Let's Not Try To Define Family in PWC

Dear Prince William County Supervisors:

I having been reading alot of the proposed housing ordinance to prevent overcrowding and I feel the need to chime in on this issue as the President of a HOA in Rollingwood and someone married into a Hispanic family.

I am not a lawyer like you two are but I think that using writing the ordinance in terms of family like Manassas did is going to create a lot more problems than you wanted to solve for the following reasons:

- Try to legally define family. There are so many different types of relationships now that bring people to live together. I don't think you want to get the County wrapped up in charges of discrimination or being biased.

- We have people living here from all around the world. Do you really want County officials wrapped up try to read marriage, birth, and divorce certificates written in dozens of langauges. For example, I have a half-brother with a different last name from my mother's first marriage. To legally prove that he is my half-brother, I would have to produce two birth certificates, two marriage certificates, and a divorce decree because my mother had three different names. Fortunately, I have all those in English but imagine someone who had to produce all those type of documents from places which may or may not produce them. Imagine trying doing that is hundreds if not thousands of cases as time goes on.

- Different cultures define immediate family differently. For example, people of Phillipino descent would regard cousins as immediate family as others would not. Whose concept of family are suppose to legislate?

- You will make County officials intrude on family and personal relationships which may exceed what is constitutional to solve a housing and immigration problem. Not a good choice.

Based on my in-laws' experience in California, I understand the need to control the overcrowding problem. Here are my answers:

- You need to set limits on the number of people based on expert opinion what the type of housing unit can support (based on such factors such as number of bathrooms, bedrooms, etc.)

- Quality of life laws sound be enforced, much like it was done in New York under the Guiliani administration. If someone is making too much noise or littering, enforce the rules and laws already in effect or create new ones that meet the issues directly. It worked for New York.

- Make it easy for someone to report and if the police or other County officials see that the offense is being done, empower them to make enforcements.

- I know this may require the changing of commonwealth-level laws, but if there are illegal immigrants involved, I think that local law enforcement should be allowed to assist ICE in enforcing federal immigration laws. My 91 year old grandmother-in-law came from Mexico in 1919 and always found a way to be here legally, why shouldn\'t everyone else?

I believe these ideas put together make a better solution than an ordinance which will cost the County potentially millions of dollars in legal and administrative fees.

Sincerely,

John Dittmer