Meet The Candidate: David N. Patariu For Vienna Town Council

VIENNA, VA — On May 4, Town of Vienna voters will head to the community center to vote in the Town Council election. Three seats are up for grabs, and four candidates are running. In-person early voting is already underway through April 29, and voters may submit applications for a mail ballot by April 23.

As part of its coverage of the May 4 Town of Vienna election, Patch has asked each of the candidates to fill out a questionnaire to describe why they think they're the best person to fill the job they're running for.

Candidate: David N. Patariu

Age (As of May 4 election): 48

Town of residence: Town of Vienna

Office sought: Councilmember, Town of Vienna, Virginia

Party affiliation: Town Council elections are non-partisan.

Family: Spouse, Sarah Allison, Esq.; and three children, ages 7, 5 and 2, who attend Our Lady of Good Counsel School in Vienna.

Education:

(1) Academic achievements:

Juris Doctor, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Chicago, IL
- Senior Editor, International Law Review
- CALI Award, Advanced Writing for Civil and Criminal Litigation
- Judicial Extern to Judge Amy J. St. Eve, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
Illinois

Stanford University Medical School, Master of Science, Biomedical Informatics, Stanford,
CA
Stanford University School of Engineering, Graduate Certificate, Bioinformatics
Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Graduate
Certificate, International Security

New York Medical College School of Public Health, visiting graduate student, studying
Public Health Informatics / Epidemiology / Statistics

Cornell University, Master of Engineering, Computer Science
Cornell University, Bachelor of Arts, Ithaca, NY

(2) Professional education / certifications:

- Privacy Law Specialist (PLS) – 15th specialty accredited by the American Bar
Association
- International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) Fellow of Information
Privacy (FIP)
- IAPP Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM)
- IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E)
- IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States (CIPP/US)
- (ISC)2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
- (ISC)2 Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)

Occupation: Attorney, admitted to the bar in District of Columbia; New York; New Jersey; Illinois;
Minnesota; Texas; and California. Planning Commissioner for the Town of Vienna.

Campaign website: www.davidforvienna.org

Why are you seeking election to Town Council?

I am a practicing attorney who can listen to residents and bring good decision-making to the Vienna Town Council. My wife Sarah and I moved to Vienna with our three young children to raise them and live our lives out in our current home. For this reason, I am trying to envision Vienna twenty-five years from now as a place residents can continue to enjoy and raise their families.

I am heavily invested in Vienna. I am a Vienna Planning Commissioner, a Vienna Youth Inc. (VYI) football coach, and a parishioner at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church.

Residents approached me to run this year because they felt Vienna’s Town Council did not hear their voices. They know I care about issues that impact residents and zealously advocate for residents and their concerns.

I want to be a voice for EVERY resident in Town and put my educational background, experience as a practicing lawyer, and experience as a Vienna Planning Commissioner at the disposal of residents. Learn more about my platform to help every Vienna resident at www.davidforvienna.org

What do you believe is the Town’s role to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic?

The Town should minimize the tax and expense burden to residents and businesses directly impacted by the pandemic until our community has recovered.

A simple but effective example is to declare a tax holiday on the Town’s meal tax once health conditions have stabilized to allow for indoor dining. The tax holiday could be announced in advance and used as a tool to encourage residents to dine at local restaurants and give them an extra boost in sales.

Some Council Members would argue the Town cannot afford to forego the tax revenue since overall tax revenues are down. However, during the pandemic, Town Council raised water and sewer rates on a 7-0 vote, spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on arguably unnecessary consultants for the residential and commercial zoning code rewrite and various studies, and started a 14.5+ million-dollar police station construction project to replace a 25-year-old building, which increased our long-term debt and our need for additional tax revenue to pay the debt.

It’s too late to stop Town Council’s recently approved 14.5+ million-dollar police station construction. But the Town needs to hit the pause button on many of these other non essential projects that take up limited staff resources, and re-focus on recovery efforts directed to those residents and small businesses that have suffered the most during the pandemic.

What is the single most pressing issue facing the Town aside from the pandemic?

The most pressing issue is the rewrite of our residential and commercial zoning code without
proper resident input. Our residential and commercial zoning code has served Vienna for over
60 years. Homes are still being built all around Town, and new businesses are still going up on
Maple Avenue (e.g., Wawa, Hawk and Griffin British pub). There is no need to treat the zoning
code rewrite like a fire drill or something that must get done during the pandemic.

Commonly, a municipality would (1) use traditional channels of residents meeting in-person and standing up at Town Council meetings to understand their opinions about a significant zoning code update; and (2) hire an independent company to do an actual random-sample survey of residents on any proposed changes that will affect their property values.

Instead, our Town is gauging resident preferences on a major zoning code rewrite—affecting billions of dollars of real estate—through internet-based surveys such as “Survey Monkey.” This is a flawed approach that allows biased survey results. For example, in the most recent zoning code rewrite survey, at least one Facebook influencer (who is also a realtor) told her 10,000+ followers how they should answer the Town’s online survey. The Town of Vienna has well over five billion dollars of “assessed value” real estate within its borders. Of this, nearly four billion (75%) is residential. So why is Town staff is using tools like Facebook and Survey Monkey to determine residents’ input for decisions that will affect the Town for the next 25 or more years?

The answer to a lot of this is to (1) wait until in-person meetings are possible, and (2) hire an independent company to do a proper random-sample survey of residents on any proposed changes that will affect resident property values. Decisions like this also require electing individuals with good judgment that respect resident input to Town Council.

What are your views on fiscal policy, government spending and the use of taxpayer dollars in the Town of Vienna?

Simply put, we are over-taxed. Residents living in Vienna were all well aware of this when we moved here. In addition to paying full Fairfax County property taxes, we also pay Town of Vienna property taxes. We do this because Vienna is a great place to live, and we receive additional services and benefits from the Town. It’s generally worth paying those additional property taxes to live here.

However, residents have lost control over the years. For example, it is my understanding that in the 1990’s the Town of Vienna’s revenues from the meal’s tax-funded 100% of the General Fund’s debt service (paying our long-term debts). Today, our debt service expense is approximately $4.5 million per year. Our annual revenue from the meals tax before the pandemic stated was less than $3 million. That’s a 1.5-million-dollar shortfall. Where does that come from? The answer is more complicated than I’m putting forward here, but it probably comes from the real estate taxes you pay, which are the largest single source of revenue to the Town. Your memory may tell you that Town has not raised property tax rates in quite a while. However, the value of your home has gone up considerably more than inflation in the last 10-20 years, so you are being taxed more.

One of the other issues we face is continually increasing water and sewer rates. Did you know that the Town of Vienna is in the water supply business? In addition to serving Vienna residents, the Town’s water system provides approximately 30% of its water service capacity to out-of-town residents. For decades, this arrangement existed because Fairfax County requested the Town of Vienna to do so when Vienna was an isolated Town surrounded by undeveloped land. With so many out-of-town residents, you would be tempted to ask: are they paying their fair share for the upkeep of the entire Vienna water system and its maintenance? Or is the burden being disproportionately carried by Town of Vienna residents?

In July of 1995, then-Mayor Charles Robinson wrote a “Comment from the Council Table” article titled: “Real Estate Taxation in Vienna.” He presented a simple table showing the property tax burden of a resident living within the Town of Vienna limits vs. an out-of-town owner and a comparison of total costs for the services they receive. Mayor Robinson’s belief was “if people believe they are receiving value for their tax dollars, they understand the need to fund the services they use.” I firmly believe in then-Mayor Robinson’s premise, but I also think Town leadership has lost sight of this premise.

If elected, I will investigate why our water and sewer rates are so high and explore innovative options to lower them. Nothing would be off the table, including a divestiture, to get the better managed Fairfax County water and sewer to take over Vienna’s water and sewer systems.

What are your views on development along the Maple Avenue corridor?

Some of the same people that were champions of the Maple Avenue Corridor (“MAC”) optional zoning and voted for oversized projects like the car wash center building at 540 Maple Ave., W and the Vienna Market project at 245 Maple Ave., W., are now telling us not to worry about how they are handling the residential and commercial zoning rewrite underway during a pandemic.

Residents of Vienna should be seriously concerned. Unlike the “MAC”, the proposed zoning code rewrite will be “by-right” (that is, the uses permitted in a zoning district are not subject to approval by a local government). Once the Town up-zones and allows bigger and taller buildings, it cannot down-zone if it has made a mistake. There are no do-overs this time. And like the oversized car wash center on Maple–these new buildings will be with us for decades to come.

The zoning code update must focus on what is best for residents and small businesses. There are tens of millions of profit dollars to be made by developers. They are not going to act in the interest of residents and small businesses. This dynamic must be factored into our decisions on the zoning code rewrite. And while we need renewal, we must appreciate that Maple Avenue is at its maximum traffic capacity for at least the past ten years (except during the pandemic). We cannot ignore this fact when considering proposals to build hundreds of condominiums along Maple Avenue, making a commercial district into a residential district, and making traffic on Maple even worse than it has been. All this will do is decrease the livability of our neighborhoods from cut-through traffic avoiding Maple Avenue.

To further complicate things with the zoning rewrite, the Town has just started updating its comprehensive plan. Wait, you may ask, isn’t that backward? Yes, it is. Typically, you would want to figure out a plan of what you want your town to be 5-10 years from now, and then draft the zoning code to reflect that vision.

Why not take a more common-sense approach, similar to the Board of Supervisors Member Walter Alcorn’s approach to managing growth in Reston (which is exploding due to the arrival of the Metro commuter train service)? Reston’s comprehensive plan was also outdated. Alcorn chose to start with a comprehensive plan update and then a zoning rewrite according to the updated comprehensive plan.

This is why I have called for a three-year moratorium on the residential and zoning code update. Our country and community need time to heal after the pandemic. Our residents and small businesses need stability. The Town of Vienna will not fall apart and lose its tax base if we don’t immediately have a zoning code rewrite. And we could use the next three years to focus on:
1. Pandemic recovery.
2. Development and completion of the comprehensive plan.
3. Safer streets and sidewalks.
4. Parks and sports fields.
5. Our schools and classroom crowding.
6. Finding a solution to bring a halt to our constantly increasing water bills.

How would you describe the Town of Vienna police department’s relationship with the community? Are there changes you would like to make?

We are fortunate in Vienna to have a high-quality police force. Their relationship with the community is generally satisfactory.

Changes I would explore if elected are the way our police force is budgeted. The Vienna Police Force’s annual budget is nearly $7 million and is the second-highest single expenditure in our budget next to Public Works. In keeping with my premise in the fiscal policy section: if people believe they are receiving value for their tax dollars, they understand the need to fund the services they use. I appreciate an overwhelming number of Vienna town residents believe the police department offers value for their property tax values. But why is the Town of Vienna shouldering the policing of Vienna on its own? All Vienna property owners also pay Fairfax County Property taxes. Those taxes, among other things, go to pay for the Fairfax County Police Department. When was the last time you saw a Fairfax County policeman in Vienna other than for the purpose of driving through the Town on Maple Avenue? Residents are essentially double-taxed for the policing of Vienna. We spend a large fraction of our Vienna property tax dollars on excellent policing, but we don’t get the same return on our property tax dollars going to Fairfax.

When Town Council voted on constructing a new Police Station for $14.5 million, it seems not a single penny was contributed by Fairfax County towards its construction. A March 2020 article in the Vienna Voice informed us that Fairfax County had waived all building and inspection fees for the Police station. This is equivalent to someone holding you up, taking your wallet with all your money, but returning your driver’s license so you can avoid the fee for a new one issued.

If elected, I will examine all Town expenditures that should be funded or partially funded by Fairfax County and analyze how our Town’s relationship with Fairfax County is structured. If our relationship needs to be restructured, I will lead the effort to ensure Vienna residents get what they are due from Fairfax County.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

The following resident-focused issues also define my campaign.

First, the Town recently purchased a 3-acre property at 301 Center Street South, the former Faith Baptist Church site, for 5.5 million dollars. I oppose the Town’s proposed land-use feasibility study (RFP 21-02), specifically its instruction to consider using the church land as the site for a new Town Hall. Instead, the Town should use the 301 Center Street property as a site for a new sports field or park, to complement Waters Field, and to meet a critical need for more parks, sports fields, and green spaces in Vienna.

Second, sidewalks are crucial to making Vienna an environmentally friendly, walkable town. A different approach to spending the 9-million-dollar Robinson bequest to the Town for “new sidewalk construction” must be explored toward this goal. The Robinson bequest is not narrowly written, but it is being narrowly interpreted. This limited interpretation of what is “new sidewalk construction” has hobbled its generous intent. Instead of constructing new sidewalks where they are sorely needed, such as streets along school routes where children walk, sidewalks are primarily being built where there is existing “curb and gutter.” If elected, I will work with our capable Town Attorney to advocate for the best use of the 9 million-dollar Robinson bequest and not allow a narrow interpretation of the bequest that undermines the intent of this generous 9-million-dollar gift to our Town’s residents.

Third, The Town Council’s plan to put the new Patrick Henry Library underneath an immense concrete parking garage will not foster a quality environment for learning and reading. Who wants to take an elevator down into a basement to enjoy being in a library? The focus of this project should be on making a high-quality environment library for Vienna’s children and residents, not building a multi-story parking garage to facilitate overdevelopment on Maple Avenue.

Fourth, it is time for Vienna to explore a public-private partnership with a residential composting service like Sequential Soils (https://www.sequentialsoils.com) by facilitating a weekly pickup service for residents interested in diverting usable food waste from the landfill and into environmentally friendly compost. Their current base plan is $25 per month and includes a 5-gallon bin w/lid picked up weekly and swapped for a clean/sanitized one. The enclosed composting occurs at an area farm. At scale, the monthly residential composting service charge could be lower if enough residents sign up. Facilitating a composting pickup service for residents via a company that professionally manages composting is preferable to, for example, the scuttled plan to put several unmanaged 55-gallon garbage drums at Glyndon Park for bulk pickup of food scraps for composting, a plan many other residents and I opposed—see petition here.

Fifth and most critically, I will advocate and vote to eliminate the Town’s industrial-scale leaf mulching operation in a residential area at the 8-acre Beulah Road Park. I support the restoration of the park to its natural woodland setting as it was before 1990. The leaf collection program in Vienna is very different than it was ten years ago. Mulch deliveries (the number of small loads individually delivered to residents) have decreased from their peak in 2012 (1,242 deliveries) to a low this past year of 484 deliveries. Our current method of leaf collection and disposal/recycling is significantly more expensive than other Townships of similar size, collecting an equal quantity of leaves.

Leaf collection is a service that will not be discontinued. This is a service that virtually all residents place value in. I have personally seen methods of leaf collection and recycling that are significantly more efficient than the methods the Town of Vienna currently employs. If elected, I will advocate for the common-sense implementation of more cost-effective ways to drive the cost of leaf collection and disposal/recycling down. The cost-effective methods I have seen will support the continued delivery of leaf mulch to individual residents within the Town’s current allocated budget. If interest in local leaf much deliveries to residents continues, there should be no reason to end it.

I disagree with other candidates on this topic. It’s not time to start talking about leaf mulch; it is time to stop talking about it because there’s no reason to halt local leaf mulch deliveries. It’s just time to stop producing leaf mulch at the expense of other residents. Property owners living around Beulah Road Park are denied living in a peaceful and quiet neighborhood while the Town continues to run its industrial-scale leaf storage and mulching operation at Beulah Road Park.

You should appreciate that I am the only candidate who unequivocally supported this effort, helping NE residents since early 2020 when I became aware of residents’ issues concerning the Town’s operations in the park. The restoration of Beulah Road Park is a unique opportunity to preserve parkland in Vienna. Our parks are essential to maintaining Vienna as a desirable place to live. Please visit www.restoreBRP.org and sign the petition to help this critical effort and support our parks.

How can residents contact you with their concerns and views, and how will you keep residents updated about your work?

Residents know they can come to me with their concerns and can keep themselves updated on
my work in the following ways:
WEBSITE: http://davidforvienna.org/
EMAIL: davidforvienna@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: @davidforvienna
INSTAGRAM: @davidforvienna
YOUTUBE: @davidforvienna
PHONE: 703-394-5108

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