The City of Fairfax is the one and only

This morning there was yet another story in the Washington Post (front page, too), about Fairfax County considering changing its name to the City of Fairfax or some variation. It's not going to happen, at least not in my lifetime or that of my children.

For one thing, as my good friend state Sen. Chap Petersen said, "We had it first."

Indeed we did. The City of Fairfax is a special and unique place that the County could only wish to be. That's not a slight to the County, it's just reality.

We're 6.3 square miles, have about 23,000 residents, have the lowest tax burden on residents and businesses in the Northern Virginia region, have festivals and events that no other locality can match, provide the highest quality of services (think trash pick-up and recycling) and we were just named by Forbes.com the third best place in the country to live.

Who can top that?

Underlying the County's desire to become a City is this: They need more money for their transportation system. I certainly feel their pain and understand their frustration. To explain this in more detail read Chap's post on this here. We face some of the same issues when it comes to transportation. That's why in the City I sponsored the motion for additional transportation investments, which will provide about $24 million in new road and infrastructure improvements.

There is a simple fix to this though: Change the Byrd Act, which was enacted in the 1930s. This legislation created the modern transportation system in Virginia that we all know and loathe. It stated that the state would be responsible for maintaining all of the roads with the exception of incorporated cities (there weren't many back then). However, there were two exceptions: Arlington County and Princess Anne County (now the City of Virginia Beach, my hometown). Don't why these entities were excluded, but they were. And they had responsibility to maintain their own roads.

Hence, here's what I would do if I were in the County: Abandon all of this nonsense about becoming a City. It's just not realistic. Instead, I would focus on amending the Byrd Act and have Fairfax County join the ranks of Arlington County in having the ability to maintain its own roads, and to a large degree, its own destiny.

I give credit to County leaders to addressing this issue head-on. They have some significant funding issues, many of which are due to the state's antiquated way of funding transportation. Just about all localities have some gripes about it. Having said that, going to the "nuclear option" of pursuing City status and moving to DEFCON 5 on the sliding scale of frustration with the Commonwealth is not the way to go. Just trying to get it done will create more problems than it solves, including having an ultimate WWF-style throwdown with the General Assembly and not to mention creating unnecessary tension amongst localities in Northern Virginia and across the state.

So, at the end of the day, I hope this whole thing blows over like a nice breeze on a summer day: Rustles the leaves a little (gives reporters something to write about, I know I was once one), cools things off (or heats things up a little, starting a conversation) and leaves no lasting damage unlike a hard 50-MPH gust (I consider Chairman Bulova and the Board of Sups in the County friends).

On a lighter note, kudos to my good friends Armistice Turtura and Commissioner of Revenue Page Johnson for their great quotes in the Post this morning. Read em' here.