Some Fairfax County supervisors say they’ve been singled out by a recent bill mandating more stringent disclosure requirements in land-use cases. The legislation comes amid an ongoing quarrel between the board and General Assembly.
The bill, approved last week by the House of Delegates, would, among other provisions, require that officials in Fairfax County alone make full disclosure of their business and financial relationships with applicants for new comprehensive plan amendments. The comprehensive plan is a document that guides the county’s land-use policy, and changes to it often precede development agreements.
The bill would lump new requirements onto existing disclosure laws, and it touches a nerve on a board that has frequently faced allegations of kowtowing to developers and approving rampant construction. Supervisors say they have nothing to hide — but nevertheless appear irked by the gesture from Richmond.
Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, R-Vienna, a longtime rival of Chairman Gerald Connolly, introduced the bill in the state Senate, which also easily passed it. Devolites-Davis has twice run unsuccessfully against Connolly for a spot on the board. Neither could be reached Friday.
“I don’t have any problems with disclosure,” Springfield District Supervisor Elaine McConnell said. “If people think we’re dishonest, they shouldn’t vote for us.”
Still, she said, she didn’t know why the county was singled out.
The development industry, like elsewhere in the state, does have a political presence in Fairfax. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, which compiles campaign finance data, every supervisor but one took more contributions came from the “real estate/construction” sector than from any other industry in the 2003 elections.
The bill’s passage comes just weeks after a highly publicized feud over transportation funding in which House Republicans blamed local supervisors, and specifically Connolly, for causing Northern Virginia’s traffic mess through lax development policies. Connolly and other supervisors frequently lay the blame for the area’s congestion crisis at the feet of the General Assembly, which in years past has failed to reach an agreement on new transportation funding.
“Fairfax County has the strongest disclosure requirements in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and we do that willingly and gladly,” said Vice-chairman Sharon Bulova. “It’s interesting when the General Assembly comes back and adopts laws to strengthen conflict of interest [regulations] for Fairfax County, singling us out for some reason.”
She said disclosures for large-scale comprehensive plan amendments could prove unfeasible.
