Opinion: Supervisor Monica Gary discredits reporting she doesn’t like

Editors note: This post appeared on March 28, 2023, as a video on our Youtube channel.

If you missed the story we posted on March 24, 2023, a historic tax increase is proposed for Stafford County residents. The real estate property tax could increase by 40% over last year.

We reported on the meeting in which the Stafford Board of County Supervisors advertised that the tax rate would be 40% higher. Virginia State law says the Board of Supervisors can advertise a tax rate it’s considering which will be used to fund local government, as it is typically on the backs of homeowners people who own real estate in the county, to fund and not only local government but also public schools.

Supervisors said the additional funding would primarily go to education. After posting our story, over the weekend, we started seeing messages on Twitter from sitting Aquia District Supervisor Monica Gary. First elected in 2021 to serve a four-year term on the Board of Supervisors, Gary is now running for a Virginia State Senate seat that includes Stafford County.

She started taking shots at us on Twitter, stating our story about the proposed budget increase is not accurate and our reporting is not trustworthy.

I responded, reminding her that she had my cell phone number. We’ve talked many times, and she’s been good to call us to let us know of local news happening in the county, and we’re happy to share that news.

And I told her that if something is incorrect, we want to get it right. When something needs to be corrected, we make that correction immediately. We aim to get it right every day; some days, we do, and unfortunately, some days, we don’t.

Gary would not say what in our story was incorrect. She continued to say that she did not like how we reported the story. She accused us of “twisting facts.”

In my mind, and maybe yours too, if something is a fact, it’s a fact. Facts are stubborn things, as President John Adams said. To this day, we’re still waiting for Ms. Gary to ask us to issue a correction.

Ms. Gary also said we should have interviewed “any number of parents begging for the tax increase. That would be a good start for balanced reporting.” I agree. If we go out into the field and talk to 20 parents who live in the community, 10 are for the tax increase, while another 10 are against it.

We have minimal staff here at PLN. It’s a common theme at local news organizations facing cutbacks and extinction. However, in the past 15 years, we’ve lost over 1,500 local community daily newspapers.

We are the only local independent news organization covering the Stafford Board of Supervisors. The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, the region’s daily newspaper, does not have a reporter on the Board of Supervisors.

I hope it hires one soon because we need as many independent reporters, eyeballs, watchers, and observers documenters as possible.

But given our constraints and the sheer amount of local news, unfortunately, we cannot track down everyone who emailed the county government concerning the tax increase, in favor or opposed. And so we will go to meetings, and we will cover the process of the meeting.

That’s where the sausage of local government is made. Residents speak out, we take note, and we report what they say.

Meanwhile, in our story, we reported who voted for the proposed 40% increase, the Democrats and the independents on the Board of Supervisors. Gary is one of those independents.

And we also quoted the Republicans who were not against the 40% proposed tax increase in Stafford County. And we quoted two each — two in favor of the rise, two against.

If we were biased or “twisting facts,” as Ms. Gary likes to say, we probably would have only quoted one side and called it a day.

Supervisor Gary often says she is out in the community talking with constituents and will represent their best interests. If that’s what you’re doing, if you’re speaking for the people you’re talking to, we’re certainly going to quote you for our story.

There will be a public meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 4, 2023, where Stafford residents can speak out about the proposed tax increase. You can go to the Stafford County Government Center, 1300 Courthouse Road, and speak your mind about this proposed tax increase and let them know what you think.

Potomac Local will be there to report on the meeting, document what happens, and report back to you what happened, who voted for what, what they said about it, where their mindset was, and what happens next.

If taxes are increased by 40% when they pass the budget in late April, homeowners will face a much higher real estate bill, a tax bill that they’ll receive later that late spring or early summer. With this proposed tax increase, the average tax bill for a single-family home in Stafford County would be just over $5,000. And that’s up from about $3,400 a year ago.

Finally, when you read our news, feel free to contact us if something needs to be corrected. We love hearing from you.

You can email me at [email protected] or message us on Facebook and Twitter.

You, our readers, are the reason that we are here. We’ll continue to report on meetings.

We’ll continue to tell you what your local elected officials are doing because that’s what you have told us you wanted. And that’s why 1.5 million people visit our website, potomaclocalnews.com, every year to discover what’s happening where they live here in Northern Virginia.

Potomac Local News Publisher Uriah Kiser founded the local news organization in 2010.