Monthly Archives: February 2013

Don’t forget mom and apple pie, too

Say what you will about Chairman Scott York’s (“how sweet it is”) all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors — they may slash funding for schools, mental health services, and the arts; “forget” for six months to turn over to prosecutors incriminating documents regarding the corrupt financial shenanigans of Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling); pack advisory boards and commissions with party hacks and development industry representatives; arrange multi-million dollar government loans to major campaign contributors; waste tens of thousands of dollars on the loony pseudo-scientific theories about Lyme disease of major local Republican player and right-wing religious nut job Micahel Farris — but they certainly like baseball!

Besides chipping in $50,000 of tax money to pay the “fee” so a private local organization could be selected to host one of the numerous “world series” put on each year by Babe Ruth Baseball and offering all sorts of favored treatment to the non-existent Loudoun Hounds extremely minor league baseball team and its extremely generous (to GOP candidates) owner Bob Farren, the Board is now pushing a plan to give a substantial property tax break to private owners of baseball fields. Continue reading

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Janet Clarke’s makeover

The Loudoun County Republican Party’s centralized spin control operation, which produces those very nice and strikingly identical “news[sic]letters” our esteemed county supervisors send out with tedious regularity filled with all sorts of folksy announcements about bake sales, community events, and other items having nothing whatever to do with their official duties while noticeably avoiding mentioning what the all-Republican Board of Supervisors actually is up to (it would just upset us), has apparently decreed that Supervisor Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge) needed an image overhaul.

BEFORE:Corporate Clone Clarke

BEFORE:
Corporate Clone Clarke

AFTER:Country Casual Clarke

AFTER:
Country Casual Clarke

In place of Corporate Clone Clarke (her previous look), this month a fresh new Country Chic Clarke, posing against a bucolic backdrop, was unveiled.

Veteran political observers of course know that when a politician suddenly adopts a new costume it’s almost always . . . camouflage. If we didn’t already suspect Clarke was up to some new plans to undermine what’s left of Loudoun’s rural and scenic heritage at the behest of her development industry masters who bankrolled her election, this ought to leave no doubt!

Will Delgaudio resign when indicted? Don’t hold your breath

Leave it to our local “newspaper” “reporters” to be scooped again by the Washington Post, which doesn’t even have a Loudoun bureau any more but still manages to run rings around our pathetic local papers.

The Post reports today that a grand jury has been impaneled by the special prosecutor investigating the misuse of office and government resources by Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling). That is an unmistakable sign that the prosecutor has found sufficient evidence to seek an indictment.

Will Delgaudio resign if that happens? Or will Chairman Scott York (R) and his fellow members of the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors actually show some spine, guts, and moral integrity and call upon him to resign?

About as likely as Eugene being named the next pope.

How sweet it is to have a board full of ideologues

Even on those rare occasions when members of our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors actually attempt to represent their constituents, they are no match for the rest of the ideologues on the Board, or of the party hacks and “business” representatives that Chairman Scott York (R-At Large) has packed all of the government commissions with in his ongoing show of gratitude to the Loudoun Republican machine for readmitting him to the fold in 2011 — and to the commercial developers who dumped half a million dollars into the 2011 election, nearly all of that going to Republican candidates.

A case in point was the Board’s vote last week to accept the recommendation of the Government “Reform” Commission, packed with party hacks and “business” representatives, and abolish a volunteer fire company that serves a rural part of Western Loudoun. Continue reading

Ask Geary for equal time!

Neighbors who oppose the bait-and-switch stadium that a major Republican campaign contributor is seeking approval to build in the world’s worst location for the non-existent Loudoun Hounds baseball bannerteam were not amused by Supervisor Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) shilling for the Hounds in his recent newsletter.

Geary told constituents how “great” it will be to have “a local ball club to root for” and offered to send a free Hounds bumper sticker to any resident who contacted his office and asked for one. Geary did not mention that he will soon have to vote on whether to approve a series of special exceptions and zoning amendments the stadium developers need in order to proceed.

The neighbors, who have organized a group to oppose the stadium, shot back on their blog yesterday: Continue reading