realloudoun

As we all know, such frivolous programs as the Loudoun drug court, arts and cultural funding, the master gardeners and urban extension program, and other such frivolities axed by the all-Republican Board of Supervisors last year, are not “core functions of government.” That was the mantra the supervisors kept repeating in explaining their showy display of fiscal rectitude.

However, providing repeated free vacation trips for the Board’s chairman, Scott York (R-At  Large, until they find him) is apparently a very core function.

Last year our well-traveled chairman took no fewer than five official foreign trips. Pretty good for a little-old county official.

York’s frequent flier program began in April, Continue reading →

Once again, the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors has shown it can provide excellent constituent service . . . as long as the constituents happen to belong to the commercial development industry.

As reported earlier this month, the developers of the “Loudoun Station” development had an urgent need to violate Loudoun’s longstanding zoning ordinances governing the erection of advertising signs by plunking down along the Greenway a 27-foot high freestanding sign for their development.

That’s the height of a three-story house. Continue reading →

Well, our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors has hit the ground the running for the new year, beginning with the usual deluge of “news”[sic]letters produced by their well-paid political consultants, all scrupulously avoiding mentioning what they actually are doing to give away your county to the commercial development industry but offering ever so helpful advice on such topics as:

• how to safely recycle our Christmas trees (Supervisor Janet Clarke, R-Blue Ridge) Continue reading →

Doing an uncanny imitation of the national Republican Party’s fiscal policies, our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors for the past year has been boldly declaring it has no intention of actually paying for the consequences of the county’s explosive growth that they themselves were responsible for. Continue reading →

Among the lame excuses the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors gave last year for why they could not enforce the law prohibiting people from sticking signs all over the public rights of way was that any fines collected have to go to the state Department of Transportation; thus the county could not recoup the costs of enforcing the law.

Of course the county does not recoup the costs of enforcing most laws —  laws are intended to protect the public interest, not generate revenue streams or pay for themselves. And the county already has the authority to remove illegal signs and seek court orders against serial offenders. (Not that it does either one, since the new Board abolished the *volunteer* sign cleanup program that cost virtually nothing.)

But now Creigh Deeds, Democratic state senator from Charlottesville, has filed a bill in Richmond Continue reading →