Editorials Etc.

If you've got something to say, this is where it goes. We're lucky to have some disparate points of view in Aquia Harbour.

January 2004

  • A heartfelt goodbye and warm welcome... - by Ben Blankenship

    Let us now take time to bid fond farewell to a valued old friend of Aquia Harbour and to greet some helpful newcomers to the area.

    Bill Roth, a genuine savior of our community, went on to greater glory early in January. Long-time residents will remember Bill well.     (Free Lance Star Obituary)

    As neighbor Tom Kenavan put it in a recent note to me, "Bill had a great deal to do with the establishment and future of the AHPOA...     Had it not been for Bill it is quite possible that an AHPOA would not exist today. Bill helped clear up the 1970s bankruptcy proceedings that threatened the very existence of the Harbour by providing his time, funds, reputation and company by taking on the job after the original developer failed and left the Harbour in deep trouble. He was one of the three original Directors to sign the AHPOA Documents of Incorporation that established the AHPOA and helped lead it to what it is today."

    "He also was among the initial members of the local Marine Corps Association and helped start the annual Marine Corps Ball, which was a centerpiece of social life in the Harbour for many years. A great American and friend of the Harbour, he will be missed."

    I couldn't have put it better, Tom.

    A few years ago, Bill and Grace decided to retire from their home in Aquia Harbour to Hilton Head down south. A few years later they returned and tried to buy back into Aquia Harbour, but settled for a place nearby. Why the return? "We missed our friends and this area too much to stay away for long," he told me shortly after they came back.

    When we were in trouble back in the early 1970s, our guy from Pennsylvania signed a note with the development?s creditor, Westinghouse Electric Credit Co., after the originator, American Realty Service, went belly up. He took on the existing debt himself and proceeded to weather the energy downturn. Lot sales recovered.

    Bill led the development of much of the unfinished Second Section. He got all its roads paved. Previously, only Aquia Drive from the bridge to Harpoon and then Harpoon to Stateroom, and from there to the country club had been paved. The rest abounded in gravel, potholes and dirt bikes.

    No more, thanks to Bill Roth. Godspeed.

    I met another nice guy recently, from much further away than Pennsylvania, while readying a press release for publication in the Stafford Sun. In case you missed the news in that release, The building where my good friend Doc Belandres practiced on area patients for many years, just south of Colonial Baptist Church on U.S. 1 and just north of the Post Office,     has been turned into a physicians' urgent care clinic of sorts.

    As newcomer Dr. Getachew Woldeher describes the operation, now getting fully underway, it could be a real benefit to the community. For one thing, its office hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays. That in itself is remarkable. It's also open weekends from 9 a.m to 6 p.m. Medicare is OK.

    Dr. Woldeher and his associate Dr. Tedla Anbessie got started the hard way, getting their MDs over a decade ago at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Dr. Woldeher interned at Henry Ford Hospital in conjunction with the University of Michigan. Dr. Anbessie interned at Howard University Hospital in D.C. Both are board certified physicians of internal medicine. Woldeher is also an experienced pediatrician.

    I know what you may be thinking. So think about this: When old Doc Belandres first set up practice in North Stafford about 25 years ago, he had trouble attracting patients. He looked foreign. In fact, he had been raised in the Philippines, then got his MD in New York City. Moreover, his secretary, wife Teresa, was Korean. So it took a long time for them to get on their feet here.

    By the time he did he had built a good reputation, become head of general surgery at Potomac Hospital, founded the Prince William Free Clinic, was named that county's physician of the year in the mid-1990s. His waiting room was nearly always full, both with us paying sorts and those who obviously had nowhere else to turn. Belandres was a huge community asset. He had to retire, though, when huge increases in liability insurance coverage took effect a couple years ago, thanks to the greedy trial. lawyers.

    As I said, give these new docs a chance. They could turn out to be as beneficial as Doc Belandres to Stafford and Aquia Harbour.

    Their Aquia Family Medical Center would welcome your visit.


     
  • A New Home Town - By Stan Johnson

    During the holidays I took a little time to reflect on those things that I most appreciate. And, aside from my family, my friends and my beer fridge, I'm most thankful for where I live. Maybe it's just me, but when I look around Aquia Harbour I can see that we've got a good thing going here.

    I'm not going to mention the ammenities. I'm talking about the people. I'm talking about the individual look of our homes and the care that is put into maintaining the vast majority of them. I'm talking about the spirit that lives and breathes throughout our community. The spirit that makes people wave as they drive by or stop to talk as they walk past my home. I've met all kinds of people since I moved here a few years ago. (Wishers, whiners, winners and weiners) But I haven't met anyone who wanted to live somewhere else. (Hawaii and Florida don't count.)

    Sure, just like any other community we've got issues. We're not immune to the influences outside of our gates and we've even got some problems that are exclusive to us. But we are a community. People I know consistantly show up at community events. They volunteer to make the area look better, to help area folks in need, or to simply promote social events that give us the feeling of belonging to a community. This is why I moved here. The ammenities are simply icing. The problems....well, they're problems that eventually need to be solved.

    In any case, I thought I'd take a moment here and say thanks.

    First of all, to the folks who helped mould Aquia Harbour. There are a lot of you folks who've lived here for many years. You've seen it being built, expanded, bankrupted and redefined. You've seen ideas implemented by a governing board that you helped create. And you started the rituals and traditions that make the harbour what it is today. Thank You.

    History guides us and determines the present. Not the future. And somebody's got to make sure that the basic fiscal and resource needs of the community are met. So, to the current Board or Directors, our General Manager, the folks who man the business office and the folks who maintain our resources, thank you.

    The charitable clubs, organizations and individuals who make such a difference in Aquia Harbour. Your efforts are geared toward helping folks going through troubled times, but you have a profound effect on the entire community. By this I mean that you've created an atmosphere of care in Aquia Harbour. Thank You.

    Speaking of care: Thank you to the Aquia Harbour Rescue Squad and to the Aquia Harbour Police Force. Having you here is certainly a blessing.

    And lastly to the folks who give their time to all of the other activities that make our community so special. You spend untold hours on committees. You're out every week cleaning, landscaping, planting and pruning. You're running our newsletter, clubs, teams, events and schools. You're thinking about what you can do to make things better.

    Thank you all for making my new home town special.
  • Aquia Towne Center--Headed for Trouble? - By Ben Blankenship

    Like a pimple on a teenager, there's an ugly blemish on our community that seems to worsen by the day. It's right out there for everyone to see, and apparently no cosmetics can hide it anymore.

    Aquia Towne Center, once an attractive amenity at our entrance, looks to be in big trouble. That should concern us all. Tacky shopping malls detract from the perceptions of a neighborhood, and particularly this one that shares our namesake and backs onto our property. Can we do anything about it? Perhaps.

    It all started several years ago when the center's Jamesway, a nice department store, went bankrupt. It occupied the space where Big Lots and Lookheed-Grumman now sit. We could understand that failure, since many other similar department stores were also going under, with the advent of Wal-Marts in Stafford County certainly being a factor.

    Jamesway's departure may not have hurt the center's reputation too much, although it spelled curtains at the time for a struggling little independent shoe store nearby, Shoe-B-Doo.

    Much later, here came the crushing blow. Hoping against hope that what likely would happen wouldn't, it did. The only other anchor store remaining, Shoppers Food Warehouse, deserted Aquia Towne Center this fall for the new mall across I-95. Other notable victims recently: Family Video and Cafe DaVanzo.

    Because of Shoppers' shutdown, several remaining merchants have seen their customer traffic drop seriously. For example, Achara owner Linda Bartlett says her business and others are hurting more and more each day since Shoppers moved and boarded up windows like it was a combat zone.

    For such local non-chain businesses, Harbour customers are the vital core. Bartlett says the stores critically need our support in surviving and especially in trying to get another anchor store of some sort in there.

    On the opposite side of Aquia Towne Center, the story is similar. Ten and Jean in Imperial Garden restaurant say customer traffic has fallen drastically since the food store left.

    And sad to say, Gospel and Gifts--a welcome and hardy presence for 13 years here-- may be on the way out, according to owner Robert Jenkins. That good man also blames the loss of the food store for cutting his pass-by traffic considerably.

    These are quality, independent enterprises.

    The Michigan outfit managing the center has been unresponsive to concerns, according to what several tenants have said, and difficult to contact.

    Just ask the Harbour's manager Chuck Halt or the Aquia Rescue Squad. They have been trying for many months to meet with the center's management to work out a deal cooperatively to help the Rescue Squad get some room for expansion. No refusals, no stonewalling, but no progress or meetings, either.

    Also, aside from building a new fence bordering our entrance gate recently, the center's management has seemed to be blind to the deteriorating appearance of what used to be an upscale place to visit and shop. For example, hasn't it been at least two years since the little putt-putt golf course beside Dairy Queen went out of business? Its mess has yet to be cleaned up. The vacant lot looks like downtown Baghdad.

    I don't know how much we residents can do about the very real problem the center has become or how long, if nothing is done, it will be before it becomes a substantial magnet for rowdy youngsters and street crime.

    All these matters will soon be up for discussion with the center's management and surviving tenants. Tim Baroody, Stafford's new economic development director, is arranging a meeting with them for early January in hopes of devising ways to reverse the worsening situation.

    Meanwhile, one palliative would certainly be welcome by the remaining shops. Please keep shopping there. We may be able to help them keep going until another major anchor store can be attracted.

    Another idea: Contact the shopping center management and sound off about this situation threatening us. Write this down:

    Ramco-Gershenson, Inc.
    27600 Northwestern Hwy.
    Suite 200
    Southfield, Mich., 48034
    (248) 350-9900


     
  • Wright Park Revisited - By Steve Junkersfeld

    Despite the commitment of the President of the Board to revisit the issue of selling Wright Park, I see that the park is for sale. The reply that I received from the HOA was "we discussed it at the last two meetings - you should have been there". Those of us at the annual meeting will recall, I'm sure, that Mr Hunt admitted that the question on the sale of the park was poorly written. Not surprisingly, that question passed. It's unfortunate that the Harbour is embarking on a plan to sell off amenities - to include children's play facilities - based on the opinion that they are seldom used. I feel certain that the quick decision to move to sell the park is based on the knowledge that the decision would not stand up to closer scrutiny by the owners. In anger, I sought legal counsel and learned that the Harbour can do, pretty much, what it pleases with a vote of the owners. So there you have it! The Board will take their "mandate" and sell one of the few, if not the only, park in section 2. A park that is used daily by the children of our neighborhood (except when the official park monitor from the HOA is checking). Mr Hunt's commitment to think this through after hearing the concerns of the people was an empty promise - at best. If I sound bitter - I am.