realloudoun

Typical of the demagoguery about the school budget coming from our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors—which has said it plans to cut $68 million from the school budget next year, even as student enrollment grows by 2,500 (thanks, by the way, to the extremely developer friendly policies of previous GOP Boards that abandoned all restraints on growth and threw the door open to rampant residential rezoning)—is the latest “news(sic) letter” from Supervisor Shawn Williams (R-Broad Run).

After assuring us he is very, very concerned about maintaining the quality of the school system, Williams suggests that by cutting excess administrative costs, we can slash taxes and save money. (“I have stated publically (sic) that I think we have top-heavy management at the administration level, and I am concerned the funding is not getting down to the classrooms and teachers,” saith Williams).

The only trouble is that administrative costs (rather like that favorite mythical category of savings that Ronald Reagan always invoked, “waste, fraud, and abuse”) are miniscule and cannot possibly produce the savings that the slasher supervisors are insisting upon cutting out of the school budget. Continue reading →

Scott York (R-Hounds) now reveals that he did turn over to someone or other in the Loudoun County government  the incriminating documents that Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling)’s former aide supplied him back in March but it is a secret who he gave them to. Here is what he told Leesburg Today:

York would not comment this morning as to why he did not turn those documents over to the commonwealth’s attorney, but did say he had shared the documents with two other people in county government. He declined to name those people.

But here is what we now have finally learned (it took a threatened FOIA lawsuit against the Board) that Delgaudio’s former aide Donna Mateer stated in her written formal complaint back in March Continue reading →

If there were any doubt that that the Loudoun all-Republican Board of Supervisors has been shamelessly pandering to a very fringe special interest in its bizarre promotion of Lyme disease hysteria—and equally that it is allowing itself in return to be used by a group of unscientific practitioners trying to legitimize their use of unapproved, unproven, and dangerous (but lucrative) “therapies”—recent moves by the state and national Republican Party on the issue have settled the matter. Continue reading →

You have to hand it to Loudoun Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott York (R-Kincora Hounds), as he continues to come up with interesting ways to keep the lid on the blatant misuse of office by fellow GOP supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling).

When the Washington Post broke the story several weeks ago that several of Delgaudio’s taxpayer-provided aides had come forward with documentary proof that their orange-capped homophobic (but very “Christian”) boss had been having them spend most of their office time at the county office building soliciting and arranging meetings for him with large potential campaign donors, and that his taxpayer-provided county aides were being directly supervised by Delgaudio’s outside political-money-making pseudo-lobby, York’s first response was to claim that there was nothing he could do about the matter because: Continue reading →

In this issue, for the week of October 15, 2012:

• Need a zoning change? If you’re Chairman Scott York’s close personal friend and major campaign contributor, it’s a snap

• Blatant conflicts of interest on the Loudoun Lyme Commission

• Delgaudio smokescreen grows thicker

• Geary Higgins tells us to vacuum up stinkbugs, and also that fall is here, courtesy of his new Patrick Henry–supplied staffers

Chairman Scott York’s new boss

Continue reading →