Woodbridge Supervisor Margaret Franklin claims she is getting the job done in her recent campaign mailer. She takes credit for:
Smart economic development with $500 million in investment including the Riverside Center Town Center which all local communities supported, and she did not work to attract. Local developers put the plan together without her and then asked for her support. It was not her initiative. I know firsthand because Belmont Bay and our Association wrote letters in support.
The “first-ever” distribution center was built “by right” without needing her support and was done so without consulting with the Belmont Bay neighborhoods and with no transportation improvements or restrictions on heavy truck traffic.
Investing in education. She did not initiate the new elementary school next to Lynn Intermediate and in fact even building that school does nothing to match the growth with all the apartments and low-income housing she supports. The new elementary school is over capacity without even taking into consideration the new 800 plus Riverside Station apartments, any new housing in Belmont Bay and the new low-income apartments and high-rise apartments on the Occoquan waterfront. Per capita spending the last 4 years on education has gone up by over 25% while test scores have dropped significantly. We are going in the wrong directly on school safety, capacity, and learning!
Supporting small businesses is a fallacy. She is a champion of the new $35 million meals tax on our restaurants forcing layoffs and some to close. She has failed to deliver road improvements on time that have hurt our Route One businesses and her COVID grant program was devised by the Federal Government and funding provided down to localities Her move to “rename” Jefferson Davis Highway simply cost taxpayer dollars and the reworking of thousands of websites and mailing addresses in the name of political correctness.
What Franklin does not admit to in terms of delivering, is a doubling of homicides in the Woodbridge District, a 50% reduction in juveniles charged with crime because the police no longer patrol our schools and a 70% in increase in violent crime in Prince William County.
She does not point out that she was the deciding vote on giving herself and her fellow Board of Supervisor Members a 67% pay increase Nor does she take credit for the average real estate tax increase of $2100 per homeowner over the last 4 years.
Margaret Franklin has delivered higher and more violent crime, lower test scores, higher and new taxes, reckless development and a social agenda rather than listening to what her constituents really want. Open and good government, smart growth, safety in our schools and communities and fiscal responsibility. – Rob Hartwell