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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2010 Residents take aim at cost of Tysons improvements
Burden on taxpayers decried at airing of plan to transform job center
BY KAFIA A. HOSH Residents of the Tysons Corner
area balked at the almost $2 billion in road and transit im- provements Fairfax County offi- cials say are needed through 2030 to transform the traffic-choked job center into an urban down- town. At a public comment meeting
Wednesday, county officials pro- posed a funding split in which the public would pay $991 million, or
58 percent, and the private sector would pay $706 million, or 42 percent, of the cost of road and transit improvements. “It is nothing but more traffic,
more crowding, more heartburn,” said William Crosby of McLean. “Can you givemeone goodreason I should be enthusiastic about this?” The county Board of Supervi-
sors adopted a long-term plan in June that increases density and permits a more urban develop- mentpattern inTysons, including high-rise buildings, a street grid and public plazas. The densest development would be allowed near four Metro stations being built in Tysons as part of the rail extension to Dulles International
Airport. James P. Zook, the county’s planning and zoning director, said road and transit improve- ments are needed to advance the transformation and sustain the economic vitality of Tysons. “If we don’t get it right in
Tysons . . . we’re going to see corporations leave,” he said. Improvements include the
street grid, enhanced bus service, 19 road projects and road and intersection upgrades for adja- cent neighborhoods. The street grid has an estimat-
ed cost of $443 million and would be built as development occurs. It is expected to be entirely paid for by the private sector. The 19 road projects, which
include widening existing roads and roadway extensions, are esti- mated to cost about $810 million. The public sector would be re- sponsible for 67.5 percent of that cost, and the private sector 32.5
percent.The public share is based on the proportion of through traffic in Tysons, which is 35 percent of total traffic, plus half of locally generated traffic, or 32.5 percent. The public is also expected to
pick up the tab for improved transit and bus service, at a cost of $347 million, and neighbor- hood road and transit improve- ments that would cost $70 mil- lion. Ted Alexander of McLean said that the cost split was “awfully
“If one person . . . is on the fence about . . . any discrimination and leaves questioning their beliefs, I think we’ve done this play justice.” —Nicole Kang, 17
unfair. . . dumping 58 percent on the backs of the taxpayer.” County officials must now de-
cideonaway to fund the roadand transit projects. InMay, they out- lined a mix of financing options that included tax increases. Ty- sons landowners pay a tax to fund the county’s share of the $5.2 billion cost for the rail line. At Wednesday’s meeting, offi-
cials discussed ways that other county projects have been funded in the past, including the exten- sion of Fairfax County Parkway to Franconia-Springfield Parkway. That project, for example, was partly paid for through a referen- dum-approved bond issue. Thomas Fleury, a longtime Ty- sons developer now with Cityline
Partners, said the state, which is strapped for transportation mon- ey, cannot be depended on as a source of funding. “We just cannot count on the
state,” he said. “If we want Tysons to happen, we’re just going to have to do it ourselves.” The Board of Supervisors has
the authority to raise taxes or choose from other funding op- tions. Public comment sessions on
funding, which have not been scheduled, will be held through March. The staff is supposed to review the funding allocations that month and present a propos- al to the Board of Supervisors in April.
hoshk@washpost.com
Man who killed pair is sentenced to die
prieto from B1
Supreme Court ordered a resen- tencing because of a flawed ver- dict
form.The third trial was held from September to November and was solely to determine whether Prieto should live or die. Four of the jurors returned to
Courtroom 4G on Thursday. Rob Shapiro of Centreville said he came to show “empathy with the family, to show support. To let the [prosecution] team know how well they did. And for me, a little bit of closure, having struggled through such an experience.” Prieto is the first person to
receive a death sentence in Fair- fax sinceMir Aimal Kasi in 1998, for a double murder outside CIA headquarters in Langley. He was executed in 2002. Fairfax Commonwealth’s At-
torney Raymond
F.Morrogh said he sought capital punishment for Prieto, even though he was al- ready on death row in California, “because he’ll never get the death penalty in California. He effec- tively has a life sentence. I think it was time to bring him to justice for his horrible crimes. I think he got just what he deserved.” Each of theFairfax trials cost at
PHOTOS BY TRACY A. WOODWARD/THE WASHINGTON POST
JayMamana, 18, portraying the father ofMatthewShepard, speaks in court during LangleyHigh School’s production of “The Laramie Project.” The teen actor says he expects the experience will change him “for the rest ofmy life.”
Education on hate hits stage in McLean laramie from B1
tember death of a Rutgers Uni- versity student who jumped off a bridge after a roommate alleged- ly filmed his gay sexual encoun- ter on a webcam and tweeted about it. “That was horrible, and I
think the timing of ours is good because people have stopped talking about it and they need to start talking again,” Stewart said. The events in the play go back
to 1998, when Shepard was driv- en to a remote area and robbed, tortured, beaten and tied to a fence by two men who met him in a bar. He was found 18 hours later barely breathing and later died. The play is not a depiction of
the 21-year-old Shepard’s death but rather a series ofmonologues that tell the stories of those affected: friends, family, reli- gious leaders, doctors, profes- sors, police, protesters, the ac- cused. The lines are personal, direct-
ly quoting the words of real people, as taken from texts and 200 interviews done by the Tec- tonic Theater Project, a New York company that traveled to Laramie a month after the mur- der to document the impact on the town. There is a Baptist minister
who says he hopes Shepard was thinking of his lifestyle as hewas tied to the fence. There is an emergency room doctor who treated Shepard and recounts her feelings about later learning she had also treated one of his attackers. There is a young woman who
grew up in the Muslim faith in Laramie and thinks the town and nation need to accept what the case has laid bare. “We are like this,” she says. NicoleKang, 17,who plays that
role, says already she sees more than the usual interest in the play from non-theater class-
take when he read his lines and saw the answer to a police offi- cer’s question about what Shepa- rd looked like. “Like a queer,” the killer re-
plies. Patterson says that after
spending so much time on the play, he thinks differently about a few things, including the word “hate.’’ “I think a lot of teenagers don’t
notice when they throw around these words,” he said. An audience conversation
about such ideas will be led by ThomasHoward, of theMatthew Shepard Foundation, after Fri- day’s performance and during a school-day assembly. A second showing of the play is set for Saturday night. Phyliss Jaffe, director of Lang-
ley High’s theater department, describes the students involved in “Laramie” as open-minded, but even so says, “it’s been a real education to see how much hate can really damage and hurt peo- ple.” For many students, the most
unforgettable moment comes near the end, when JayMamana, 18, plays Shepard’s grieving fa- ther, speaking in the courtroom. He cries as he talks. “I keep wondering the same
thing that I did when I first saw him in the hospital,” he says. “What would he have become?” He tells the court that his son
was not alone, tied to the Wyo- ming fence. “ He had the beautiful night sky
During rehearsal, members of the jury listen toMatthewShepard’s father speak at the trial. In 1998, Shepard, 21, was robbed, tortured, beaten and tied to a fence by two men who met him in a bar.
mates. At home, Kang said, her father, “a stickler for tradition,” read through her lines one night, and the two talked. She hopes for conversations in
school, too. “If one person comes into the
theater and is on the fence about . . . any discrimination and leaves questioning their beliefs, I think we’ve done this play justice,” she said. Patterson, who plays killer Aaron McKinney, did a double-
and the same stars andmoon we used to see through a telescope. Then he had daylight and the sun to shine on him. . . . He had one more friend with him. He had God.” The teen actor says he has
tried to put himself in the fa- ther’s state of mind during every night’s rehearsal, part of a larger experience that he expects “will changeme for the rest ofmy life.”
stgeorged@washpost.com
least $400,000 — much of it in attorneys’ fees for Prieto’s ap- pointed counsel — for a total of more than $1.2 million. But that does not include the airfare for some prosecution witnesses and family members, overtime costs for police, the costs to the jurors of weeks of missed work or the costs of incarcerating Prieto. The biggest charge from the second trial, records show, was a $155,000 bill from the Lex Group for collating, printing and bind- ing the appeals briefs, transcripts and appendices. In addition to the murder con-
victions, Prieto is suspected but not charged in the killings of Veronica “Tina” Jefferson in Ar- lington County in May 1988 and Manuel Sermeno in Prince Wil- liam County in September 1989, as well as the slayings of Stacey Siegrist and Tony Gianuzzi, and Lula andHerbert Farley, in River- side County, Calif., in spring 1990. Sheriff ’s deputies said Siegrist was raped and she and Gianuzzi were both shot. In August, DNA from Siegrist linked Prieto to the case, Riverside authorities said. The Farleys were shot in an apparent carjacking in Ontario, Calif., where Prieto lived, and Herbert Farley’s body was found not far from where Siegrist and Gianuzzi were discovered. River- side officials said ballistics linked the Farley homicides to Siegrist and Gianuzzi. In 2005, Fairfax cold case de-
tectivesRobertMurphyandSteve Milefsky resubmitted the DNA from Raver to a nationwide data- bank and received amatch with a California prisoner they’d never heard of. But they found that Prieto had lived in Arlington in 1988 and was in prison for a similar rape-murder. Then-Fairfax Commonwealth’s
Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. made the decision to extradite Prieto from San Quentin State Prison to Fairfax, believing that Virginia could complete its cases against Prieto while California’s appeals process played out. Five years later, Prieto’s ap-
peals are still not close to resolu- tion in California, Deputy Attor- ney General Bradley A. Weinreb said. Prieto’s case has been await- ing oral arguments in the state Supreme Court there for more than two years and must then return to federal court.
jackmant@washpost.com
Virginia governor makes pension system proposal
virginia from B1
showed the state faces unfunded pension liabilities of $17.6 billion in coming years. “In order for me to be able to
look an employee in the eye and say ‘Your money is going to be there when you retire,’ these are the kind of changes that have got to bemade,”McDonnell said.
‘Good-faith effort’ McDonnell said he had some
good news for employees, too: that he had proposed no fur- lough days in the coming year and would not ask workers to pay increased health insurance premiums. He also is recommending that
employees be given a one-time bonus of 2 percent next year if the state ends the fiscal year on July 30 with sufficient funds to allow it. If the bonus material- ized, employees would not feel the impact of the pension change for another year. The proposals are likely to be
the subject of intense negotia- tions during next year's 46-day legislative session with Demo- crats, who hold a narrowmajori- ty in the state Senate, and em- ployee groups. R. Ronald Jordan, executive
director of the Virginia Govern- mental Employees Association, which represents about 20,000 state employees, said in a state- ment that the group has “deep concerns” about the newemploy- ee contributions. However, it called the idea a
“good-faith effort” to ensure the system’s financial stability and a good place to start legislative talks. The change would affect all current employees. The General
Assembly already agreed this year to ask new employees hired after July 1, 2010, to pay their 5 percent contribution.
Hindsight McDonnell said the changes
would not affect repayment of $620 million borrowed from the retirement system this year to close a budget shortfall and fund government services. The Gener- al Assembly agreed to repay that loan over 10 years, starting in 2013. McDonnellwas criticized after
his decision to dip into the retirement fund to close a budget gap, which also required billions in spending cuts. He told report- ers Thursday that borrowing from the Virginia Retirement System—amaneuver he and the General Assembly jointly under- took just a few months ago — “frankly, wasn’t a good idea.” He said that the money would
be repaid and that the state had not siphoned enough to affect the already-underfunded system in the long haul. But Democratic Party of Vir-
ginia Chairman Brian J. Moran said that McDonnell balanced the budget this year only through the loan and was now “asking state employees to pay for his sleight of hand.” Del. David Englin (D-Alexan-
dria) called on McDonnell to support a constitutional amend- ment thatwould prohibit raiding the employee retirement system to pay state operating expenses in the future. “We need to have this impor-
tant conversation,” he said. “But we need to look at the whole context.”
heldermanr@washpost.com
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