Having blundered ahead and quickly ordered up $20,000 worth of pesticides to hose down 9 county parks as part of its very publicity-oriented campaign to pretend to be doing something about Lyme disease, our all-Republican Board of Supervisors is now trying to cover its tracks by throwing up a smokescreen of half truths and misinformation. Continue reading
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What's REALLY going on in politics in Loudoun County, Virginia
Tag Archives: Talstar
Look busy!
Great news for the agoraphobic:
Our fearless Board of Supervisors is (weather permitting) plunging ahead this week with its unfunded chemical assault on the great outdoors. According to a press release from the county (see below), 9 parks will be hosed down with hundreds of gallons of a pesticide called Talstar P, part of the local Republican campaign to pretend to be doing something about Lyme disease. 
As reported previously, the local Republican party has for very strange reasons fallen under the spell of a fringe group that goes around spreading scientific misinformation and promoting quack treatments for this tick-borne infection. An essential part of their campaign is to grossly exaggerate the number of cases that occur and to spread hysteria and panic about it.
The Board spent its first three months in office going through minute line items in the county budget to find highly fiscally conservative cost-savings, which culminated in axing a series of $500 or $1,000 grants to arts, literacy, community, and cultural organizations. But when it came to approving $20,000 to spray parks, the Board decided it didn’t even have to include the cost in the budget at all—adopting a resolution stating that the cost “is yet to be determined.”
Apparently when you spend that kind of dough without budgeting for it, you also don’t have to do even the most rudimentary cost-benefit analysis. Continue reading
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