NOVATOWNHALL

About 530 residents showed up at Park View High School in Sterling tonight for an ad hoc emergency public meeting to address the recent crime wave in the community.

The Loudoun County Government was represented by Sheriff Steve Simpson and Supervisors Susan Buckley, Andrea McGimsey, Eugene Delgaudio, Stevens Miller and Scott York. (Supervisors Lori Waters and Kelly Burk, whose districts don’t overlap with the “Sterling” area, were also present but not on the dais.)

Supervisor York did an excellent job moderating what was, undeniably, a harsh situation. He took some shots from an audience that was clearly on edge and often near combustible.

But Sheriff Simpson had to absorb more criticism than any other party and he handled it well, if perhaps too impassively. I think Simpson is a good guy and good sheriff but an incredibly tone deaf public official. In personal conversations Simpson has expressed to me he understands the problems we face in Sterling. He should do a much better job explaining how he “feels our pain” and is committed to doing more to solve our problems. Standing in a large auditorium full of people on the verge of rage over the crime problem here, he talked at length about how the Sheriff’s Office is doing all it can do and more than most people realize.

This was, to put it mildly, not the information the audience was seeking. Consequently Simpson was literally shouted down a couple times during his remarks by audience members demanding to know what more would be done, and York had to step in and restore order. At one point a gang task force deputy went to the podium to explain in more detail what was being done in the investigations that was not showing up in the news.

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When the government refuses to do its job and the citizens are left helpless, with no legal means to fend for themselves, you have a crisis of confidence. That, I submit, is the situation in Sterling.

Spend a few minutes perusing the most recent reports at the LCA Blog and you’ll get a vivid picture of what I am talking about. (Go to Sept 22 and scroll down).

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The new category here is Sterling Crime Wave. Click on it frequently to see what is happening to our neighborhoods in eastern Loudoun County.

When the enlightened beings of the mainstream media declared Sterling Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio off-base several months ago for saying that our community was at risk of becoming a cesspool because of illegal immigration, local liberals parroted the politically correct line. They ridiculed Delgaudio.

What out-of-touch idiots they have been proven to be.

Sterling, Virginia is a suburban community which at first glance looks like every other suburb you have ever seen. But just beneath the surface lies a festering problem which becomes evident if you spend more than five minutes observing our neighborhoods.

Root of the problem? No zoning enforcement.

Our ineffectual Department of Building and Development allows illegal boarding houses for illegal aliens to operate without any threat of law enforcement whatsoever.

Lock and load, neighbors: the Loudoun County government has left us to fend for ourselves.

Following are the fruits of our feckless Department of Building and Development.

Here is last night’s headline:

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Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio just sent a notice that Sterling rape suspect Martin Jose Morales-Mancia is now in the custody of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office.

Looking forward to more info about this guy.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is investigating two violent crimes that occurred in Sterling late Saturday evening into the early morning hours of Sunday.

Shortly before 10 PM Saturday Loudoun Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the 300 block of North Argonne Avenue for two victims suffering from gunshot wounds. An 18-year-old male and 17-year-old female were airlifted to INOVA Fairfax Hospital where they are being treated for life-threatening-injuries. The investigation is currently in the preliminary stages but investigators believe the two victims were possibly targeted.

Around midnight on Sunday deputies responded to the 1500 block of North Amelia Street for a victim of a stab wound. The victim, a 25-year-old male, was located in the street suffering from a stab wound. He was airlifted to INOVA Fairfax Hospital where he is being treated for life-threatening-injuries. Investigators are working to determine where the assault occurred.

Anyone with information about either of these incidents is asked to call the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division at 703-777-0475. If the caller wishes to remain anonymous they are asked to call Loudoun Crime Solvers at 703-777-1919. If the information leads to an arrest and indictment the caller could be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1000.

The suspect who allegedly committed the rape in Sterling last week has been identified by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, finally.

Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 10:31 AM
To: RSAN
Subject: LCSO Seeks Suspect Wanted for Aug. 29 Burglary & Sexual Assault in Sterling- 2 Pictures attached

Loudoun County, Virginia- The Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s assistance in locating a violent criminal who is wanted for an
August 29th burglary and sexual assault in Sterling, VA.

Martin Jose Morales-Mancia, 24, of no fixed address, is wanted by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office for allegedly entering a residence of a senior citizen on Ironwood Road. Inside he brandished a knife and
sexually assaulted the female victim.

Morales-Mancia, also goes by the first name Arnold or Jose, is a light skinned Hispanic male. He is described as being 5′9″ tall and weighs 170
pounds.

If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Morales-Mancia, you are asked to immediately contact the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office at 703-777-1021 or your local police department. Callers who wish to remain anonymous can call Loudoun Crime Solvers at 703-777-1919. If the information leads to the suspect’s apprehension the caller could be
eligible for a cash reward of up to $1000.

Authorities are asking residents to never approach the subject as he is considered dangerous.

What do you know, another incident in Sterling with a person menacing an elderly woman, and the only public announcement sent out by e-mail which only a fraction of Sterling residents receive. Excluding me, for instance, although I am a “tech guy” I am not on the list for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office announcements. So it is safe to assume a lot of people in Sterling will get no information about this incident just like they got no information about last week’s incident.

Well, here is what happened last night, in the words of the woman who was at the center of the incident:

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Outrage.

The Loudoun County government is screwed, and needs to be eviscerated, burned down, and replaced. Something happened in Sterling Thursday night which should make every resident of Loudoun County wonder what the hell is going on with our Sheriff’s Office and our zoning enforcement “team”.

I will tell you in the next paragraph what actually happened, from conversations with someone who happens to know the victim, and below the fold is what the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office deigns to reveal. Please notice the differences.

Late Thursday night, August 28 (early Friday morning, August 29) around midnight, a large, Spanish-speaking male knocked down the door at a house on Ironwood Road in Sterling, occupied by a woman in her early 70s. The man had a very large knife. He shouted at the woman “I am going to cut you to bits! I am going to cut you to bits!” He slashed her numerous times with the knife. He beat her, and forced her into a position where he was poised to rape her, but at the last moment suffered a “performance” problem and could not complete the act. He fled. The woman called 911, but by the time law enforcement showed up the attacker could not be found.

The neighborhood in which this incident occurred, in the area of Ironwood Road, Redwood Road, and Greenthorne Avenue, is one of the worst-hit in Sterling by illegal aliens. I have spent some time driving through the area over the past couple years and I can attest that it is terrible, with numerous residences displaying the signs of illegal flophouses, including screen doors propped open (signifies “rooms for rent”), lots of cars per residence, plenty of signs of MS-13 activity, and a generally crappy atmosphere. I am told by people familiar with zoning enforcement complaints that the area has been the subject of many overcrowding complaints sent to the completely non-functional Loudoun County Department of Building and Development (aka, the Black Hole), and, as we have established, it is apparently just another section designated for Loudoun County Government-sponsored blight.

From everything I have seen, submitting an overcrowding complaint from Sterling is pointless because Terry Wharton’s department gets paid to do absolutely nothing. Here’s an interesting question about Wharton’s “Department”: How much could we save if we just fire them all - and I mean all? Let’s have no “Department” and, on the rare occasion such a “Department” would actually need to do some work, we could hire subcontractors. It might not be perfect, but it also would not cost us any money to have sections of our neighborhood allowed to be cesspools. I mean, if cesspools are deemed necessary, then let’s not be paying the salaries of Loudoun County “zoning enforcement” staff. Not add insult to injury, as it were.

But while we can and should point fingers at Terry Wharton’s miserable farce of a government agency, and by extension we should ask what the hell our county supervisors and county administrator are doing by allowing the blight to fester here, and why the citizens have not yet marched with torches and pitchforks on all of the above, the biggest question of all is:

What is our Sheriff’s Office doing? Or rather, what are they NOT doing?

Or further: Who the hell is letting the LCSO get away with what they are getting away with?

I point you to below the fold - the “alert” helpfully provided by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. This is all the citizens have seen, and frankly the only citizens who have seen it are those who are on the e-mail list (I am not) and those who happen to read the report in whatever local paper happened to reprint the news release. It is a completely whitewashed version of the incident, which almost no one in Sterling will even get to read. It indicates the attacker “spoke with an accent.”

Hey, friends, that is a bit inaccurate. In fact, it attempts to erase from the incident report the basic fact the attacker was a Hispanic in an area where Hispanic criminals might well be considered a key problem in the neighborhood. It also tones down the severity of the attack.

Bottom line? In my view, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office is attempting to hide the facts of the incident.

In short, no one - no one official in Loudoun County - cares. What a fricking disgrace. Hey, friends: Maybe now you understand why we wanted Greg Ahlemann to be our Sheriff.

The neighborhood area beset by illegals, and a vicious sexual attack by a Hispanic male, are facts that are being swept under the rug. The LCSO is not doing ANY community outreach to warn the residents of Sterling Park. The local media are NOT investigating the incident - they never managed to get the info I have, which is hard to believe.

Why is the Loudoun County Government not conducting a major communications offensive to alert residents that they need to be on the watch for Hispanic males who may be trying to do home invasions? Why are the LCSO and “zoning enforcement” allowed to not do their jobs?

Our county government is broken. We need to fire all of them and start over again.
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Erica Garman spent the day wheeling around Sterling yesterday, read about it here.

In an editorial titled, Ending Government Sponsored Blight, the Washington Examiner adds another outraged voice to the roiling controversy over the Loudoun County Department of Building and Development:

Loudoun County officials have for years looked the other way when confronted with glaring violations of their own zoning ordinances. Angry homeowners have now joined a growing list of Americans demanding strict enforcement of such laws…

Read it all.

Eastern Loudoun is finally getting some attention because the problems have piled up to the point they can no longer be glossed over. The upside is we - especially those of us in Sterling - finally have a voice the county will have to listen to. If you are fed up with the utter uselessness of our Zoning Administration Division, send an e-mail to County Administrator Kirby Bowers and copy the entire Board of Supervisors.

(Heck, copy the Easterner or the Independent while you are at it.)

As I alluded to my letter last week, the county could do a lot worse than to empty the entire Department of Building and Development and hire some of the folks from Herndon to come over and show us how to rebuild it into a functioning government agency.

More on the problems in Loudoun County Zoning Adiministration:

Foreclosure, it’s just a state of mind

Eugene Delgaudio and Jeanne West Team Up to Denounce Zoning Violations in Sterling (includes video of WUSA Channel 9 news report)

Zoning Controversy Continues To Heat Up In Sterling

Loudoun County Focuses On Sterling

Dispatches from Sterling: Government-Sponsored Blight

In Sterling, apparently.

A story circulating in Sterling the past year is the Loudoun County government has cast a blind eye to many instances of squatting; specifically, when a house is foreclosed and everyone is evicted, little by little people show back up and occupy the residence. Sometimes it’s by entering through a rear entrance, sometimes former tenants of these boarding houses still having keys and going in through the front door, usually a strictly nocturnal phenomenon. People have even been seen sleeping on roofs at night, but by morning the houses are empty again.

Complaints to Loudoun County Zoning Administration, needless to say, have resulted in no action.

Well, the new trend we are heralding here at the NOVA TownHall Blog is to transform anecdotes into documented reality, and with evidence coming in from around the community and my own observations from the front driveway, we will continue that trend right here.

Exhibit One: House A from our June 23 post. You know, the one across the street from my house which Loudoun County Zoning assured us idiot citizens was perfectly above-board: “A family of six and two unrelateds” - no reason to inspect.

Well tonight, someone shows up and occupies House A which was supposedly foreclosed and all the boarders evicted from.

There are some lingering bad feelings about this particular residence, mainly because the voluminous collection of refuse in the back yard is still there: thirty to fifty bags of garbage a variety of junkyard-style trash in the yard and the back deck piled with refuse. When the car arrived, neighbors called the police tonight and five Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office cruisers showed up, deputies surrounded the house, knocked on the doors, but whoever was inside did not open up. No warrant, so no authorization to enter.

But let’s hand it to our Sheriff’s Office: they knew the resolution of the June situation and that the house was supposed to be empty, and they did all they could - at the present time. That’s the plus side. The minus side is we still have a festering landfill right here and our government entities are apparently powerless to do anything about it - a situation that could have been entirely avoided if our zoning enforcement officer had done what obviously needed to be done about two months ago when the first complaint was filed!

Thank you, Terry Wharton. I am sure someone, somewhere, is pleased that this property owner like so many others in Sterling was given a free pass.

Alas, we’re not the only ones with a problem caused by a broken Zoning Administration division. This is 504 W. Beech (I will make no attempt to protect anyone’s privacy because this one is so egregious):

The house on the right is 504. Neighbors complained about a boarding house being run from this location for well over a year, and the house was foreclosed several months ago, yet it remained occupied. Neighbors continued to complain to no avail. When the tenants finally left they cleaned the place out, from the major appliances to cabinets to doors to the garage doors.

The house to the left of it has a For Sale sign on it - has been on the market for quite a while. Too bad for them, eh? Laws on the books are not enforced, and the law-abiding citizens of Sterling (who I am convinced our county government considers first-class “chumps”) consequently get hosed.

Yes, even windows were removed. A resident of this court said they watched all this happening, reported it to the appropriate agencies in Leesburg, and were ignored.

It gets worse. There is another specific case going on right now which may be far more revealing than either of these, because evidence is piling up about a home purchasing mortgage-and-refinancing scam which might explain much of what has been happening in our area. It appears some of these boarding houses have been the result of a loophole in lending practices, in which someone can buy multiple residences, sell and refinance them several times over, then leave with a wad of cash and sticking the lending institutions with the bill. In the lag time between purchase and physical foreclosure, the residence is rented out to illegal boarders, and the rent money kept as additional profit. Banks, and eventually taxpayers, are left to pick up the final bills.

More to come - I expect MUCH more - on that matter. The Loudoun County government, in particular the Zoning Administration division and possibly the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office and some other departments, definitely has some ’splainin’ to do, if you ask me.

UPDATE: A group of Loudoun citizens met tonight to discuss these and other issues, and the consensus was we really need to find out whether any of the members of our Board of Supervisors - beside Eugene Delgaudio - is even conscious of what is happening here. The violations would not likely be allowed to stand if they were occurring anywhere other than in Sterling.

Something is very fishy in our county government, folks. I sense a groundswell of outrage from the citizens in eastern Loudoun.

UPDATE: The car in front of House A was gone by 6:30 the next morning, and did not return last night. Yesterday afternoon someone looked in the backyard and said the gate was open and it was relatively clean, so thank goodness for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office! Even though they would not have had to be there if Zoning had done its job in the first place, our deputies do get results just by maintaining a presence. UPDATE II: Another neighbor informs me the bags of trash had been removed over a week ago so all that was back there when the deputies came was junk like car seat, wire spool, miscellaneous construction-related trash.

In a singular demonstration of professional collegiality, Sterling District Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio and the woman he defeated for that office in the November 2007 election, Jeanne West, were the key spokespersons in the WUSA Channel 9 news report aired tonight at 11:00 pm. Both went on record to denounce zoning violations that have persisted in Sterling.

Click here to watch the video on the WUSA site.

The backdrop for the story was this scene at the intersection of Johnson and Beech - which is right across the street from Jeanne’s house - where digging equipment and cable for the Verizon FIOS installation project have been illegally stored on a neighborhood street.

It was quite a surprise to see Eugene and Jeanne as the co-subjects of the news piece, but I think the profusion of zoning violations in Sterling has brought us to the point that everyone in the community needs to come together to seek a solution. Congrats, and THANK YOU, to the two of them for finding this common ground.

The news story did not touch on whether this was the same equipment that had been parked across the street from MY house several weeks ago. In fact, I am not sure if they even mentioned Verizon by name. But it’s a good start to bringing public awareness to this problem, which I definitely plan to continue pursuing.

The video is priceless and quite flattering to both of these esteemed public figures.

I just got word that local television station WUSA 9 is filming in the neighborhoods of Sterling right now, focusing on blighted houses and Verizon equipment parked on our streets. The report will likely be aired on the late news tonight.

UPDATE: Heh. Here is what Channel 9 was filming.

Apparently a group of residents from neighboring houses came out to see the camera crew, and told them that there were indeed people working on the Verizon FIOS project living here.

This is around the corner from my house, about 1/4 mile away from “House A.” I wonder, now that everyone got kicked out of House A, if some of them just moved around the corner. I’m going to go by in a little while and see if any of the same trucks show up. In any case, it looks like the tactic is to just move the equipment to another street and hope nobody notices.

Being on the street, this violation should be addressed by the Sheriff’s Office, and hopefully someone will call it in or maybe some deputy will see tonight’s report. Then, it will be moved into a driveway, and it will be the Loudoun County zoning enforcement team’s turn to shine.

Ahem.

For those who are not caught up, here are my reports from

June 23

July 2.

In addition, here is my letter in today’s Independent:

Enforce the Zoning

I read with interest your front page story on “eastern Loudoun initiatives” under consideration by our Board of Supervisors. For residents of Sterling who wonder why our zoning laws have been so flagrantly abused the past few years, with overcrowded houses allowed to persist and commercial enterprises allowed to operate out of neighborhood homes, I may have found part of the answer.

I recently did some research as a result of a “problem house” on our street which, once again, Loudoun County Zoning refused to do anything about. I wrote a story detailing this case on June 23 at novatownhall.com. It turns out that the only member of the Loudoun County zoning enforcement team who speaks Spanish - and therefore, for obvious reasons, the point person for inspections of overcrowding and other complaints in Sterling - told a college publication last summer that in addition to working for Loudoun County, she is “continuing to help immigrants though part-time work for an immigration law firm.”

Of course, there is no stigma whatsoever in advocating for “immigrants” and every American should have the freedom to take civic action on matters he or she feels strongly about. But there seems to be a blatant and unconscionable conflict of interest when the one person who is supposed to be Sterling’s chief enforcement officer is also doing legal work on behalf of those so often involved in the alleged violations here.

Most Sterling residents who have attempted to file zoning violation complaints are familiar with the excuses the county’s zoning personnel give us for doing nothing, such as “Virginia’s laws are not strong enough” to allow more rigorous enforcement. But think about this: In the neighboring town of Herndon, when the new mayor and town council first took office in July, 2006, the town had nearly 90 cases of unresolved zoning violations. As of a couple months ago, that number was hovering between five and ten, because Herndon hired additional Spanish-speaking zoning inspectors, some on a part-time basis, with the charge to get the problem fixed.

It appears what is really lacking in Loudoun County is the will to enforce the zoning laws and, at least in regard to Sterling, our county government does not really want to fix the problems.

Maybe Loudoun County Administrator Kirby Bowers should make a phone call to Herndon Mayor Steve DeBenedittis. I am certain “Mayor Steve” would furnish some references of zoning inspectors who could bring an attitude adjustment to our Department of Building and Development.

Joe Budzinski
Sterling

[UPDATED BELOW]

Finally. Times reporter Jason Jacks provides a balanced treatment in this article.

The reporter for the Loudoun Times Mirror has a new report addressing the problems in Sterling - our community in the easternmost part of the county.

A Loudoun supervisor, known for being outspoken with respect to the issue of illegal immigration, is drawing criticism for comparing the district he represents to a sewage pit…

In the nearly eight years she’s lived in Sterling Park, Anne Lawver said her neighborhood has become dotted with boarding houses. Vandalism and litter are also common, she said, as are groups of Hispanic men who “hang about and shout at women driving or walking by.”

“Sadly, I have to agree with Mr. Delgaudio,” she said. “We still love Sterling but are deeply saddened to see it becoming a cesspool.”

Go read all of that.

Somehow they always seem to find an angle to criticize Eugene Delgaudio for what is wrong in Sterling, while also nailing him for SAYING what is wrong in Sterling. It puts our supervisor in sort of a no-win position.

What we need are more citizens speaking up about the situation in Sterling. Send an e-mail to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors at the following e-mail address:

bos@loudoun.gov

… if you have an opinion on how to fix the problems in our community.

UPDATE: Well, the fecklessness of our Zoning Administration division and - apart from Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio - the Board of Supervisors’ failure to even recognize the problem, is indeed causing a brewing tempest in eastern Loudoun. Following on my June 23 post about a case in point, here is coverage in today’s Examiner.

The problem has been building for years, but up until recently the citizens of Sterling have been relatively mute. Now, I think enough people are realizing that something is seriously wrong, and our supervisor has been making public statements on the problem, picked up by local media, which are galvanizing public opinion, or providing a focal point for public opinion. Judging by the blithe, head-in-the-sand attitude of the other eight supervisors, however, I think it is going to take a mob with torches and pitchforks marching down Harrison Street before anything gets fixed. With the August break approaching, my prediction is they sweep this under the rug and hope we all shut up and go away by September.

UPDATE II: Un-frickin’-believable. ACTivist just informed us that Juanita Toriello - the zoning “inspector” I opined is a major reason zoning enforcement is nonexistent in Sterling - recently checked back in on one of the longstanding “problem houses” on my street (this would have been “House B” mentioned in the June 23 post), with a reported “apologetic tone” to one of our neighbors who filed the initial complaints long ago. This was a house where the owner moved to another part of the county and turned the residence into a boarding house, which at one time had a family upstairs and up to 23 people living in the downstairs, which also had a kitchen illegally installed. Originally, Juanita “inspected” and found no violations except the stove, which she reported would be removed (it never was). So now, perhaps as a result of recent public discussion, Zoning Administration decided to do an actual inspection and guess what: Everyone moved out.

If this indicates the beginning of a trend - namely, Zoning Administration doing its job in Sterling - it will make a HUGE difference. Now, let’s just consider what might have happened if Zoning had been doing its job all along. For starters, by having the laws on the books enforced the residents of Sterling would have enjoyed the quality of life the local government was supposed to be already facilitating. As I explained in the June 23 post, removing the flophouse piece of the illegal employment structure would have dealt a fatal blow to the whole house of cards. If the workers could not be boarded cheaply (and illegally) the corrupt businesses would have had to either start hiring legally or moved somewhere else or found another solution like building their own bunkhouses. I guarantee you Help Save Loudoun would have never been formed, the entire “illegal immigration” controversy of 2007 would not have arisen, and a whole bunch of people who moved out of Sterling Park would still be living here … all as a result of one county agency doing what it was supposed to have been doing.

Thus far this is hearsay and only one house, so we’ll have to wait before declaring any major problems solved, but if more Sterling residents realize how they have been getting the short end of the stick from the county government, it just may be torches-and-pitchforks time.

[After you read the following, you can find more on this topic at this post, a week later]

This is what “blight” looks like from the house across the street, and this is how it is allowed to happen. (click on photos for larger images)

For all of you who don’t have firsthand familiarity with the illegal alien problem in Northern Virginia, let me share a true-life story which might help paint the picture of what has been happening here in Sterling for the past five to seven years. In sum, I believe segments of our government at every level are at war with the legal residents of our nation, an economic war conducted on behalf of powerful business interests, a war that most citizens don’t even realize has already been declared on them.

I am going to relate this tale about Sterling to demonstrate what has gone wrong at the micro level - because the macro-level issues have been so thoroughly politicized that most people who are not on the front lines can’t make heads or tails of the controversy. Facts about border security and what the federal government is or isn’t doing are remote and opaque. Facts about what is happening at the neighborhood level are much easier to grasp.

In most American communities, where the rubber hits the road on the illegal immigration problem lies in the actions of three local government functions: Public safety, business licensing and zoning enforcement. We have covered the first two in substantial depth on this blog over the years (check here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) We’ve touched on zoning, but it is time to probe a little further.

When we turn over this particular log, as most Sterling residents know and which was amply testified to at the May 14 community meeting, the reality is not pretty. Both the Sheriff’s Office and the Zoning Administration division received abysmally low grades from local residents.

This was no major surprise to me.

From my personal experience with filing zoning violation complaints in Loudoun County for the past two-plus years, I believe the Zoning Administration division of the Department of Building and Development is worse than ineffective. From my vantage point, I believe this particular section of the county government is, like Robert Mugabe’s Ministry of Justice, “part of the problem.”

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