Chip Taylor

I'm all for privatization, but ...

I don't think I like this:

Four hundred people gave up their evenings at home, cut short their workdays and sat in a mess of extra traffic to exercise their American right to speak truth to power in Fairfax County.

They drove to James Madison High School in Vienna last week to let Fairfax supervisors know that they don't (or do) want 1,800 houses built near Hunter Mill Road in a relatively lightly developed stretch between Tysons Corner and Reston. No need for any supervisors to attend: They had hired somebody to listen to the public for them.

...

In Fairfax -- and in Maryland, the District and at the federal level -- it is becoming routine for elected officials to pay consultants to be buffers between the unwashed masses and the decision makers who handle land use, highway construction and divisive social issues. Fairfax taxpayers who want to speak to their public officials instead are paying $30,000 for a K Street consultant to listen to them.

...

Had the supervisors handled this themselves, they'd have heard people talk about buying houses in the Hunter Mill area knowing that the county plan precluded dense development there. They'd have heard others argue that Fairfax's burgeoning job market requires a more urban approach. They'd have heard reason and passion.

Instead, hours were wasted talking about process. Did consultants accurately portray what citizens said? Who got invited to what meeting?

The consultants produce a miasma of corporate jargon, a fog of "imaging" and "visioning" and the obfuscating cliches of therapeutic lingo: "I hear you saying you aren't comfortable with. . . ."