To the Editor
Fairfax County supervisor Cathy Hudgins makes great campaign claims of being responsive to her constituents. My experience with her has found her to be very unresponsive.
On May 15, 2000, I called her office to seek an appointment. I had to leave a voice message. I got no reply. On May 17, I called again. Left another message. Got no reply. On May 20, I attended a public meeting with her at the Vienna Town Hall.
I presented a petition of 24 neighbors seeking an appeal to what we felt was an unfair reassessment increase of our properties as compared to properties immediately across the street and in our area.
On May 25, I called her office to confirm that our presentation of a petition to her satisfied procedural requirements for an official appeal of assessment by the county staff. Her staffer told me that she would call the county tax office to confirm. I never got a further response.
To be sure our appeal was officially recognized, I personally went to the county tax office on June 1 to file our appeal. They advised me that Supervisor Hudgins had forwarded my papers to them.
I got no letter or call from Supervisor Hudgins indicating that she was doing anything to assure that my appeal was being taken seriously. I didn’t expect her to personally get my assessment changed, but I did expect her to at least raise the major points of apparent unfairness and inconsistency with the assessor’s office.
I heard nothing further until Jan. 8, 2001, when I received a cover letter from Supervisor Hudgins transmitting a memo from the tax office denying our request for assessment modification. Interestingly, the attached memo had been received in Supervisor Hudgins’ office on Nov. 6 — two months earlier.
Having worked in congressional offices for many years, I am keenly aware of what constitutes reasonable constituent service — and Supervisor Hudgins failed every test. Her staff did not return my calls; they did not follow through with commitments to get information; and then she held the county’s response for two months before forwarding it to me.
It is clearly time that we had a supervisor who provides genuine constituent service. Bragging during a campaign about service that doesn't exist is completely dishonest. The Fairfax County real-estate tax burden has increased 53 percent in just the past four years. Enough is enough. It is time for a change!
Richard B. Dingman
Vienna