Prince William lost 119 combined years of experience on the Board of Supervisors in 2019

Departing Prince William County Supervisors said their goodbyes on Tuesday.

Walking out the door is a combined 83 years of experience of serving Prince Willam County. And, if you count the late Supervisor John D. Jenkins who died in February, it’s a total of 119 years.

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors held its final meeting of the year. Retiring are Chairman At-large Corey Stewart (16 years), Maureen Caddigan (35 years, to include her service on the county School Board), Coles District Supervisor Marty Nohe (16 years), and Ruth Anderson (four years).

Some didn’t leave by choice. Marty Nohe lost his June Republican Primary bid to replace Chairman At-large Corey Stewart, whose been Chairman since 2007 and decided not to seek reelection. “This has been one of the great pleasures of my life,” said Nohe, who grew up in Woodbridge, and joked that he always wanted to be the Occoquan District Supervisor when he was in high school.

Principi has spent the last 12 years on the Board touting his vision of a new, more urbanized Woodbridge, with a commuter ferry whisking passengers up and down the Potomac River. He lost a Primary Election to a fellow Democrat, and that has Principi pondering his next move.

“I still live in Woodbridge. I would like to take on a different role and responsibilities while trying to grow the quality of life in Prince William County,” said Principi, who recounted it was Corey Stewart that appointed him to a county commission, and that’s when he got the “bug” to run for office in 2008.

Caddigan thanked her office staff and joined the chorus of other departing officials who praised members of the county government staff. “It’s been a great ride over the 35 years,” said the Supervisor, who recently had a street named after her outside the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

Anderson failed to win a second term on the Board but managed to be the squeaky wheel that got the grease when it came to adding a fourth lane on Interstate 95 south, between Route 123 and Prince William Parkway. Anderson advocated with at Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments for the project, which was funded by the governor earlier this year.

“The one regret I have: I wish we could have done more for the volunteer firefighters,” said Anderson.

The Board gave total control of the fire department to the county’s career fire chief who, prior to the decision only had sway overpaid firefighters, not volunteers. “Chief [Tim] Keen will do a great job to make sure we don’t lose the volunteers we have today,” she added.

Now that she’s not on the Board, Anderson says she’s going to write a book about growing up in Alaska.

Stewart began the evening session of the final meeting with a speech, delivered in a similar fashion to his annual state of the county address:

Good evening my fellow citizens. After 16 years on this Board, I shall, in a few short days, hand over the responsibilities of the office of Chairman. Supervisors Ruth Anderson, Frank Principi, Marty Nohe, and Maureen Caddigan—who has served on this Board since 1991–will also be stepping away from public life. I thank them for their public service.

As we depart, I wanted to share a few final thoughts with you. 16 years ago, this Board committed itself to streamlining county services, cutting away excess spending, eliminating bureaucratic red-tape, and listening to our constituents.

We stabilized average tax bills and brought them down to the lowest level in the Region, implemented sound financial management practices, earned our first triple-AAA bond rating, and weathered the Great Recession. The result was record economic growth, record private investment, and record low unemployment.

We also strove to improve the quality of life in this community by focusing County resources on three core priorities: education, transportation, and public safety.

In education, we increased school funding by more than $286 million dollars annually, nearly doubling today what we were transferring to the school system in 2004. We also helped the schools address overcrowding, providing the system with millions in extra funding–over and above the revenue sharing agreement–to reduce class sizes.

In transportation, we financed, built and widened hundreds of miles of new roads, including:

• Route 15
• Prince William County Parkway
• Route 28
• Route 29
• Route 1
• Minnieville Road
• Cardinal Drive
• Spriggs Road
• Heathcote Boulevard
• Linton Hall Road
• Hoadly Road
• Sudley Manor Drive
• Wellington Road
• Benita Fitzgerald Drive
• University Boulevard
• Balls Ford Road
• Hornbaker Road
• Discovery Drive
• Liberia Extended
• Vint Hill Road

And dozens more, including commuter parking lots, new intersections, and many miles of pedestrian and bike paths.

No other locality in Virginia even comes close to accomplishing what we accomplished on road construction.

But the cardinal duty of government is to protect the lives and rights of citizens. To that end, we built five new fire and rescue stations, and renovated and reconstructed seven more. We centralized and expanded the fire and rescue system to improve response times and provide consistent and enhanced services to the community around the clock.

We built both the Western District and Central District Police stations. We added hundreds of new officers, lowered attrition, drastically improved response times, handed over 10,000 MS-13 gang members and other criminal illegal aliens to ICE for deportation, and dropped the crime rate by 35%, the lowest county crime rate ever recorded. We became the first locality in Virginia to hire retired police officers to serve as armed security officers in our public schools.

And, knowing that a citizenry able to defend themselves makes for a safe community, we became the first locality in Virginia to eliminate the local concealed carry permit fee.

In addition to all this, we improved human services, constructed two new libraries–at a time when other communities were shutting them down—and added dozens of new, state-of-the-art athletic fields.

It is remarkable how far we have come, but we know there is much more to be done. As families flocked here to enjoy our quality of life, the County has grown into the second largest locality in the Commonwealth. The new Board will be tasked with providing the services, constructing the infrastructure and implementing the common-sense land use policies necessary to keep pace with that growth. This will require financing and constructing the $41 million in park projects and $355 million in road improvements (including the Rt. 28 bypass and the Parkway/Minnieville interchange), that were overwhelmingly approved by voters in the referenda last month.

The Board must also act to protect its rural area, which is disappearing at an alarming rate. The so-called Rural Crescent is failing, leaving landowners with no option but to wastefully carve up the rural area into 10-acre lots.

Our people expect this government to find agreement on these and other central issues facing our community.

To the new Board, including those who will return – Supervisors’ Victor Angry, Pete Candland and Jeannine Lawson — we wish you—and all those who will labor with you–success. Although we now leave public office, Prince William County is our home, and we pray that the coming years will be blessed with prosperity for all.

In closing, I am honored to have served with the members of this Board and so many other great leaders in Prince William County. I appreciate the thousands of County employees who work tirelessly for our community.  I am proud of what we have accomplished together. But most of all, I am thankful to the citizens of this great community for affording me the opportunity to have served as your chairman. May God continue to bless Prince William County, and to provide our newly elected leaders the wisdom and courage to further its prosperity.

Former Woodbridge Supervisor Hilda Barg, who preceded Principi, also said goodbye. “Your work here will not be forgotten,” said Barg. “If you get bored, come back. There’s plenty of volunteer work to do.”

Paul Milde, who served 12 years on the Stafford County Board of Supervisors also spoke. “Learned so much by watching you. “I grew up in Occoquan. This county will never be the same. I’m not as optimistic as other people… this is an end of an era,” said Milde.

Supervisors Jeanine Lawson and Peter Candland, of the Brentsville and Gainesville districts, respectively, won their re-election bids. Neabsco District.