The battle rages on: Fimian accuses Herrity of hiking taxes, Herrity fires back **UPDATED – Fimian responds

You can always tell that it’s getting close to crunch time in an election by the rhetoric of dueling campaigns. With the Republican primary in the 11th congressional district less than six weeks away, both the Fimian and Herrity campaigns are pulling out all the stops.

Yesterday afternoon Keith Fimian sent out an email blasting Pat Herrity, accusing him of raising the property tax rate in a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors vote one year ago yesterday. Claiming that Herrity voted with the “liberal Democrats,” he cited a vote that raised the property tax rate for homeowners from 92 cents to $1.04 per $100 of assessed value (page 5, item 10).

“Politicians like Pat Herrity argue that because Fairfax County homes went down in value, the tax rate increase was not a tax increase at all. And I say that is nothing more than political double speak. The fact is, Fairfax homeowners are paying as much in taxes or more on homes worth far less.

“Just months before voting for the property tax rate increase, Herrity actually criticized the county budget as wasteful and the tax rate, at 92 cents per $100 of assessed value, as too high.

“Politicians like Pat Herrity just don’t get it. Gerry Connolly is raising taxes in Congress and when Connolly was Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors he also voted to have Fairfax homeowners pay more in property taxes. In the middle of a recession when people are worried about their next paycheck, Herrity had the opportunity to take a stand against high taxes. Instead, Herrity joined forces with career politicians like Sharon Bulova and voted for a tax rate hike.”

In less than 90 minutes the Herrity campaign responded with a detailed rebuttal. Asserting that Fimian is resorting to diversionary tactics due to his standing in the polls, Herrity said that he could no longer sit idly by while his record was being distorted.

“They [the attacks] began before I even announced my candidacy with attacks on me and my family. This week he unleashed a whole new assault of lies and distortions. I will no longer stand by while a man I once considered a friend wallows in the political mud.

“Anyone who tells you that I have ever supported raising homeowner taxes is simply not telling the truth. They are using the same deceptive, smoke and mirror tactics Gerry Connolly did because they know the facts are not on their side.”

Herrity goes on to analyze the numbers, once again charging Fimian with fuzzy math.

“For starters, he is using the same faulty logic Gerry Connolly used when he said he gave homeowners in Fairfax County a decrease in their taxes when the tax rate dropped from $1.23 in FY 2000 to $.89 in FY 2007. The actual taxes the average homeowner paid doubled from $2,407 in FY 2000 to $4,846 in FY 2007. I ask you is this a tax decrease as Gerry Connolly claimed????

“The fact is that since I joined the Board in 2008 the tax bill of the average homeowner in Fairfax County has gone down $117 ($352 adjusted for inflation per Fairfax County’s FY2011 Advertised Budget Plan book). As I discuss further below – I do not believe this is nearly enough and have voted against 2 of the 3 budgets.

“The fact is the county’s general fund expenditures will be lower than when I joined the Board.

“I have only voted for one of the three budgets that came before me as a Supervisor and that budget reduced the tax bill of the average homeowner. I voted against the other two because I believed they did not do enough to relieve the tax burden on our citizens. Even so I have put spending reductions on the table to reduce taxes every budget year:

• In FY 2009, I presented my own budget that cut spending by over $60 million and reduced the average tax bill by $163 – this proposal was defeated 8-2. I voted against the majority’s budget which only cut $16 million in spending and increased the average homeowner tax bill.
• In FY 2010, the year referenced in Keith’s attacks, I worked to craft a budget that cut approximately $100 million in real spending and reduced the average homeowners’ tax bill. Thanks to my efforts this budget also eliminated Gerry Connolly’s pet program, the Penny for Affordable Housing. That year I also successfully led the effort against the school admin building (Gatehouse II), the meals tax, the vehicle decal fee, etc. None of that would have happened without my leadership.
• For FY 2011, I voted against the Democrat majority’s budget because it increases homeowner taxes and does not contain enough spending reductions. For the third year in a row I put millions of dollars of spending cuts on the table that would have allowed us to reduce homeowner taxes.

Stay tuned, this is bound to get more interesting the closer we get to the primary. I always take note of these types of things for when the nomination process is over and the loser says nothing but nice things about the winner. I just find it interesting that candidates will eventually act as if battles like this never happened for the sake of party unity. Just one of the many ironies of politics.

**4-29 update – Keith Fimian just sent out a response to Herrity’s latest rebuttal:

Sometimes the facts tell the whole story. Here are two simple facts about Pat Herrity’s record on property taxes.

1. The official minutes of Fairfax County Board of Supervisors show Pat Herrity voted with every Democrat on the board to “set the real property tax rate at $1.04 per $100 of assessed value. As a result of this action, the real property tax rate for calendar year 2009 will increase by $0.12 over the real property tax rate for calendar year 2008 of $0.92 per $100 of assessed value.” Supervisor Herrity voting “AYE.”

Read for yourself on the Fairfax County Government website. http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/bosclerk/summary/2009/09-04-27.pdf the vote is on the top of page 5.

2. The Washington Post wrote, May 1, 2009, “Local officials have promoted their efforts to keep the average tax bill from rising. But not everyone was spared: More than 150,000 households in Fairfax County alone will owe more than they did last year.”

This is not rhetoric. It is fact. Pat Herrity can object to the facts, but it does not make them any less true. Pat Herrity voted to raise the real property tax rate on Fairfax County homeowners by 12 cents per $100 of assessed value. This rate change amounts to $550 on the average homeowner in Fairfax County.

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