The Democratic majority on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (March 4) called on Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to use his influence to lobby against potential moves of federal government agencies to areas outside the local region.
The Trump administration sent out a memo last week giving all federal department and agency heads until April 14 to submit proposals for relocating facilities outside the D.C. region to “less-costly parts of the country,” the Washington Post reported.
President Donald Trump also issued an executive order on Feb. 26 directing agencies to come up with a list of property leases that could be terminated. Within 60 days, the General Services Administration must craft a plan for disposing of all property that’s “no longer needed,” according to the Post.
“Stand up and fight. Protect your people … protect your Virginia economy,” Board Chairman Jeff McKay said at today’s board meeting in remarks directed at Youngkin.
“This is a fork-in-the-road opportunity: which way do you want to go?” McKay said. “The time to act is now.”
Board members voted 9-1 along party lines to send a letter to the governor, pressing the county’s case and offering to meet with him “anytime and anywhere” to find areas of common ground.
A strongly worded letter, coupled a previous one sent several weeks ago, is unlikely to make much difference, Democratic supervisors acknowledged. But it was something tangible, they said.
“We’ve got to do what we can,” Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk said. “There are real lives that are being impacted by the decisions that are being made.”
Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw, who chairs the board’s legislative committee, acknowledged that “President Trump isn’t going to care” about Fairfax’s concerns, but he might listen to Youngkin, who met with Trump and participated in events for his presidential campaign last year.
“His voice matters in this moment,” he said.
“We need his leadership, whether done publicly or privately,” added Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck.
The Board’s lone Republican, Springfield District’s Pat Herrity, dismissed the effort as “political grandstanding.”
“He’s already addressing many of these issues,” Herrity said of Youngkin’s efforts to blunt impacts of federal government downsizing.
If McKay really wanted to invite Youngkin to come to Fairfax, “just call him,” Herrity advised.
Herrity, who currently is seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, has voiced support for downsizing the federal govenrment but said he understands the real-world implications for the local community.
“I get the impact,” Herrity said. “I’ve got neighbors who are losing jobs, I’ve got family members who are losing jobs.”
McKay acknowledged that the Youngkin administration had made efforts to support those who have lost their jobs.
“We appreciate that,” he said. But, McKay added, the governor needs to be proactive to try and prevent the loss or relocation of jobs in the first place.
“There’s nothing politically grandstanding about asking our governor to stand up for his constituents,” McKay said.
If the governor doesn’t want to help Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia, McKay said, he should think about the spillover impact on the Old Dominion’s overall economic picture.
“Virginia’s economy is doomed if Fairfax County is financially suffering. That’s just pure economics,” McKay said.
The supervisors expect to get a briefing on the potential local impacts of the federal government’s ongoing downsizing at a meeting of their Economic Initiative Committee set for Tuesday, March 11.
“We’ll continue to drill down,” said Storck, who chairs the committee.
Northern Virginia is home to approximately 175,000 federal workers, with 80,000 of them living in Fairfax County. Thousands more residents work for federal government contractors that depend on close proximity to the nation’s capital.
