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The $75,000 Curveball

One of the more curious contributors to local Republican coffers for the 2011 local election was one Howard Gary Heavin of Gatesville, Texas—which last time I checked is not near Loudoun County.

Curves Health franchise guru (and no slouch himself in the fitness department, apparently), local GOP state delegate David Ramadan

Heavin contributed a cool $75,000 to the successful campaign of Delegate David Ramadan. The connection between the two is apparently that Heavin is the CEO of Curves Health, a franchise operation of women’s fitness centers, and the Lebanese-born Ramadan is a Curves franchisee, as well as the apparent mastermind behind expanding Curves franchises to the Middle East and India.

I’m sure it was just an abundance of collegial pride in a protege doing so well in his adopted land that prompted Heavin to part with 75 grand.

On the other hand, it’s interesting to note that the very first Zoning Amendment approved by the new all-Republican board of supervisors here in Loudoun—one apparently so pressing to their agenda of making the county more “business friendly” that it could not even wait for the completion of the major zoning review ordered up by the board and now underway—was a little-noticed vote to add “health and fitness centers” to the list of permitted uses in industrial-zoned areas. Continue reading

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3/100ths of a penny wise . . .

Yes, our highly efficient extremely businesslike all-Republican cost-cutting Board of Supervisors has certainly been showing everyone how to save money for the taxpayers in its first three months on the job!

Explaining that protecting water quality, promoting the rural economy, making sure that irreplaceable archeological sites are not bulldozed away, saving energy in government buildings, and keeping drug users out of jail and off drugs are not “core functions” of government, our very careful stewards of the taxpayers’ dimes have voted fearlessly to slash bloated government waste and inefficiency to the bone . . . to wit: Continue reading

Government of money, by money, for money

Our highly efficient new Government Reform Commission, filled with such disinterested high-minded citizens as local GOP fundraiser Tom Julia, local Republican Party henchperson and larger-than-life Internet presence Barbara Munsey, and major GOP campaign contributor Scott Hamberger, has just published the list of issues it intends to reform in the name of making the county more businesslike and business-friendly. Continue reading

Is the honeymoon over?

Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott York, Loudoun County’s very own Vicar of Bray, may be having second thoughts about having re-embraced the Republican fold, now that he has had two months of seeing close up the material he has to work with in his fellow members of his new all-Republican board.

Chairman Scott York (left) displays an understandable reluctance to get too intimate with fellow Republican supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (Courtesy Loudoun Times-Mirror, One of the World’s Newspapers)

York this week and last found himself outvoted on a series of budget cuts Continue reading

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Trees, history, and other impediments

You may not have been aware of it, but judging by the swift and efficient recommendations of the new all-development-industry review committee appointed by our new all-Republican Board of Supervisors, among the major impediments to making Loudoun more “business friendly” turn out to be the requirement that developers don’t needlessly bulldoze away trees, soil, or irreplaceable archeological sites. Continue reading