Without batting a collective eye, our extremely businesslike all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors last week voted 8-0 (Supervisor Suzanne Volpe AWOL) to hand 50,000 smackers of your tax dollars to Greater Loudoun Babe Ruth World Series, Inc.
This extremely needy organization will be holding in Purcellville next year one of the multiple “world series” (very loose term) that the Babe Ruth Baseball League holds every year, and since the local hosting organization is required to hand over 50,000 smackers as a “fee” directly to Babe Ruth Baseball League to cover its vast administrative costs, it’s of course only reasonable that your local government should spring for it.
That, and the fact that the president of Greater Loudoun Babe Ruth, Inc., is none other than Dale Polen Myers, extremely well connected Republican machine puller, last seen resigning from the Board of Equalization after it came out that she had very cooperatively adjusted (to a fraction of their actual market values) the tax assessments on properties owned by commercial developers she represented or had business dealings with.
Yes, the romance of this Republican Board with Our National Pastime continues . . . and perhaps they will even eventually explain why it is not a “core function of government” to operate a Drug Court that gives nonviolent offenders a chance to straighten out their lives and prevent recidivism ($250,000 axed earlier this year by our very businesslike Board), why it is “inconsistent” (Supervisor Janet Clarke’s sage pronouncement at the time) to support a county youth program ($35,000 axed) since that would mean the Board should also be “funding a lot of other things,” why it is “flushing money down the toilet” (Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio’s term) to employ a single urban horticulturist to coordinate over a hundred volunteer Master Gardeners who provide free advice and services to the entire community (axed), and why getting the county’s historical museum completely “off the government’s dime” (Supervisor “Ken” Reid’s highly original turn of phrase) is a vital public policy objective . . . yet there’s always $50,000 lying around to cover the expenses of a one-week sports event put on by a well-connected Republican.
But of course $50,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 million the Board just as blithely voted to hand over to the Washington Redskins Incredibly Professional Football Team in gratitude for the incredible economic engine their office building represents to Loudoun County, or the as yet unknown millions Chairman Scott York (R-Kincora) is getting ready to provide his close personal friend and road-trip buddy extraordinaire Bob Farren to pay for his extremely minor league baseball stadium (already, thanks to York, the beneficiary of $80 million in taxpayer-paid loans for promised road improvements).
realloudoun 