Campaign for Town Council

Edition of Marc 21, 2008

Dennis Husch

Aims to Continue Work of the Current Council

By Rebecca Plevin

Observer Staff Writer

If Vice Mayor Dennis Husch sometimes seems to focus on an issue with unwavering intensity, it might be because he has spent five years practicing the martial art of Kendo, which he describes as "the Japanese art of the sword."

Husch said he got his first taste of the martial art while stationed in Okinawa, Japan, from 1975 to 1976, and he and his son picked it up in recent years. He trains at least once a week and teaches a Kendo class for beginners at the Herndon Community Center. He also competes and expects to receive his black belt this fall. Practicing Kendo, he said, allows him to "empty my head of all of this other stuff."

Some of the "other stuff" he is referring to stems from his long tenure on the Herndon Town Council. "I bring something to the council," Husch said, and cited his "broader perspective" culled from 14 years on the council and about 40 years of working with government operations and contracts.

Husch said the town faces many challenges in the years to come, especially related to downtown development. He said a local government can take a number of approaches to development, and his goal is to have the town and a developer reach an agreement on a plan that "serves the community as a whole well, and the people who are directly affected." He said, "If we can't get to that point, we're done. No harm, no foul to the taxpayers."

To achieve that desired consensus, he said that developer JPI needs to hold a series of town meetings to discuss residents' needs on density, to display sketches, models and concepts, and to listen to citizens' comments during each step of the process.

The Town Council will also face a challenging economic situation in the coming year, Husch said, since this year's budget will be "tough," and the next one will be "absolutely brutal." He said he questions using bond proceeds to bridge a budget gap and is not comfortable borrowing money to fund operations. Still, he said, "the last thing you want to do is raise the tax rate," especially given the number of foreclosed homes and flattening property values.

It will take "a lot of sharp pencils to figure out what to do," he said.

Discussing immigration, Husch said Herndon was once viewed as a "sanctuary town for illegal aliens," and thanks to the current council's initiatives on illegal immigration, "the perception has changed." He said individual programs like 287(g), increased vigilance on overcrowded homes and a resolution preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining town business licenses all contributed to the shift in Herndon's reputation.

"No one item makes anything substantial happen," he said, but all the programs "changed the perception about Herndon."

Husch said he would like to see a set of rules established that govern the renting of rooms in homes. Renting individual rooms is okay, he said, "until it threatens a neighborhood because everyone is renting a room." He said residents who want to rent a room should have to fill out an application and confirm that there is a working smoking detector and appropriate parking.

The vice mayor said he is proud of the work the mayor and Town Council have accomplished this term. "It has not been an easy couple of years," he said. "Absolutely excellent work was done" and there are "more good things to come," he said.