Taking a well-earned break from arduous taxpayer-funded seances with taxpayer-funded consultants hired at taxpayer expense to help him imagine just the right words to praise his own accomplishments (“Achieved breakthrough on economic development”), our extremely sensitive and misunderstood
Tragically misunderstood politician Scott York, who just wants to be loved by bloggers everywhere
Chairman of the Loudoun Board of Supervisors Scott York (R-Kincora) is getting back to his real business, of delivering the goodies for the developers who bankrolled his election.
Next week the Board will take up a series of amendments to the county’s development and zoning rules — amendments that were drafted by the developers that York & Co. packed various county “citizen” committees with as their first order of business upon taking office back in January. (First, they threw off those committees any independent experts, Democrats, or Loudoun citizens suspected of harboring the secret belief that Loudoun’s water, soil, history, or environment might be worth protecting).
Topping the list of goodies is a change in the Facilities Standards Manual (our favorite bedtime reading) that would drop the requirement that developers first conduct a soils analysis before bulldozing away.
Such analysis is a completely standard procedure, required to make sure wells, septic tanks, roads, or basements don’t end up in places that produce major disasters later on. The proposed new highly streamlined business-friendly rule would instead leave it up to the county to conduct its own soils survey (purely optionally, of course) — meaning that instead of having the site developer pay the cost . . . we all get to pay for this.
After all, new development is such a public good that taxpayers ought not only have to pay for its consequences (soaring tax rates to cover the costs of new schools, roads, and public safety services) but actually subsidize it, right?
It’s only a couple of million dollars added to the taxpayers’ tab, after all. And in terms of the kind of business investment analysis our very businesslike all-Republic Board of Supervisors loves to tout, an extremely good return on investment for the $33,450 that Scott York received from the real estate and construction industry and the $14,000 he received from paving companies and road builders.
Come to think of it, that’s a $2 million “impact” for a $50,000 investment — right, Chairman York??
realloudoun 