By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006
Last summer, Herndon council member Carol A. Bruce turned to a colleague opposed to the bitterly contested new day labor center and said, "Shame on you." This week, she tried a more upbeat message.
At a forum for candidates running in the May 2 municipal elections, Bruce concluded her opening statement by touching on bright spots of the town of 23,000 near Dulles International Airport, such as its restaurants, golf course and annual festival.
"We know how to have fun," she said, resolutely.
The election, the town's first since the council voted 5 to 2 in August to create a place for immigrant day laborers to connect with employers, has been anything but.
As Congress debates fundamental changes in immigration law and hundreds of thousands of immigrants march to demand legal status, Herndon's contest for mayor and six at-large Town Council seats has become a referendum in all but name on the roiling national debate.
Although other issues -- taxes, overcrowded housing and growth -- are part of the conversation, the Herndon Official Workers Center remains the central source of political tension in a town with the highest proportion of foreign-born residents of any locality in the Washington area. According to census data, its Latino community grew 264 percent during the 1990s, while the percentage of white residents dropped from 78 percent to 58 percent.
The campaign has been marked by a series of incidents, including an anonymous, automated telephone "push" poll that asked leading questions about immigration and a peculiar string of similarly anonymous postcards that seem to ridicule the challengers. There are also persistent charges -- unsubstantiated -- that money has flowed into the race from national organizations that favor sharp restrictions on immigration.
Four of the five incumbents who voted to approve the center -- Mayor Michael L. O'Reilly and council members Bruce, Steven D. Mitchell and J. Harlon Reece -- are running for reelection, as is one of the panel's two dissenters, council member Dennis D. Husch.
Five challengers have emerged to call for significant changes in where and how the center operates when its town permit is up for renewal in 2007. Most want to eliminate Fairfax County funds devoted to the program and move the operation off its town-owned site to a private location. Others have called for the center to serve only documented workers. A sixth candidate, Robert Rudine, who is active with the Minutemen and Help Save Herndon -- groups opposed to the labor center -- dropped out of the race.
Newspapers and Web sites are swollen with charges and countercharges, demands for apologies and appeals to the better angels of the town's nature.
"Who would Jesus deport: them . . . or you?" one posting asks.
Even subjects not directly related to the worker center, such as overcrowding in boarding and single-family houses, lead back to the same quandry over immigration. At this week's forum, many candidates cast the election in the starkest terms.
"This is a battle for the soul of Herndon," said Reece, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and three-term council member, calling the election a choice between "fear, pessimism and division" and "hope, unity and resolve."
"There are those who would build walls in our community to keep our cultures apart," said Jorge Rochac, a first-time council candidate who has worked at the labor center and as a Spanish-language instructor for Herndon police. If elected, he would be the town's first Hispanic council member.
Several challengers evoked nostalgic imagery from the town's past. "Herndon is very special to me," said Connie H. Hutchinson, a former council member and manager of the Herndon Dulles Visitors Center, who said she wants to preserve the "hometown atmosphere" she believes is at risk. She proposes moving the center to an industrial park and establishing a "virtual labor-matching system" in which workers would come only once to register and then would be contacted when an opportunity emerges that fits their skills.
O'Reilly's opponent, health club operator Steve DeBenedittis, and council candidate William B. "Bill" Tirrell, a member of the Town Planning Commission, also want the center moved and government funding cut off.
David A. Kirby, a retired federal government IT officer, said the labor center should deal only with documented workers. According to his Web site, he also wants to work with the General Assembly "to give our local law enforcement the authority to check legal status of those suspected of committing a crime."
Charlie D. Waddell, president of the Herndon Community Association Coalition, said he wants to forge a "consensus" among opposing factions but did not elaborate.
As for the center, established to eliminate the chaotic ad hoc hiring site that had sprung up in a 7-Eleven parking lot, daily operations have moved ahead without recent incident. Bill Threlkeld of Project Hope and Harmony, which operates the center for Reston Interfaith Inc., a nonprofit group that has received slightly more than $200,000 from Fairfax for the project, said that with the milder spring weather, about half of the 100 or so workers who come out in the morning find employment. Herndon police report no serious complaints from the nearby residential neighborhood, save for the occasional call about workers cutting across lawns.
"Just a few here and there," said Sgt. Darcy Burns, the department's spokeswoman.
The election has played out against a backdrop of incidents that some candidates say confirm the presence of outside money and influence. The automated push poll asked questions in a way that would elicit negative answers about the town's policies.
"The questions were like, 'Do you think it is right to pay your tax dollars to support illegal immigration?' and 'Do you think there should be a change in leadership?' " said Leila McDowell, a member of HEART (Herndon Embraces All In Respect and Tolerance), a group that supports the council's decision to open the center.
Some politically active residents say council member Ann V. Null, who cast one of the two votes against the center, has been a key behind-the-scenes figure in assembling the group of challengers. "In my estimation, she has been a thorn in the side of the council and progress in this town," said former council member John DeNoyer, a HEART member. DeNoyer and Bruce said Null, who is not running for reelection, has offered to make money available to those opposed to the labor center. Candidates in towns with less than 25,000 people are not required to disclose campaign contributions.
"I'm flattered," said Null, who denied having an organizing role. Null, the object of Bruce's "Shame on you" remark, said Bruce once threw a tin of Altoids at her during a council work session (Bruce says it never happened) and added that she was "broke" and had invested "not a dime in the race."
Other developments in the campaigns have just been flat out inexplicable. Candidates and residents have received a series of anonymous, idiosyncratic postcards. One, addressed to "Pizza Lover," uses the famous photograph of 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis riding a tank. It says: "Angry candidates look downright foolish pretending to be 'Guardians of the Gate.' Choose your Herndon Town Council candidates wisely."
"I have no idea what it means," O'Reilly said.
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