevent developers from building residential units suitable for famalies with children. The group filed the complaint with an assistant secretary of HUD and with federal investigators at the Department of Justice. In August, Sam Mabry, Lou Mauro, and Pam Callison met in person with Congressman Jim Moran to request he intervene in the complaint and force federal authorities to bring charges against the city council and city staff.
The letter complaint from the Mabry group is here (redacted to remove directory info): Download MoranLetters_redacted
Note that in 2004, Sam Mabry, while he was a sitting council member, filed a similar unfair housing complaint against the city (his employer at the time). Mabry encouraged the investigation of city officials by a housing enforcement advocacy group which funded itself by suing municipalities. The 2004 issue found no fault on the part of city (in fact, the City was heralded as a model for fair housing practices), but the City was forced to resolve the threatened nuisance suit by agreeing to pay off the organization and promising to monitor its ongoing compliance with housing laws. The 2004 issue was estimated to have cost city taxpayers more than $130,000 in taxpayer revenue.
The current complaint is a similar baseless allegation designed to manipulate federal investigators into becoming catspaw agents to stop development with which the group disagrees.
During the 2008 local election campaign Sam Mabry and his *group of friends* produced a series of ads, letters, web sites, and brochures opposed to the city center south initiative primarily because they felt the initiative would result in city schools being overrun with kids from families who did not share our community values. Blueweeds wrote extensively about the dangers of the anti-family campaign in its coverage of the (twice failed) Deathstar charter change referendum.
On a web site maintained by the opposition group, Sam Mabry attempted to explain the anti-family campaign. He wrote in pertinent part:
... Council’s development plan will ultimately harm the schools by overloading them. The misguided hand of the Council in this regard is even more evident because this is a time of a demographic shift, when existing single family homes are being sold to new families with children. The schools experienced a population increase this year and, for the aforementioned reasons, the trend is up, not down. Given our limited resources, just how many students can our community afford to educate? ... I just think it unwise and irresponsible to undertake a “more-the-merrier” dense-pack development with blinders on to the potential for school overcrowding, a decrease in academic excellence, increased costs, and the severe limitations we would face in responding to those problems....
Mabry made the further point on the same site in opposing population diversity and so-called "social engineering:"
... [the city center proposal] clearly indicates to me that there is a social engineering agenda as part of the City Center project ... I do not sense that our citizens approve of such an overriding consideration influencing development of a City Center ...
The specific allegations made in the complaint instigated by the Mabry group are self-created. The propogated anti-family campaign theme was picked up by developers who were at the time pitching the city center project. In order to placate what they heard as opposition voices, the developer initially included the sentence pointed to in the complaint in a draft report ("... minimize the impact upon schools and public utlities ..."). However, the city staff, who have experience dealing with Mabry and fair housing issues, caught the language and had it removed before it went to city council in a final report.
Pretty slick, no? Mabry and his group created anti-family noise around the city center project and then turned it around to leverage their own agenda to launch a made up federal investigation against city council and city staff for purportedly being "anit-family." All designed, of course, to hopelessly entangle the city center and affordable housing initiatives in a web of mirrored allegations and black noise.
The reason this matters is that it is an attempt to subvert a development plan approved by a majority of city voters. The core development issues on mixed use, city center, and affordable housing have been at the center of the last four local election campaigns ... and twice subject to anti-development referendums defeated soundly by city residents. So what they have been unable to accomplish at the ballot box, the opposition group pursues through litigation, investigation, and stealth political tactics. Three consecutive city managers, the vast majority of city council members, and nearly all of the professional city staff have said the success of the targeted developments are critical to the ongoing economic viability of Falls Church City.
One of the most notable things about the opposition effort is the complete lack of a coherent alternative plan. The path they have advocated for years now leads inexorably to vacant lots and underfunded city schools. In between elections, the opposition quietly admits their agenda is about political payback. They object to what they see as the liberal "social engineering" of the city, want to avenge the landslide election of 2000 which defeated Mabry, and return David Snyder to his position as mayor.
It's just sick.
One other thing. I mentioned the group of complainants were connected to David Snyder and Nader Baroukh. Mabry, of course, was Snyder's vice mayor, his principal campaign contributor, political mentor, and good friend. They have run a series of coordinated political campaigns, some stealth and some open, in the City for years. The Mabry group was also the core campaign team for Baroukh in the 2008 campaign. Funding. Volunteers. Strategists. So on and so forth. Pam Callison, of course, was Baroukh's campaign manager.
So let me end this too long post here and say I am interested in hearing perspectives from readers. Political opposition is parasitic to government and plays an important role in improving process. But is there such a thing as too disloyal an opposition? Are people concerned about the costs of this conflict... in terms of actual litigation, antipathy toward local politics, and in the reputation of our community? Is the conduct of this group acceptable to you? What is the remedy - is it vigilance? Constant monitoring? An imposition of some sort of standard which holds people accountable.
What do you want to do now?
