realloudoun

Having schmeered the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors with more than $60,000 in campaign contributions, Bob Farren and his fellow investors behind the non-existent extremely minor league Loudoun Hounds baseball team expected smooth sailing for all the political favors they have been seeking in connection with their planned stadium.

Despite the best efforts of Chairman Scott York (R-At Large), Supervisor Shawn Williams (R-Broad Run), and free-bumper-sticker distributor Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) to sell a skeptical citizenry about the wonders of the proposed stadium, it’s not quite working out as planned. Continue reading →

PS on the Loudoun Board’s meaningless ideological vote against Medicaid expansion . . . and credit where it’s due:

We have been critical of the lame reporting by our local newspapers, but in his story on the Loudoun Board’s action the Loudoun Times-Mirror’s Trevor Baratko has what is surely the Quote of the Year.

Trying to explain why she would oppose a provision of the Federal health care law that would bring Virginia $20 billion in Federal funding, and allow those earning less than $15,000 to have any health care at all, Deep Thinker Supervisor Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian) said: “I feel like a carrot is being held over our head.”

Back in the 1970s and ’80s various left-leaning localities became the butt of national ridicule for declaring themselves nuclear-free zones or taking other meaningless official stands on issues that most grown-ups recognized were the competence of the national government.

Now apparently it is the turn of right-wing loonies to fill this role at the local level.  Loudoun County’s all-Republican all-ideological Board of Supervisors still does not quite equal the supervisors of Virginia’s Chesterfield County and their opposition to nefarious socialist plots to make us ride bicycles, or the county commissioner in Lubbock, Texas, who proposed expanding the sheriff’s department so that when President Obama “turns over sovereignty to the U.N.,” he can be prepared to resist: “He’s going to send in U.N. troops. I don’t want ’em in Lubbock County.”

But we’re trying! Led by deep thinker Supervisor Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian), the Loudoun Board recently passed a meaningless official resolution opposing a key component of Obamacare: Continue reading →

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 →