realloudoun

Not to make this Pick on Loudoun Supervisor Ralph Buona (R-Ashburn) Week, but Buona does have a knack for coming out with the sorts of pompous obfuscation that have endeared two-bit politicians to newspaper humor columnists from the founding days of our republic.

Discussing the Board’s decision last month to order the county staff to develop a budget option involving a completely arbitrarily chosen two cent cut in the property tax rate for next year, Buona “explained”:

“Last year we flew blind. If you don’t look at alternatives, we as supervisors don’t know where there are needs or where there might be excess.”

Apparently what this means is that whereas last year the all-Republican Board of Supervisors adopted a completely arbitrary cut in the property tax rate that left a $68 million shortfall in the school budget, THIS year they will consider TWO different completely arbitrary reductions in the property tax rate: one which leaves a $67 million shortfall in the school budget and another, a two cent reduction, which leaves an $80 million shortfall.

But at least they won’t be “flying blind”! Continue reading →

As noted the other day, Loudoun Supervisors Ralph Buona (R-Ashburn) and Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian) think it is very, very unfair that officials in our county should have to turn down campaign contributions from developers who have pending applications for land use actions before the Board (what a normal person would call a “bribe”), when supervisors in other Virginia counties get to take such graft.

Buona, displaying his trademark hilarious wit and knack for felicitous turns of phrase, said of  the Loudoun law (which was sponsored by Democratic state senator Mark Herring): “Throughout the county, this is jokingly known as ‘the Mark Herring thinks Loudoun County is more corrupt than the rest of the commonwealth law.’”

Actually, throughout Loudoun County it is really known as the “‘We all remember what happened the last time we had a Republican Board of Supervisors’ law.”

But more to the point, Continue reading →

The other day we lauded Loudoun Supervisor Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian) for just about clinching the coveted Dumbest Supervisor award with her impassioned speech decrying as “abhorrent” the law that bars Loudoun supervisors from voting on land use decisions that directly benefit recent campaign donors.

But it turns out that Supervisor Ralph Buona (R-Ashburn) is just as hot and indignant over the law, sponsored by state senator Mark Herring, that requires transparency in government and avoidance of the most obvious forms of conflict of interest.

Buona moaned that the law is “causing some real problems for this board” Continue reading →

Bustling construction activity last week at the Loudoun Hounds stadium. (Source: Leesburg Today)

Last fall, winter, and spring we heard ad nauseam from our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors how urgent it was to circumvent and bypass all the usual rules, procedures, zoning, county master plan etc etc to grant a quickie special zoning exception for the bait-and-switch “baseball” stadium that extremely politically connected promoter Bob Farren suddenly wanted to build at the One Loudoun development, after having secured a special exception approval several years earlier to build it at the Kincora development.

Over and over, the supervisors and Farren explained what a tight deadline he was facing to get the stadium built by Opening Day 2014 for his as yet nonexistent Loudoun Hounds extremely minor league baseball team. Continue reading →

It’s certainly been an eventful week in the never-ending effort by the Loudoun GOP to capture the hearts and minds of the citizenry, regardless of their race, religion, or quaint ideas they may hold about decency and ethical conduct.

First we had local Republican party chair John Whitbeck doing his part to promote recognition of Loudoun County around the world, though perhaps in not quite the way our all-Republican Board of Supervisors had in mind with its “economic development” sales pitches (“Relocate your business to Loudoun County . . . Home of the Internet, the Redskins, and pogroms!”).

Then there was Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian) taking another mighty surge forward toward the coveted Dumbest Supervisor award Continue reading →