With this year’s primary elections underway, Prince William County is grappling with a lack of affordable housing, crowded schools and a recent spike in crime — byproducts of Northern Virginia’s steady growth that has transformed the former bedroom community.
Resentments over that growth factor into several political battles in the majority-minority county, most notably controversy over the data center industry’s expanding presence in what used to be a protected “rural crescent...”
...Deshundra Jefferson (Committee to Elect Deshundra)
Major endorsements: The Collective PAC, Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
First priority if elected: Too many Prince William residents feel they are being priced out of our community. We pay property taxes, a car tax and a meals tax whenever we dine out. Residents should not shoulder most of the tax burden so that we can give huge tax breaks to data centers run by Amazon, Google, Compass, or QTS. We need a tax rate for data centers on par with neighboring jurisdictions that enables us to lower taxes, invest in intervention programs for our at-risk youth and create affordable housing.
More on her candidacy: Developers are trying to offset fallout from the fight against data centers with a public relations push to convince county residents that building these industrial structures, in some cases just 100 feet away from people’s backyards, is for the good of us all. We also have historic Black cemeteries and communities in the rural crescent that will be lost forever if the county continues to fail its due diligence to protect these sites...