By Lisa Rein and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 1, 2006; 1:18 PM
John F. "Jack" Herrity, the former chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors who ushered in a development boom that transformed the county from sleepy bedroom community to suburban colossus, died early this morning at Fairfax Hospital. He was 75.
The cause was an aortic aneurism, said his son, Patrick. Mr. Herrity battled a weak heart for years and had a transplant in 1994.
In his heyday, Mr. Herrity, known to most people simply as "Jack," dominated the Northern Virginia political scene as few others have, commanding attention with his pugnacious style and unabashedly pro-growth Republican 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 cars finally overwhelmed county roads and voter patience.
Mr. Herrity was engaged in county affairs until the end. Just weeks ago he was reaching out to former aides to ask them 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 his views on growth and development did an about-face as he joined with grassroots 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.
Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020100993.html*************************************************************************
I don't have anything good to say about the man, so I'm posting this FYI and comment.
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