Barbara Munsey, Coming In Loud and Clear

Nominee for Planning Commission Takes Slow-Growth Debate Personally

Activist Barbara H. Munsey has been nominated for a Planning Commission seat by Supervisor Stephen J. Snow. (By Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)

Barbara H. Munsey and her husband and two young children moved to South Riding nearly a decade ago from a cramped condo in east Arlington to discover a family wonderland just steps from their new four-bedroom home: playgrounds, parks, a pool, schools.

But Munsey also found a community roiling over whether to accommodate families such as hers: families seeking affordable homes, safe neighborhoods and good schools; families responsible for the explosive residential growth that has transformed Loudoun County from a rural hideaway in the region's outer orbit into a traffic-choked, tax-saddled, bona fide suburb.

So Munsey became involved.

Really involved.

She wrote sharp-tongued letters. She sent dismissive e-mails. She criticized officials at public meetings. Today, she is a leading voice for property rights in Loudoun County. And, as if Loudoun County needed more drama in its polarized debate over growth, Munsey might be about to take that voice to the powerful county Planning Commission, to which she has been nominated by Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles).

"When they talked about vinyl McMansions, they were talking about me," Munsey recalled recently about the activists whose hostility to new homes drew her into the public arena. "You can't talk about the cancer of the suburbs and divorce it from the people who live there. Are we all supposed to go away, and the land go back to cow pastures? That's not realistic."

If she is appointed by the full Board of Supervisors next month, Munsey will replace Lawrence S. Beerman, who resigned from the Planning Commission in July after years of public service in Loudoun. And she probably would attract the same kudos -- and criticism -- that Beerman and Snow have received by supporting residential development.

As Snow does, Munsey says she believes in securing infrastructure improvements from developers in exchange for permission to build more homes. The two met during the supervisor's campaign three years ago. Although he could not be reached last week to comment on the nomination, Snow, a retired Army colonel, has said that he turns to Munsey often for advice and ideas.

"Barbara is more than up to the task," Beerman said. "She is well-known throughout the Dulles District. She's extremely competent, and she's a quick study. I think Steve has made an excellent choice."

It would not be accurate to say that Munsey, 48, was prepared to mind her own business when she moved to Loudoun in 1997. An enthusiastic chain smoker with a throaty laugh and a collection of T-shirts with such declarative slogans as "The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves," Munsey is not one for the sidelines.

But fate probably couldn't have come up with a more compelling target for her attention -- and her ire -- than the activists she calls the "no-growthers."

They unrealistically oppose, in Munsey's view, most development. They oppose transportation improvements. And they disdain people like her.