realloudoun

We interrupt this summer hiatus for a late-breaking Eugene Delgaudio bulletin . . .

It took the Loudoun GOP establishment less than one week to answer the question of whether Eugene will be  renominated by the Loudoun County Republican Committee (LCRC) despite the little matter of being censured by the entire all-Republican Board of Supervisors for egregious ethical and financial violations, should he seek reelection two years from now.

And the answer is, “Of course!”

The Washington Post reports that at its committee meeting Monday night, a majority of the LCRC expressed its wholehearted support for poor victimized Eugene, criticized the all-Republican Board of Supervisors for picking on Delgaudio for the little matter of his misuse of public assets for personal gain and “direct violation” (to quote the special grand jury’s report) of the Board’s code of conduct, and said it was planning to issue a resolution calling on the Board to reconsider its censure of Delgaudio. Continue reading →

Delgaudio and his faithful ally Geary Higgins (right)

Supervisor Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) is not exactly known as an oratorical dynamo on the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors. In fact he’s often not even present for meetings, boasting the highest absence rate of any of the supervisors. When he is there you’d hardly know it most of the time, since he usually never utters a word and just votes in lockstep with the rest of the Board.

But there was Geary on Wednesday night holding forth with more energy and passion than we’ve ever seen him, unleashing a flood of eloquence in what is apparently a cause very close to his heart: namely, saving ethically challenged fellow supervisor Eugene Delgaudio’s hide.

Geary, along with Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge) were the only members of the Board to back Delgaudio’s insistence on delaying any censure vote until the Board had appointed its own ad hoc committee to conduct its own investigation of the same ethical, financial, and managerial malfeasance thoroughly documented by the special grand jury that investigated Delgaudio. Continue reading →

This is not a doctored photo

Loudoun Board of Supervisors vice chairman Shawn Williams (R-Broad Run) last night expressed the hope that by at last censuring and sanctioning their perennially ethically challenged fellow Republican supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), the all-Republican Board would at last be able to “put an end” to the long-drawn out Delgaudio financial, corruption, misuse of office, and ethics scandal.

Of course it was the Board’s own inaction for a year that dragged it out up til now.

But fat chance, anyway!

Delgaudio’s youthful attorney Charles King this afternoon announced that his deep-pocketed and resolutely innocent client will continue to seek to have the courts intervene and overturn the Board’s decision, thereby guaranteeing that the matter drags on for months, at least. Continue reading →

So in the end, Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) accomplished what all of the evidence of his wrongdoing that has been in the hands of the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors for more than a year could not: Delgaudio so ticked off and personally embarrassed the Board with his personal attacks, bizarre defenses, and now frivolous legal filings that they finally could not escape taking disciplinary action against him. “The integrity of my own Republican party is at stake,” explained Ralph Buona (R-Ashburn) last night, always one to get his priorities straight.

Delgaudio, subdued but not chastened, leaves the jumbo flag pin and orange cap at home

After three hours of desultory discussion (and after hearing from several citizen-members of Buona’s “own” Republican party who were outraged that Eugene was being treated “unfairly” and that the Board was about to knuckle under the demands of “failed left-wing politicians”), the Board voted down Delgaudio’s demand that any disciplinary action be delayed while the Board appoints a committee to look into the matter — supervisors Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) and Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge), good Republicans to the end, supported Eugene on that motion — then voted to formally censure him; to remove all of his staff aides; and to place his Sterling district budget under the control of the full Board. (Once again, Higgins and Clarke, with touching loyalty, stood with Eugene in opposing that last motion.)

It is abundantly clear that Delgaudio’s own increasingly outrageous actions of the last week pushed the Board to move: they had been prepared to sweep the matter under the rug. Continue reading →

They did a fine job of burying it on the Board of Supervisors website, but at last Chairman Scott York (R-At Large) and Vice Chairman Shawn Williams (R-Broad Run) have itemized the specific acts by ethically challenged fellow supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) that they plan to bring before the Board for possible disciplinary action tonight.

They appear to include a few items that go beyond the findings of the special grand jury, whose report concluded that Delgaudio engaged in a “direct violation” of the Board’s Code of Conduct by abusing staff, that he engaged in misuse of office for private gain by having his county-paid staff engage in political fundraising and work for his very lucrative outside anti-gay hate group “Public Advocate,” and that he likely received large unreported cash donations, including an envelope containing $5,000 in cash handed over by a prominent local retired pastor, no doubt doing God’s work evading campaign finance laws and then lying about it under oath to the grand jury.

Here are the five charges, Continue reading →