We’re all still expectantly awaiting new Republican county supervisor Geary Higgins’s (R-Catoctin) promised Major Stinkbug Initiative (in which he vows to “attack these disgusting pests head-on”), but meanwhile comes exciting news in Geary’s first newsletter: “in the near future” he will be holding a public meeting to let us know what he is also doing “to combat” Lyme disease as well as “to take measures to improve public awareness of measures that citizens can take to protect themselves.” 
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What's REALLY going on in politics in Loudoun County, Virginia
Tag Archives: Geary Higgins
Janet Clarke’s idea of “ethics”
It’s an old rule of politics to accuse your opponents of your own worst sins. No matter whether the accusation has any substance, this tactic (a) distracts attention from your own worst sins and (b) muddies the waters by spreading the vague impression that “everyone does it.”
"It would be a shame if anything was to happen to your reputation"
Janet Clarke (R-Blue Ridge), who in her first two months in office on Loudoun’s board of supervisors has already shown herself an adept practitioner of the art of political payoff and payback, offered a fine illustration of this tactic with the hatchet job she carried out against a local business owner who had had the temerity to oppose her and the rest of the Purcellville Mafia that has been running the town on behalf of commercial land developers.
The Loudoun GOP’s two masters
My source deep within the labyrinthine bowels of 1 Harrison Street (“Shallow Throat”) hints that Chairman of the Loudoun Board of Supervisors Scott York may already be finding it difficult to keep his all-Republican very-developer-friendly board in line with the program he was tasked with by the state and national Republican Party.
The parish church of Scott York's political mentor, the Vicar of Bray (you can look it up)
Gutting the comprehensive plan in Loudoun
A source deep within the Loudoun government reports this morning that the new very developer-friendly board of supervisors will soon introduce a motion of Intent to Amend the county zoning ordinance.
We no doubt will have another one of those snappy 9–0 votes to approve with no debate.
This would open up the entire county comprehensive plan document to revision—something that at least some of the GOP candidates swore they would not do during the campaign. Continue reading
Some of our best friends are developers who sue citizens that speak out
New Republican Loudoun supervisor Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin) struck a heroic figure in his campaign last fall with his courageous opposition to traffic, stinkbugs, and truth or decency (take your pick).
Since the election he has been Exhibit A of the new GOP strategy of masking its developer give-aways in a wrapping of bland and vague geniality, replacing the gratuitous (and politically bad) in-your-face confrontation of the last GOP-developer-backed board in 2003–2007.
Since the election Higgins has also notably and faithfully toed the party line, voting to kill the illegal-sign cleanup program (I guess when he waxed eloquent during the campaign about the Catoctin District’s “pristine wilderness” he was thinking of something besides how it looks) and to initiate the insidious process of unraveling the county’s rural comprehensive zoning plan (which during the election he pledged to support unchanged).
Higgins was also a prime recipient of the remarkable flood of developer cash that flowed into Loudoun GOP coffers during this election cycle. Continue reading
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