Want More Specifics on Why Sharon Bulova is Most Qualified for Fairfax Chairman

The other day I put up a post about Sharon Bulova and why I support her to be Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. A Pat Herrity supporter - and one who is well informed and a good writer - challenged me to provide more specifics about Sharon. Fair enough point. So, I tried to in my comment section. However, I just received an email from the Bulova campaign and I think it and Sharon do an even better job of defending Sharon, her accomplishments, and her ideas from the accusation that she lacks specificity.

I am printing it in its entirety because this "compare and contrast" campaign piece says it all best:

Budgets and Controlling Costs:

There are still some people who ask, "What can I say about Sharon to explain why she should be Chairman of the Board? What does she stand for?" Hopefully, the literature we have been sending out has helped to answer this question, but we only have one more week so we are asking for your help.

Tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and everybody else:

Sharon Bulova led Fairfax County to adopt personnel principles to ensure that the County is competitive to attract and retain excellent public employees. She has created the sensible policy that the County should not be the highest or the lowest in the region. - Her opponent says that the county is spending too much on its employees at the same time he complains that teachers salaries too low. He says we should spend more on our classrooms, but when he presented a budget as an alternative to the Budget Committee, he proposed $21 million LESS for schools.

In the last Budget crunch in the 1990s, Sharon Bulova led the effort to consolidate services and administration, and to work with private partners to get more for our money. She knows how to do this without cutting quality services. She knows that the challenge in a right budget is preserving services so that when the economy recovers, they can be rebuilt without having to start from scratch. - Her opponent thinks the way to save money is just to stop doing things like preserving affordable housing. Apparently, he doesn't know that stop-and-start is not a very efficient way to operate. The costs of rebuilding a service from scratch is always higher.

Sharon Bulova knows that the way to build a budget is to listen to the needs of all kinds of people from all parts of the County. She led the effort to hold more than a dozen "dialogues" with citizens to hear what they think is most important and what can be trimmed. She knows how to work with her colleagues to build a budget with broad support.- Her opponent drew up his own budget and presented it without consulting others. His budget got almost no support from other members of the Board.

In short, Sharon Bulova has a record of patient persistent work to get effective financial planning done. In his one year on the Board of Supervisors, her opponent has shown that he doesn't know how to get a majority of the Board to work with him for the changes we need.

Pat Herrity, likes to brag in his campaign speeches about how he knows how to say "NO."Saying "NO" is no way to govern.

So, remember that the special election is next Tuesday, February 3. Vote accordingly. Vote Yes, not for Mr. No. Vote for Sharon Bulova, a consensus builder with over 20 years of experience and accomplishment in Fairfax County