Letter to the Editor: Call for name removal is an unfunded challenge
Editor:
On March 8, Larysa Kautz, one of four candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for Lee District Supervisor, challenged the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board to change the name of two buildings — Robert E. Lee High School and Robert E. Lee Recreation Center in Lee District — by July 1, 2019.
Kautz demands the change be implemented before she potentially enters office in 2020.
Please note changing the name of a Fairfax County school to Justice High School in 2017-2018 cost $428,000 after the initial cost estimate from Superintendent Scott Brabrand was $800,620.
Though she requires quick action in meeting her demand costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kautz offers no solutions when asked how to fund it.
Responsible for a budget of $8.86 billion and a plethora of priorities for our community of over 1,148,000 residents, service on Fairfax County Board of Supervisors requires thoughtful, deliberative leadership.
Good government requires fact based decisions and awareness our community is not defined by long faded away generals, but by the future we are building together.
Kautz shows a lack of awareness as she issued her challenge three days after Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to advertise no possible increase in the real estate tax rate. The dollars Kautz demands would come from our balanced budget.
In making their unanimous decision to retain tax rates, Supervisors identified unmet needs to fund early childhood education, to equip police officers with body cameras, and to protect residents against stormwater.
Where on our list of priorities does changing nomenclature on Lee District buildings lay?
We must not only recognize the direct costs, but with competing priorities and finite resources we must understand the opportunity costs. If we expend hundreds of thousands of dollars to change names on buildings, we will not, for example, have those resources to help children access early childhood education.
Lee District needs a representative who works best with others on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. The action of making unfunded demands with quick deadlines for expensive changes that do not match community priorities would not portend well for these important relationships.
With decades of successful experience serving Fairfax County supporting a broad spectrum of community priorities from economic development, stormwater management to affordable housing and human services, Rodney Lusk is the candidate most ready and qualified to serve as Lee District Supervisor. Vote June 11.
Will Radle
Franconia
Um, “LEE” district?
Ironic, perchance?
Nice way of making your campaign materials seem like interest and involvement, though.
I am fairly certain this is the exact argument they made about slavery. So, it’s on brand, at least. We should definitely continue to sport the name of a well know racist on our public buildings, because “money”. Is that what I should tell my kid? Its too expensive to not be racist????!!!
Jen. Yes Robert E. Lee was part of the Confederacy, but he was not a “racist.” Yes he owned slaves, however, he joined the Confederacy because of his love for the State of Virginia. Now Jeb Stuart and Stonewall Jackson were devout racists. Was George Washington a racist because he owned slaves? I argue that probably 90% of Confederate AND Union officers probably owned slaves. What you should teach your children is that hatred of anyone is unjust. Teach them to be good people. Racism has existed, and will continue to exist, long after you, me and our children are gone.
Jen
A sincere question. What is your understanding of the definition of “racist”?
I’ve brought this up to Jeff McKay. He insists the name of the district is just “Lee” and not RE Lee. The Franconia Museum a few steps from his office told me otherwise. Remember that when he asks for your vote in November.
I don’t care who anybody votes for I’m not in your district but McKay is correct. It is the Lee district! It was the “Lee” district in 1870, always has been, still is….
1870
http://www.cchca.org/cch-history-population-of-fairfax-county-in-1870/
Page 3….book 9 Lee school District 1890 Census https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/circuit/sites/circuit/files/assets/documents/pdf/hrc/fairfax-county-school-records-and-ledgers-1870-1905.pdf
1940…look at the map “Lee” district
http://scottsurovell.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-1940-census-mount-vernon-lee-70.html
Current districting…
http://www.towncharts.com/Virginia/Demographics/Lee-district,-Fairfax-County,-Virginia-VA-Demographics-data.html
http://www.usboundary.com/Areas/County%20Subdivision/Virginia/Fairfax%20County/Lee%20district/155350
You won’t find one site, one article, one map anywhere that refers to it as the RE Lee district…because it has always been LEE.
Presently…. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/members-and-districts
I hear you and am open to discussion. We do not need candidates grandstanding for political gain. We can learn from the mistakes of others; we can love our neighbors especially if they disagree. We value diversity of ideas as we grow stronger together.
Kautz touches an important sensitive matter. She identifies a challenge; she does not offer any solutions.
She lacks experience and leaves problem solving to others on Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and Fairfax County School Board. While demanding implementation before 2020, she chooses to delay her announcement until three days after the real estate tax rate is unanimously adopted. She effectively shapes her challenge for failure. Experience matters.
If we want to proceed with making positive changes, I propose the following solution for your consideration. Rather than sparking urgency, stress and financial waste, we can ignore the arbitrary deadline Kautz pitches and make the changes methodically together at minimal net cost.
If it is the will of the people, using the decennial census we can create the magisterial district named Franconia District and Lee District basically ceases to exist.
The history of the Franconia community and the surrounding area is preserved and interpreted by the Franconia Museum, located in the Franconia Governmental Center. That is correct; the name on the building housing the Lee District Supervisor is Franconia Governmental Center.
Rather than rushing to make changes; we can recognize uniforms need to be replaced, and athletic fields and buildings need new signs periodically. We can select new names and rather than replacing items with the old names, replace with the new names. Perhaps, our School Board and Park Authority can expedite maintenance ahead of sequence once for Franconia District.
In this way, we can honor our priorities and our values together.
Note, the real estate tax rate is not adopted – the highest possible real estate tax rate for FY 2020 is unanimously approved to be advertised.
Making any argument using the real-estate tax as justification is ludicrous. While the levy rate is not proposed to increase, assessments are not so capped. The County will bill more, they’ll just make up the difference on assessments rather than levy rates.
Use of the proposed levy to imply taxes are not rising is a red herring. Assessments have increased, in our case significantly. Thus the levy “unanimously adopted” is irrelevant.
Here’s a history lesson: Robert E. Lee did not agree with slavery and only joined the Confederacy because of his love for the State of Virginia. Did he have slaves? Of course he did as did a lot of people on both sides. Do we wipe George Washington from the history books because he owned slaves? I can almost see Jeb Stuart and Stonewall Jackson who were devout racists. However, do I think spending $500,000 a pop to change the name is worth it? Hell NO! Most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. Ridiculous, liberal nonsense and a complete waste of tax payer dollars.
Historical fact: President Lincoln was elected in 1860. He emancipated slaves in DC on April 16, 1862 and the rebellious states in 1863. Maryland maintained slavery until November 1, 1864. Lee surrendered April 9, 1865. With slavery maintained in the Union throughout most of the war, clearly slavery/abolition was not the motivation. If it was, then why were there Union states with slavery? Their conflict was over federalism.
Perhaps, it is easy for us to project our modern values of equality and comity on people of a different era. Slavery was on every side of the Potomac. Let us recognize these facts before we claim some false narrative of history. Let us build a better future together.
I think, that it is really easy to say that something is a complete waste of taxpayer dollars and liberal nonsense when it doesn’t affect you in any way. Is this something that has to be fixed by next weekend? No. But I think it’s incredibly insensitive to keep what is an obviously, if not a directly racist, at least historically insensitive name on a building. The idea that an entire group of people is just going to have to get over it because it seems to you to be too expensive is fundamentally wrong. What makes this worse, is that this article was written not to address the issue, but to promote another candidate. So we’re using a racially-charged and sensitive issue to show that another candidate is more qualified… because that candidate doesn’t want to spend the money? This letter is a straight-up dog whistle, and it obviously worked given Capts comments on liberals.
“The idea that an entire group of people is just going to have to get over it because it seems to you to be too expensive is fundamentally wrong”
Newsflash…money isn’t infinite. I feel it’s a waste of taxpayer money. My taxes have gone up every year, year after year in Fairfax County. It’s all county taxpayers who are affected, not just the Lee district. Many of us won’t be retiring here that’s for sure, it’s slowly becoming unaffordable.
What about the young people living here who want to start families or save for a home, it’s ok to just keep taxing them because some are offended by events from 150 years ago? Do you honestly think a person of limited means supports this? They don’t. There are more important and necessary things that our community needs to fund. We have children at Stuart High School who were saving their Friday lunch, to bring home to share with siblings over the weekend. But hey, let’s just throw a half million away here and there, because some are offended by a name.
History is not to be loved or hated, history is for learning. Slavery was ubiquitous in all of world history from 3500 BC forward, and involved all races and all cultures, it was nothing unique to America or the South.
These were people living in their times. The mores of society change over time. If any of these people were living today Washington, Jefferson, Lee or Lincoln I’m betting they would think as most of us do. I read recently “Should men be condemned for all eternity for views held in their place in time? ….. A good definition of hubris is to make judgmental assumptions on the lives of those passed based on the certainty that those living today are in possession of ultimate truth.”
Had George Washington not led this country through the Revolutionary War, there is a great chance this Nation may have never been formed. His fate, if he had been caught, would have been a gruesome death of being drawn and quartered, I’m sure it went through his mind, but that didn’t stop Christ Church from removing his plaque. George Washington was one of the founding members buying pew No. 5 when the church opened in 1773, served as a vestryman and attended that church for over two decades.
General Lee was a lifelong military man, he wasn’t invested in slavery. Most of his career was serving the U.S. army. Few tried harder after the Civil War to reunite this country. He didn’t stoke the fires of bitterness.
If Johnston, Lee, Grant and Sherman could forgive each other who are we to hold this animosity and bitterness?
Joseph Johnston, like Lee, never forgot the magnanimity of the man to whom he surrendered, and would not allow an unkind word to be said about Sherman in his presence. Sherman and Johnston corresponded frequently and they met for friendly dinners in Washington whenever Johnston traveled there. When Sherman died, Johnston served as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral; during the procession in New York City on February 19, 1891, he kept his hat off as a sign of respect in the cold, rainy weather. Someone with concern for the old general’s health asked him to put on his hat, to which Johnston replied “If I were in his place and he were standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat.” He caught a cold that day, which developed into pneumonia, and he died several weeks later in Washington, D.C.
I’m all for expanding history to be more inclusive, not bury historical figures and names to “feel” better. Just because some are offended or find a name offensive doesn’t mean they are correct.
You might ask yourself why does it cost about $500,000 to change the name of a building?
Robert E. Lee was an accomplished general in the US Army who reportedly first sought to be excused from service during the conflict. When his request was rejected, he decided to follow his loyalty to Virginia.
Slavery was on every side of the Potomac and had little influence on his decision. In January 1858, Lee wrote the New York Times stating he would free slaves inherited from his father-in-law George Washington Parke Custis within 5 years.
We cannot reach for unfounded easy answers. Historical facts support a different conclusion. Robert E. Lee was a man of his time who had no easy choices.
I hope our discussion can remain respectful so we together can determine our best next action.