Promoted by Epluribusunum – This post is especially insightful in light of yesterday’s developments, in which Supervisor Burton withdrew his support from the CBPO in part because of too much uncertainty regarding which parcels would be affected and how. I note in particular the chorus on the LTM forum decrying Burton as an “opportunist” for taking exactly the position the LEC are demanding. It suggests that nothing could possibly make them happy, and lends yet more support to the theory that LEC is nothing but a Republican campaign organization. A fraud.

Roy Jacobsen, President of the Loudoun Environmental Council marched up to the BoS podium and presented a list of 9011 properties affected by the proposed Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance.   He was quoted in the Leesburg Today.

“Staff was asked for a list of impacted parcels caused by the implementation of the CBPO. They said it would take two to three weeks…Then they said four to six months. Here’s a list,” Jacobsen said. “We had our engineers using the county’s GIS system compile this. This calls to question whether the county is trying to provide this list or not… is it just incompetence or is it a cover up?”

LEC’s engineers are lead by Dr. B.J. Bluth, Chairman of the Science and Engineering Peer Group. Very impressive sounding, but how did they produce in two hours what the county couldn’t produce in weeks or months?

They used Logis, a free public domain geographic information system maintained by the county. Logis turns your web browser into a map browser that reports plat and geographic feature data.  To identify any property, you simply click on a polygon.  LEC used the system to identify properties that contain a “qualifying” water feature or buffer.

So how did Bluth manage this task?  Assuming it takes a minute to identify and record a property, Bluth’s team may have been 75 strong.  Or maybe they ran a script that visited each property in the GIS and made a determination.  Regardless, given the complexity of the task and the obvious sources of error, a real scientist would report “approximately 9000 properties”,  not exactly 9011.

Because the 9011 figure implies:

1. The mapping data from the county is 100% accurate in spite of the disclaimer “The RPA boundary is subject to change based upon site-specific analysis.  Any errors or omissions should be reported”.
2. The procedure that the engineers designed and executed against complex and ambiguous data “in two hours” was error free.

Is LEC’s list certifiably accurate?  Will it stand up in court?  No.  LEC’s list has no such quality.  It’s a stunt, a threat, and a campaign walk sheet.

This behavior is what makes LEC a fraud.  They weren’t so certain a year ago when “mapping” was a talking point.  In a May 24, 2010 “Dear Sterling American” email, Supervisor Delgaudio said (btw, what’s a 1/4 acre house?):

YOU OR YOUR NEIGHBOR HAVE BEEN DESIGNATED a “Resource Management Area” and The Greenies Want $5500 Up Front before you do any “land disturbance”.

Chairman York exclaimed to staff May 5: “How much is it going to cost me for a PERMIT to put a deck on my house under this proposed adoption of the Chesapeake Bay Act?”

The one page chart listed “mapping” for $700 and other fees totaling as high as $4000.00 for a home to get a deck permit.

(addendum: dog houses, patios other PERMIT fees are additional and go up to $5500, according to one group, for a 1/4 acre house)

Defending Delgaudio, Sally Mann emailed me (emphasis mine):

“They only have a conceptional map, and are planning on mapping the RPA and RMA case by case, application by application.  The homeowners who apply to do anything will pay for the map.

Every new building application will require the homeowner to submit a locational survey, which must be performed by experts (expensive)–whether or not there is any water on the property, and there will be a fee (I think it was around $600, but it was on the chart) just for the determination if you are in the RPA or the RMA.”

Which way is it LEC?  Is determination easy or difficult?  Dr. Bluth should be ashamed of herself.  She knows that there are uncertainties in her calculations.  “Science” is a political tool for LEC.  They don’t practice it.  They flaunt it.

Joe Coleman of the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy received a robocall.

“It said you were going to consider a tax and control plan to put handcuffs on my home…and concluded with the statement that the plan’s intent is to raise taxes and end economic growth,”

Supervisor Burton said the robocall was “patently false”.  LEC is classic Delgaudio.  Their pronouncements aren’t “hyperbole”, they are “patently false”.  Too bad for Chairman York that it appears he’s been involved with LEC from the get-go.