realloudoun

Well, it only took a year and a half, but after blaming “liberals,” the media, the liberal media, the “lying liberal media,” fellow Republican Loudoun supervisors, people who “hate Sterling,” people who don’t like his newsletters, people who are against family values, people who are against the Boy Scouts, people who “refuse to defend the flag,” people who criticize him because he doesn’t always spell words correctly, and the sunspot cycle for the scandal involving his stealing public assets for political and private purposes, Loudoun Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) chose the Friday before Labor Day weekend to issue a non-apology apology in which he said he was sorry for the “embarrassment” he had caused the Republican Party and took full, manly responsibility by saying he had not been “careful” enough. Continue reading →

We again interrupt this summer hiatus with a late-breaking Delgaudio bulletin . . .

A Loudoun County Circuit Court judge has again ruled that Ethically Challenged Loudoun Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) has no legal basis whatsoever for his claim that his “constitutional rights” and “due process” were violated when the full Board voted to censure him for misuse of office, unethical conduct, misappropriation of public assets, and multiple violation of the Board’s rules last month. Among its other disciplinary actions against Delgaudio, the Board took control of his $120,000 a year Sterling district budget, which Delgaudio had been misusing for, among other things, hiring aides whose chief function was to raise money for his political campaigns.

Judge Burke F. McCahill ruled that Delgaudio’s claims were so without any plausible legal merit that he was denying a routine motion by Delgaudio’s boyish attorney Charles King to amend his original complaint (which had sought an injunction barring the Board in advance from censuring Delgaudio) and in a 25-minute hearing granted a motion by the county attorney to dismiss the lawsuit altogether.

Generally a case has to be so frivolous or such an abuse of the legal process — oh, say, just for example, by filing a lawsuit simply for publicity purposes — to have it dismissed in such short order without it even being heard on its merits. But as Judge McCahill noted, there is simply no basis for Delgaudio to seek legal redress on this matter.

Jack Roberts, the county attorney, noted that despite all of Delgaudio’s whiny assertions about not being given enough time to respond to the accusations against him before the Board, “there was enough time to file a lawsuit.” Roberts also noted, and the court in effect agreed, that serving as a public official is a privilege, not a constitutional “right,” and no one has a “constitutional right” to expend $120,000 in public funds without supervision and without being held accountable when he misuses those funds — as Delgaudio undeniably did.

Meanwhile, our embattled supervisor vows to appeal, and tells WTOP radio that the real reason everyone is picking on him is not that he is a crook, but that he stands up for the Boy Scouts and “traditional marriage.” He then not entirely coherently added, “String me up? These guys act like World War III has erupted around them. But World War III is coming from the left.”

All clear?

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 →