realloudoun

SO Loudoun Supervisor Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge), who represents one of two rural districts in the county, has a new plan for better representing her district’s interests: under a proposal sprung on the public with the usual couple of days’ notice, the Board of Supervisors will be voting this Wednesday, May 15, on her motions to eliminate the Rural Economic Development Commission and the Historic District Review Committee, among other “reforms.”

Though billed as part of a larger overhaul of committees and commissions in an effort to “streamline” government, Clarke’s proposal would of course faithfully preserve all of the committees that serve the interests of the developer and loony lobbies that the all-Republican Board owes so much to (notably the “Zoning Ordinance Action Group” that keeps up a steady supply of developer-friendly zoning changes and the laughable Lyme Commission that is spending upwards of $100,000 a year on completely duplicative and wasteful efforts to justify its existence).

It’s only the citizens whom Clarke supposedly represents who lose under her proposal. But then, this Board has never left any doubt who their real constituents are: the folks who gave ’em half a million bucks in the last election, and the various fringe extremists like politico-religious zealot and Lyme loony extraordinaire Michael Farris who control the Loudoun County Republican Committee.

Our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors just keeps on showing its gratitude and loyalty to them that brought ’em — viz., the developers who plunked down half a million bucks in the 2011 election campaign to get them where they are today.

The Board is pushing ahead with a series of zoning amendments that will cut in half the amount of time staff is allowed to review rezoning and special exception applications; that would allow the Board to “waive” the requirement for any public hearing on proffers, special exceptions, and concept plans; and that would further shut the public out of the chance to be aware of or comment on proposed special changes being made for the benefit of special developers.

While of course presenting this package of goodies as part of its effort to “streamline” the process and make the county more “businesslike,” there is no doubt whatever why the Board is doing this. Continue reading →

Back in the old, old days — before the current all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors took office in 2011 — most of the appointees to Loudoun’s local government advisory boards and regulatory commissions were ordinary citizens who had a genuine expertise they wished to share in the service of their community.

A rendering of the modest 20,000-square-foot home that the son of recently appointed Historic District Review Committee member Lewis Leigh is proposing to build in the protected Shelburne Glebe historic district, complete with historic swimming pool and historic hot tub.

That changed abruptly on January 2012, when the new Board threw off almost every Democrat, independent, and impartial expert and packed the county commissions and boards with major campaign contributors, local Republican Party activists and operatives, and representatives of businesses who stood directly to gain by the actions and decisions of these supposedly independent bodies.

The Facilities Standards Review Committee, which sets technical engineering regulations for developing land, was filled by the new all-Republican Board with employees of development firms. The extraordinarily politicized Lyme Commission the Board created is headed by a doctor who operates practices that provide highly questionable and non-FDA-approved “treatments” for the disease.

And then last year Supervisor Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) pushed for and secured the appointment to the Historic District Review Committee of one Lewis Leigh, whose major qualifications appeared to be that he owns land in a protected historic district, Shelburne Glebe . . . where his son has been trying for years to build a monster house in contravention of the protective easements that apply to the historic district. Continue reading →

It’s time for a small thought experiment/reality test.

Let’s suppose a Democratic elected local official began a well-orchestrated political campaign against a private business solely on the grounds that, in his view, it charges too much for its products or services.

He denounces the high cost the company is charging in his “news[sic]letters” to constituents. He enlists other local Democratic officials to file an official complaint with state regulators over the high cost the company is charging. He uses official government resources to launch a drive to urge constituents to join in a petition campaign and add their names to a protest against the high price the business is charging and to attend a public hearing to repeat that same opnion.

What would we imagine in such a case the reaction would be of the local Republican Party, particularly its Tea Party wing, with its staunch support of free enterprise and denunciation of government interference and bureaucratic regulators?

Now with that thought experiment out of the way, is it too much to ask exactly why local GOP officialdom, to a person, has been staging a well-orchestrated campaign against the prices that the privately built and privately owned and operated Greenway is charging for tolls? Continue reading →

Demonstrating their usual flair for having it both ways, our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors is continuing its spin campaign on the recent budget vote, sending out a barrage of self-congratulatory “news[sic]” letters in which they assert simultaneously that:

(a) we have provided “much needed tax relief”

(b) we have provided “major enhancements” to the school budget

They have reached this conclusion not by repealing the laws of arithmetic, as natural a recourse as that might be for this Board given their recent failure to grasp the subtle mathematical fact that it takes 5 votes to constitute a majority on a board consisting of 9 members, but through the arguably even more natural recourse for them, namely lying. Continue reading →