Poor publicity-starved Loudoun Supervisor “Ken” Reid (R-Leesburg), who has been known to trample small children and little old ladies racing across the room to buttonhole a newspaper or television reporter, has certainly been offering his sage opinions in abundance to the local media lately.
Apparently operating on the old principle that any publicity is good publicity, he has not however been wasting effort thinking about what he’s actually saying. Continue reading
The great accomplishment of Loudoun’s developer-run Republican Party has been to get the public to pay for their profits while disguising the fact in a cloud of populist anti-tax and property “rights” rhetoric.
With about three-quarters of the county budget going to schools, it’s no surprise that new houses mean higher taxes. Which was why the local GOP poohbahs would become apoplectic if anyone dared to point out the connection between the two. It was a brilliant con, actually: take the profits and pass the bill to the public. Continue reading
No surprises here: it turns out that the remarkably named Mr. Magic “Dane” Kayhan of Purcellville — who filed a criminal complaint against a couple cleaning up his illegally posted trashy signs within the public right of way in front of his 871 East Main Street business, Total Fitness Outlet — was the no. 2 donor to Republican Janet Clarke’s election campaign last fall for county supervisor.
The scene of the crime
Total Fitness Outlet donated a total of $10,064 to the cause—apparently quite sufficient to purchase your very own local GOP gestapo to legally threaten, with arrest warrants and criminal charges of larceny and trespassing, anyone who crosses you.
As noted yesterday, there is a provision in Virginia law that allows citizens to force the courts to act against perpetrators of public nuisances when their local county prosecutor is, just for example, a corrupt partisan hack.
Loudoun County commonwealth’s attorney Jim Plowman has made clear not only that he has no intention of enforcing the law against illegal advertising signs posted on the public rights of way, but has now taken the truly outrageous step of bringing criminal charges against a Purcellville couple who did nothing more than their civic duty of picking up this trash from the roadside. Continue reading
Ever since sweeping into office in January, our fearless all-Republican Board of Supervisors made it clear they had no interest in enforcing the law that prohibits the posting of advertising signs on roadsides. Now the Blue Ridge Leader reports that our local GOP bosses have taken their “business friendly” policy one step further—by filing criminal charges against a Purcellville couple for removing illegal signs from the public right of way on East Main Street. Continue reading
