Transcription
'The Sleeping Giant
Is Finally Awake'
Dumfries Is Growing - for Better or Worse
By Claudia Sandlin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Speakers praised the beautiful
sunny day and hummed on about
the history of Dumfries last Sunday
at the town's 240th anniversary
celebration at Merchant Park, but
few references were made to town
leaders underlying concerns about
the Dumfries of today and the future.
Once a rival port of New York
City, Dumfries suffered a near-fatal
blow in the mid-18th century when
runoff from the nearby tobacco
fields silted in Quantico Creek and
shut down the port.
Today, the little town - which
survived mainly on the strength of
the farms and nearby Quantico Marine
Base after it arrived in 1917 -
is trying to catch up with a recent
surge in population while planning
for an expected burst of development.
Earlier this month, the Town
Council approved a new 4 percent
tax on restaurant meals and a 4 percent
tax on hotel and motel room
charges, intended to bring in
$200,000 more in revenue for the
financially strapped town.
There is other evidence of Dumfries'
coming of age, and all the
good and bad that goes with it: The
council is hiring its first town manager,
the state is turning over to
the town responsibility for its own
roads, and the small police department
is grappling with a dramatic
increase in drug-related crimes,
town officials say.
"The sleeping giant is finally
awake....We are becoming completely
urbanized," Dumfries Mayor
Robert McClanahan said in an interview.
But many town residents
"don't really realize what's going on
in this town...except when [the
problems] hit them on their own
doorsteps."
Though he is paid as a part-time
mayor, McClanahan said his duties
have expanded into a full-time job,
and many of those responsibilities
will be turned over to the new town
manager.
Several Saturdays ago, the Dumfries
Police Department conducted
the largest drug raid in the town's
history, in which 17 people were arrested
See DUMFRIES, Page 2, Col. 1
Dumfries Experience Growing Pains
DUMFRIES, From Page 1
on cocaine and marijuana charges in a trailer
house in the Grayson Village Mobile Home courtyard in
the northwest section of the town.
The raid increased this year's statistics for drug-related
arrests by 90 percent over the first four months
of 1988, according to Police Chief Harvey Anderson.
"We're having crack houses, and we never had anything
like that before," said Anderson, adding that the
nine-officer department is hard pressed to meet the
demands of the growing town.
Town officials expect the next census to show an increase
in the Dumfries population from 4,000 in 1980
to about 7.000 in 1990. This growth has strained town
services, especially since the state said that the town
will have to take over the building and maintenance of
its own roads a of next year because Dumfries' population
now is well above a maximum for towns entitled
to state funding.
"The problems that the county faces, Dumfries faces
also," explained Edwin C. King, chairman of the Prince
William Board of County Supervisors, who represents
the Dumfries district.
Pointing to the town's zoning of a historic district and
new emphasis on a colonial theme for all new developments,
King said he is confident that the Town Council
has done what it can with its limited funding to plan for
the anticipated development.
"Dumfries is now transcending from a quiet little
place to a very busy little place," said council member
Christopher K. Brown, a lifelong resident who has an
accounting firm in the town. He noted that population
increases generally also mean a rise in crime.
Nonetheless, the Town Council, stressing the need
for fiscal restraint, has indicated it cannot approve the
police department budget request this year for two additional
officers, a new paid-informant program and
equipment for an entry SWAT team to make the initial
break-in during raids. The council will give final approval
to a town budget in June.
Town officials also emphasize the need for town-
county cooperation, particularly because Dumfries residents
pay county taxes and receive many county services,
including schools and water and sewage treatment.
When a Dumfries police officer recently alleged that
the county police refused to assist in the recent drug
raid, it raised questions about the working relationship
between the town and ounty, but the mayor and several
council members dismissed the allegation.
"I can tell you emphatically ... that Prince William
County has always been there to do a good job. We are
not treated as an island in the county," said council
member Brown.
According to town officials, there will probably be
massive commercial development in several years along
the Rte. 1 corridor on the northern end of town, particularly
if Prince William County approves the proposed
Southbridge project, an extensive commercial
and residential development, for Cherry Hill, north of
Dumfries.
The Southbridge developer, the Aden Group, also
plans to build a small commercial development on several
acres in southeast Dumfries, which would substantially
expand the town's office space, according to Zoning
Administrator Grant Angel.
One sore point in discussions of Dumfries' future is
the fate of five mobile home and trailer house parks,
which cover about 4 percent of the town's total acreage
but constitute about 21 percent of the housing units in
the town. Residents fear that some of that land will be
turned over to developers to build commercial projects
or more permanent housing and that they will be displaced.
Three of the trailer house parks are in the commercial
heart of Dumfries off Main Street and Rte. 1. And
Grayson Village Mobile Home park - the largest park,
with 153 units - has commercially zoned property on
its southern and eastern boundaries.
Some town officials have not answered questions
about the future of the trailer house and mobile home
parks. McClanahan, when pressed about their possible
redevelopment, said, "Anything is possible."
While growth will bring with it some discomforts, it
won't surprise Dumfries "as suddenly as it would have
maybe four years ago," council member Betty Mejia-
Farley said at last Sunday's anniversary celebration.
The town should strive to maintain a "small look, but
not a [small] attitude," she said, "...We're a town of
people who all know each other. I wouldn't call it
'Smalltown, U.S.A.'"Transcriber
Adam KitchenLanguage
English
