Two more candidates for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors are questioning the sitting board’s use of closed meetings to discuss the Dulles rail project, signaling that allegations of excessive secrecy have emerged as a top issueleading up to the November election.
The board drew fire for holding three separate closed-door talks on the planned Metrorail expansion in recent months, which open-meeting experts called illegal under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act.
Supervisors said they were addressing only legal issues exempted from public discussion, but documents related to the talks show they veered into policy and fiscal issues not allowed under the law.
Charlie Hall, who is running against incumbent Linda Smyth in the Providence District’s Democratic primary, was the first candidate to question the meetings. Now, Republican Gary Baise, who is challenging Chairman Gerald Connolly, and independent Marie Huhtala, who is taking on Hunter Mill District Supervisor Catherine Hudgins, have issued similar criticisms.
“With a project this important, all the information should be made public,” Baise said Thursday. “When you’re spending 100 percent of the public’s money … there shouldn’t be a hint that there is information that might be kept from the public.”
Following the initial criticism over the questionable closed sessions, the board organized a public briefing, held Monday, which it said would offer the same information on the 23-mile rail project the board received in private. Baise, in a news release the same day, called it “much too little, too late.”
Huhtala said the closed meetings exemplify “an overarching problem about secrecy” among the supervisors, pointing to a controversial public-private partnership to develop a Reston park-and-ride site the county negotiated behind closed doors. The proposal was recently abandoned.
“Certainly [the meetings are] beyond the understanding of what people expect from their government,” she said.
Neither Connolly nor Hudgins could be reached for comment Thursday.
