Tag Archives: Ralph Buona

Sep 18 2012
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The gang that couldn’t spray straight

It’s been vastly amusing to watch our elected county supervisors attempt to bluster and bloviate their way out of the fiasco they created for themselves last spring when they declared that they were going to apply the enormous scientific resources of the Loudoun County Republican Party to eradicate Lyme disease.

This involved (a) appointing a commission filled with assorted Lyme loonies and practitioners with a financial stake in overdiagnosing Lyme disease and claiming against all scientific and medical fact that this is a rampant and chronic illness requiring (their) chronic and continued care with unproven treatments and (b) hosing down a few parks with $20,000 worth of toxic pesticides in order (as Extremely Knowledgeable Lyme Disease Expert Supervisor Ken Reid  vowed) “to wipe out ticks” in the county. Continue reading →

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May 31 2012
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Metro Derangement Disorder strikes Loudoun GOP

Up until now, being a Republican Loudoun County supervisor has been a remarkably undemanding job. Short hours, no acrimonious debates, no need to listen to constituents and their annoying problems, thinking strictly optional (especially so in Ken Reid’s case).

All you have to do is vote along with your eight fellow Republican supervisors 9–0 on whatever prearranged goodies come up from the local GOP machine (getting rid of annoying regulations on developers; allowing big box stores without a special exception; appointing prepicked slates of campaign contributors and commercial real estate reps to the water, zoning review, and government “reform” boards; killing off programs to protect Loudoun’s scenic and cultural heritage; approving electronic billboards for your friends).

But the upcoming vote on whether to back out of Loudoun’s previous commitments to fund the Metrorail extension to Dulles and Loudoun has put them in an uncomfortably tight spot. Continue reading →

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Apr 13 2012
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Takes one to know one, Eugene!

Continuing with their highly efficient efforts to eliminate citizen involvement in local planning, the all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors this week unanimously endorsed Supervisor Ralph Buona’s very business-friendly proposal to allow big-box stores to be built by-right in the county.

Alien life form and Sterling supervisor Eugene Delgaudio, captured here in his natural business-friendly habitat

The fact that developers of commercial real estate and related industries donated half a million dollars to the campaign coffers of local Republicans during this past election cycle had absolutely nothing to with this.

It was, the supervisors explained, merely a matter of letting “the free market” and “consumers” decide where 75,000-square-foot stores should henceforth be built.

Under an amendment adopted by the previous board, a special exception hearing was required for such mega stores, giving citizens a chance to have their views on the compatibility of plopping down a two-acre-sized retail outlet in their neighborhoods at least considered. Continue reading →

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Apr 06 2012
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“I am not an ideologue”

Whenever a politician goes out of his way to issue a denial of something that ought to go without saying (“I am not a crook!”), it’s a good sign there’s something worth looking into there.

So when Supervisor Shawn Williams (R-Broad Run) told us “I was not trying to be ideological or capricious with any of my votes” on the 2013 county budget, it’s a good bet that there in fact was, well, plenty ideological and capricious. Continue reading →

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Feb 10 2012
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No Democrats, Independents, or impartial experts need apply

It could of course be simple incompetence, but the new very–developer friendly all-Republican (but I repeat myself) Loudoun Board of Supervisors has been stretching out ad infinitum the process of filling positions on the county’s many boards and commissions.

More likely is that this is a calculated tactic, intended to divert attention from the fact that they are packing these commissions with major campaign contributors, developers, and local GOP party hacks—and that they are hoping that that by announcing the appointments by dribs and drabs the cumulative effect of their purging and packing will be blunted.

Continue reading →

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