[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 21 (Friday, February 17, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E196-E197]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          REMEMBERING JACK HERRITY OF FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 16, 2006

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor for Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia 
and I to remember the Honorable John F. ``Jack'' Herrity, former 
chairman of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, who 
passed away on February 1. If anyone is worthy of the title ``Mr. 
Fairfax,'' Jack Herrity is that person.
  A driven leader during his time with the Fairfax County Board, Jack 
was the guiding force in setting the firm foundation for a growing and 
developing Fairfax County. His leadership brought us the Fairfax County 
Parkway, Interstate 66 inside the Beltway and the Dulles Access Road. 
The Virginia General Assembly aptly named the Fairfax County Parkway in 
his honor in 1995.
  After attending Georgetown University as an undergraduate and as a 
law student, Jack formed Jack Herrity and Associates, a pension 
planning and insurance business. But public service was Jack's forte. 
He quickly became engaged in northern Virginia politics, serving on the 
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors from 1971 to 1987. He was elected 
chairman of the board in 1975 and served three terms. He recognized the 
potential of Fairfax County to become the largest jurisdiction in the 
Washington area and helped develop the once sleepy rural crossroads, 
Tysons Corner, into the thriving commercial district it is today.
  Jack Herrity carved a place which is now and will forever be 
unmatched in Fairfax County history. We honor and remember Jack for his 
countless accomplishments and unwavering dedication to the people of 
Fairfax County. We insert for the Record a Washington Post obituary 
from February 2. Jack will be deeply missed by the people of Fairfax 
County, and at home by his family.

                [From the Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2006]

                     (By Lisa Rein and Peter Baker)

       John F. ``Jack'' Herrity, the former chairman of the 
     Fairfax Board of Supervisors who ushered in a development 
     boom that transformed the county from sleepy bedroom 
     community to suburban colossus, died yesterday of heart 
     failure. He was 74.
       Herrity, whose scrappy battle with a weak heart first 
     endeared him to Fairfax voters in the 1970s, succumbed to an 
     aortic aneurysm at Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he was 
     admitted two weeks ago with chest pain. He had a heart 
     transplant 12 years ago.
       In his heyday, Herrity dominated Northern Virginia politics 
     as few others have, commanding attention with his pugnacious 
     style and unabashedly pro-growth policies. His was a classic 
     rise-and-fall political story--from his landslide victories 
     as the Fairfax economy soared to unprecedented heights to his 
     crushing defeat in 1987 when the onslaught of new cars 
     finally overwhelmed county roads and voter patience.
       Herrity was engaged in county affairs until the end. From 
     his hospital bed last week, he was asking former aides to 
     help run his likely campaign for board chairman next year, a 
     race he lost in 2003 in a Republican primary. He was busy 
     fighting plans to extend Metrorail to Dulles International 
     Airport, saying the expense could not be justified. And, in 
     an about-face some local politicians saw as cynical, he had 
     joined in recent months with grass-roots activists--and the 
     woman who defeated him, slow-growth Democrat Audrey Moore--to 
     fight dense development planned for the county's last slivers 
     of open space. He was at meetings almost every night.
       ``To Jack's credit, if he had a difference of opinion [with 
     the county's leadership], he never sat on his hands,'' Eric 
     Lundberg, the Fairfax GOP chairman, said. ``He was willing to 
     engage in the battle.''
       Herrity could be seen most mornings in a floppy wide-
     brimmed hat walking his black Labrador retriever, Raven, on 
     the W & OD trail near his Vienna home, where he lived with 
     his wife, JoAnn Spevacek-Herrity. They married in November.
       ``He's a piece of our history,'' said Board Chairman Gerald 
     E. Connolly (D), who ordered county flags flown at half-staff 
     yesterday. ``He was a political adversary, but he would do it 
     more often than not with a certain twinkle in his eye. It was 
     more the love of the fight than the substance of the 
     moment.''
       Herrity was the fourth person to serve as countywide 
     chairman but the first to hold the job for a full term, let 
     alone three. He defined the role as a quasi-mayoral position 
     even though it has no real executive power.
       He played a major role in building what was commonly 
     referred to as the economic engine of Virginia. By fostering 
     a superheated business environment, he helped lure Fortune 
     500 companies such as what was then known as the Mobil Corp. 
     to Fairfax and convert a suburban crossroads called Tysons 
     Corner into a commercial center larger than downtown 
     Miami.
       ``Instead of jobs going out of the county,'' Herrity wanted 
     jobs to stay in the county, Northern Virginia developer John 
     T. ``Til'' Hazel said.
       During this period of growth under Herrity, more than 1,000 
     people moved into Fairfax every month. The county grew into 
     the largest jurisdiction in the Washington area. From 
     Herrity's first election as chairman in 1975 to his ouster in 
     1987, the county's population jumped by more than a third, 
     from 554,500 to 746,600--surpassing most U.S. cities and even 
     several states. Today, more than 1 million people live in 
     Fairfax.
       He was an advocate for improving the county's road network 
     and pushed to widen Interstate 66 inside the Capital Beltway. 
     He first opposed, then campaigned hard for a major new road 
     cutting through the county's midsection.
       The General Assembly named the Fairfax County Parkway in 
     his honor in 1995.
       It was his quick-witted, never-say-die brand of politics 
     that earned him a loyal following during a crucial transition 
     period in Fairfax history.
       With his burly build, balding pate and ever-present U.S. 
     flag lapel pin, Herrity became a familiar figure in political 
     and civic circles. Known simply as Jack, he crisscrossed the 
     399-square-mile county almost every day in search of any 
     gathering of two or more people, often driving so fast that 
     he collected a glove compartment full of speeding tickets 
     that became legendary.
       Throughout his tenure, Herrity was notorious for his 
     penchant for the outrageous, shoot-from-the-hip statements.
       When county officials were thinking about building a major 
     government center, he suggested that they instead ``build a 
     circus tent and put the bureaucrats in it.'' He called Metro, 
     which opened while he was in office, a ``Mighty Expensive 
     Transportation Rip Off.''
       His tart tongue extended to his rivals as well. In 1987, he 
     derided Moore as a gadfly with so little support on the board 
     that, if she made the motion, she ``couldn't get a second to 
     go to the bathroom.'' Four years later, he dismissed Rep. 
     Thomas M. Davis III (R-Fairfax) as a ``left-wing liberal'' 
     whose support from a taxpayers group was ``like the chicken 
     endorsing the fox.'' His relationships with both had softened 
     in recent years.
       Herrity saw no reason to apologize for his close alliance 
     with the region's powerful developers, who he said had helped 
     create a quality of life envied across the country--high-
     paying jobs, good schools, low crime.
       But his ties to the real estate industry became his 
     political undoing.
       His 1986 conviction on a misdemeanor conflict-of-interest 
     charge for failing to disclose a relationship with a builder 
     only cemented Herrity's public image as a handmaiden of 
     developers. By then, voter support for the breakneck pace of 
     construction had dissolved amid maddening traffic gridlock. 
     He

[[Page E197]]

     suffered a major indignity in 1987 when he lost his prized 
     office to Moore by more than 21 percentage points.
       He never fully accepted defeat. Years later, his address in 
     his telephone book was still the county government 
     headquarters.
       ``This was Jack's life,'' Davis recalled. ``When he was 
     defeated he couldn't move on to something else. He was a 
     doer. He could never sit still.''
       The comeback Herrity methodically plotted collapsed in 1991 
     when he lost the GOP nomination for chairman to Davis, his 
     one-time protege, who also handpicked a Republican to run 
     against him in the 2003 primary for board chairman. Since his 
     departure from elective politics, Herrity also failed at bids 
     for Virginia governor in 2001 and county GOP chairman in 
     2004.
       Born in Arlington, reared in Prince George's County and 
     educated at St. Anthony's High School in the District (now 
     All Saints High School), John Frances Herrity was the product 
     of a working-class Irish Catholic family of elevator 
     mechanics, union leaders and loyal Democrats. He spent much 
     of his youth hustling on the basketball court.
       After high school and a tour in the Coast Guard, the 
     rambunctious young Herrity settled down to his studies at 
     Georgetown University, where he earned undergraduate and law 
     degrees and met his first wife.
       After marrying in 1958, he eventually went into the 
     insurance business, where he worked as a consultant after his 
     return to the private sector.
       It did not take long for Herrity to jump into local civic 
     affairs. He soon formed a homeowners association and became 
     the local Democratic precinct captain. But like many 
     Democrats in his era, he became alienated with his party's 
     lurch to the left and switched to the GOP just in time for 
     his first run for office--that of Springfield District 
     supervisor in 1971.

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