Carman Opening at The Hylton Center?

Once again we have Mark Wolfe crying foul at a news story that puts the spotlight on the Manassas Ballet and it receipt of taxpayer funds.

According to Wolfe, the story has nothing to do with his Ballet Theater's May 5th Black and White Ball or the Hylton Center's 2nd Annual Gala and the city buying tables to feed Manassas hungry pols and shoveling more taxpayer money at the Ballet, instead, it's a politically motivated attack story that is targeting him in the May 1st election. A conspiracy? A dirty trick? Truth is a dirty trick, a conspiracy among our local politicians?   Sounds more like a three penny opera than a ballet.

Meanwhile Jerry Carman made a very interesting observation in his in Patch today, why didn't we as a community seize the opportunity that a large influx of non-English speaking residents offer us?   Where was the visionary leadership of school officials and local politicians? Carman might not be an expert in the field, but his intuitive sense that we've lost an opportunity demonstrates original and innovative thinking, something for which not many Manassas politicians are known.

This region has some of the nation's leading experts in second language acquisition. Georgetown University and the Foreign Service Institute, to name but a few, would have been great resources to tap into, to help manage and benefit from the influx of 2nd language learners and making Manassas a community embracing and prospering from a strong bi-lingual community. The benefits could have been realized not only in the area of commerce but also law enforcement, instead we had local leaders who ignored the up side of a bad situation and let the citizens deal with and pay for only the down side, the negative consequences of more than a quarter of your population being non-native speakers.