PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — Paul O’Meara is running as a Republican for Coles District Supervisor.
He previously ran in 2015 for the same office and lost in the primary to Marty Nohe, who today is not seeking election to the Coles seat but rather the Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman, At-large seat.
O’Meara’s goals for running are to fix Route 28, to “find some practical solutions” to fix overcrowding in the schools, and “to correct a broken housing policy that has planted the seeds for the explosion in our budget and our current infrastructure deficit.”
“My number one priority is to fix [Route] 28.” O’Meara said. “I think that we need to build the Godwin Drive extension.”
Last month, Governor Ralph Northam left it up to Northern Virginia leaders to fund a fix for Route 28, dubbed the most-congested road in the region. The governor said he wouldn’t allocate state funding to fix the road.
With a price tag of $220 million, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (of which Nohe is the Chairman) will fund a portion of the fix.
No matter who pays, O’Meara says it needs to be completed. “I think that it’s within Prince William County government’s authority to build this road and fix [Route] 28.”
When it comes to schools, O’Meara said that even if the county pays hundreds of millions of dollars to build more schools, the private industry could not build schools fast enough to keep up with the need. O’Meara instead believes that redrawing school boundaries may be a better use of taxpayer money.
The Board of Supervisors and School Board members are discussing a $143 million plan to upgrade school facilities that would nearly eliminate all portable trailer classrooms in the county.
Regarding the Board of County Supervisors’ relationship with the School Board, “I think we need to take a hard look at the revenue sharing agreement,” he said. That agreement has the Board of Supervisors automatically handing over 57 percent of the entire county budget to the school division to spend as it sees fit.
O’Meara is also focused on development in the county.
“I think that our housing policy is broken. I think that we have an unhealthy mix of commercial and residential development,” he said.
While working on the Strategic Plan team, O’Meara helped get the Board of Supervisors to approve a “moonshot” goal of increasing the county’s commercial tax base 35 percent, up from about 16 percent. While he thinks that’s an excellent first step, he says there’s a lot more work to do.
O’Meara says commercial development is good for the county “because it generates tax revenue, but it doesn’t create the same liabilities of student generation factors that residential development would do.”
At 35 percent, there would be fewer unmet needs in the county, he adds.
O’Meara is a third-generation Prince William resident. He has a degree in Government International Politics from George Mason University and has managed small businesses his entire career.
His family founded two small businesses in 1960 and 1971 and he assumed business operations from them in 2008 and took over complete control when his father died. He then started working in commercial property management in 2014.
He and his wife Melissa have two children, ages 5 and 2.
O’Meara served on the Prince William County School’s Infrastructure Task Force and helped draft the current Strategic Plan, and is currently a Director of the Industrial Development Authority of Prince William County.
“I’m looking to serve. I have a lot of knowledge of county government.” O’Meara said.
O’Meara is one of many candidates announcing his bid for office this year. A Primary Election will be held June 11.
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