Opinion: Origin of pro-Wheeler mailers a mystery

In a May 2 letter to the editor published by Prince William Times, Haymarket resident Marilyn Karp derided Chair Ann Wheeler for claiming credit for a stable residential tax rate that was accomplished over her objections.  Karp wrote that Wheeler was more interested in “the integrity of our economic development people” and keeping faith with the wealthy benefactors who have been bankrolling her reelection campaign.

Now some Political Action Committee named “Moving Virginia Forward” is littering the landscape with mailers using this same deceptive tactic to camouflage Ann Wheeler’s’ feigned concern for Prince William County taxpayers.

The return address on their mailers is the UPS store in Gainesville.  Now that’s transparency.

Their mailers also misleadingly claim that she “made data centers pay their fair share” even though the county’s $2.15 computer and peripherals tax rate is still only 52% of Loudoun’s $4.15 rate, and Chair Wheeler initially voted against raising the C&P tax rate, which passed despite her opposition.

Who are the donors behind “Moving Virginia Forward?”  You can’t tell because, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a Democratic PAC with that name went dormant in 2010.  It must have been resuscitated just in time to conjure up accomplishments to bolster our beleaguered Chair’s reelection effort.  It’s telling that our chair can’t even take credit for her own dubious self-promotion.

If Ann Wheeler wants to claim credit for something she actually did, she could brag about killing more trees than any of her predecessors.  Nobody would give her an argument about that.

Bill Wright
Gainesville

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