Hallelujah! And many thanks to Supervisors Buona, LeTourneau, Reid, Williams, and York.
Metro is coming to Loudoun
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Tag Archives: BoS
Offensive holiday intentions
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John Mileo, a member of the Courthouse Grounds Committee writes that Rick Wingrove, CEO of the Beltway Atheists, is in the process of “rounding up his storm troopers… to persuade the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors… to rule against the inclusion of a creche as part of this year’s so-called Seasonal Display.” The storm troopers – Sturmabteilung, SA, or Brownshirts – provided protection at rallies, disrupted opposing political parties and intimidated Jews during the rise of the Nazis. I fail to see how a half dozen BoS public comment speakers could be compared to “storm troopers”, but I also failed to understand how a small group of prayerful Soulforce youth could elicit a storm trooper-like response from Patrick Henry College for daring to engage students in open dialog.
PHC's "storm trooper" dialog
And here is where the two stories meet. Mike Farris, the only person in the county to actually call for shock-troop-like protection of the fragile ideology fed to his PHC students, is also the constitutional lawyer consultant to the CGC that illegally cleared citizens from its last meeting. Mr. Mileo did not mean to be offensive, forgive him, he didn’t understand what he was doing – channeling the Christianist-right’s ubiquitous persecution complex.
Last December, Prison Fellowship Ministry’s Pat Nolan wrote a letter to the editor with a similar argument, that “neo-pagans [sic] of the SS belittled and mocked all who acknowledged a higher power than the state” and that “[e]ven the simple act of celebrating Christmas was outlawed.” The late Chuck Colson also used Nazi imagery in his “Breaking the Spiral of Silence” DVD to portray, among other “liberal” menaces, same-sex couples as modern day “storm troopers.” Thankfully, “Breaking the Cycle of Silence” was Colson’s final exercise of Godwin’s law.
Creche on the courthouse lawn, 2011
The use of this imagery is offensive, and the Board of Supervisors is planning to allow the CGC to get away with it. At last night’s public input, Chairman York invoked his privilege to indicate that the BoS intends to approve the PHC designed display because it will be similar to the national display at the Ellipse. For me, the content of the display – a creche, Christmas tree and menorah – isn’t the issue. The issue is the intention of the BoS and CGC to establish a phony religious mythology that frames any opposition as threatening, terrorist, and even Nazi. That intention is so offensive that the PHC design should be rejected outright and the BoS should take a timeout to think about what they are doing. Mr. Mileo did. After belatedly consulting a dictionary, he posted the following comment to his own letter:
I have requested that the editor replace the word “storm troopers”, which I was using as a metaphor, with the word “member.”
Thank you Mr. Mileo. Unlike the BoS, your retraction demonstrates a willingness to admit error and change course.
Baby wants a creche!
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Goodness gracious, this board may just turn out to be the most corrupt in recent history. The hilarity continues to escalate (assuming that you find the deliberate incitement of costly taxpayer-funded lawsuits hilarious).
After last month’s highly entertaining meeting of the Courthouse Grounds and Facilities Committee (reported here), in which the chairman admitted both to having consulted with “preeminent constitutional lawyer” Mike Farris and that the proposed inclusion of a menorah was only to provide “top cover” for the sole objective of a county-sponsored creche, this month’s meeting featured ejecting a reporter and members of the public from the room. The reporter was told that although the committee has no authority to make policy, and is not facing litigation, they had to be in “closed session” because they were receiving legal advice.
What I’ve been reading, links worth following
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These are links from my Twitter Feed from today*.
- Childcare Isn’t Work According to TANF & Mitt Romney “And then the gov’t cut back on subsidizing low income childcare”
- “Obese people with healthy habits had roughly the same risks as thinner people of dying young.” (via @meredithea and @KateHarding)
- Nationally, black women make 61 cents for every $1 white men make. In DC, it’s 51 cents. (via @ElaheIzadi)
- 17yr old alleged rape victim is jailed to ensure her testimony against a serial rapist. (via many, many people)
- The Board Chair of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, writes in to @DCExaminer about Sen. Phil Puckett’s comments on his forced ultrasound vote (3rd letter)
- Female veterans kicked out of military, diagnosed with mental disorders after reporting sexual assault
- House GOP would rather take away food stamps from hungry kids than raise capital gains tax? (via @DriveSwift)
- From a conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Amanda Marcotte:
- When He Hit Me
- What a successful program! Sign collection has been increased from 1800 signs per quarter to 300 signs per quarter!! (via Loudoun Insider at @TooConservative)
- McDonnell’s Forced Ultrasound Bill Awakens a Sleeping Giant — Pro-Choice Virginians — And They Are Going to the Polls
Ta-Nehisi said: “Teen pregnancy among blacks at historic low. It doesn’t fit into the pathology narrative but it needs to be said”.
and Amanda responded: Guttmacher crunched the numbers and found the drop was due to improved contraception use. Which makes perfect sense…Abortion isn’t much of a factor, since teens choose it a little less than slightly older women
*I may spend a smidge too much time on Twitter.
LCGRC item 12: Privatization and outsourcing of county functions
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Loudoun’s 2013 budget proposal cuts a minuscule fifteen thousand dollar grant to Friends of Loudoun Mental Health, a public private partnership that has been operating since 1955. The money provides temporary housing to people suffering from mental illness as they transition back into the community. Through Friends extensive volunteer network the housing cost is only $400/month per person. If the person were hospitalized, the cost would be $19,000/month.
This is disturbing because a $15K line item in a $1.8B budget is a teeny-weeny target. How did the budget cutters find and eliminate this item? It seems ideological. The cutter must have been thinking
“Mental illness, bah!, it’s all in their head. Tell them to get over it and give that $15K back to the hard working taxpayers.”
This is the behavior of a hack who cuts things out because he doesn’t know what they do and is too prideful, lazy and self-important to find out. Was there no due-diligence? This decision is an attack on a vulnerable population and a well-respected public/private partnership that provides needed services at little cost to taxpayers.
The taking reforming isn’t limited to small line items. The county tried to take $25.4M in school bus driver benefits but the cut met with resistance from the 3000 bus drivers who depend on those benefits. Nonetheless, the first commenter on the Loudoun Times Mirror revealed the ideology of the cutters.
Sorry bus drivers, but no part time employees I know get ANY benefits! Go ahead, walk out of your cushy jobs. They will be filled by those wanting any sort of jobs, benefits or not. This is like the Verizon crybabies who didn’t realize how good they had it. Get in your buses, do your job, and. .no, unless you work full time, YOU GET NO BENEFITS, just like the rest of us who work for private businesses. Taxes are strangling me, enough of this nonsense!
Does a school bus driver have a “cushy job”? I never thought so, and for now, the school board did not think so either. The benefits are funded in 2013, but the battle is not over. The 2012 sweep has a red pen and a mission, and they’ll pressurize labor and human services across the board to see what they can break, or erase, entirely.
At the February 7, Reform Commission meeting, the commissioners scrutinized a list of thirty-four items that strangely failed to appear on the RC web site. Here is item #12 (emphasis mine).
12. Privatization and outsourcing of county functions
Assess current use of contract services as well as where this could be expanded cost-effectively.
Assess areas where government could remove itself and permit the function to be performed by the private sector, whether under contract or on its own.
Areas might include school buses and drivers, school food services and cafeteria employees, janitorial services, and solid waste management; assess FirstGroup America and others that could provide school bus drivers.
FirstGroup is a UK-based multinational corporation. Their web site elicited a visceral negative reaction. I’m sorry. I can’t verbalize the reaction with much more than “Ick!“. Aren’t we smart enough to manage our own bus drivers. I don’t see what outsourcing bus drivers does except to wash our hands of the labor relations “problem” and delegate it to a faceless multi-national.
Supervisor Geary Higgins (R-Catoctin)
But maybe that’s the intent. This is purely conjecture, but I believe the source of this proposal is Geary Higgins VP of Labor Relations for the National Electrical Contractors Association NECA. In that capacity, Higgins job duties include “establishing, maintaining, and repairing the relationships with all levels of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).”
In English, it means that NECA members negotiate tough agreements with the union, or with electricians employed by “open shops”. After a tough negotiation, or the award of a non-union contract, Geary manages the broken relationship with the IBEW, perhaps even extending “an offer they can’t refuse.“. NECA speak is Orwellian. For example, here is a portion of an abstract from a study of union versus non-union shops.
“This study determined that the convoluted expectations and regulations of the labor union are an added cost without providing any added value to the stakeholders. On the other hand, the open shop contractor enjoys a higher level of freedom and therefore lower cost.“
I’ve sometimes wondered what that abstract term “freedom” meant in some contexts. Now I know. It’s the freedom to screw if you’re management or get screwed if you’re labor.
Holiday display solution moves forward
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According to the Leesburg Today, the Finance, Government Services and Operations Committee is recommending that the Courthouse Grounds Facility Committee “be directed to work up a plan for seasonal display sponsored by the county government” that would replace the increasingly contentious “limited public forum” policy in place for the past three years.
The solution is essentially identical to what was proposed by former Supervisor Miller at the end of last year, but was not adopted because the display spaces for that year had already been assigned, and in some cases, displays already erected.
Supervisor Shawn Williams (R-Broad Run), an attorney, noted that there are two different Supreme Court cases that show there is legal precedent for such a step.
“Essentially what they decided to do in those cases was you could put up a secular display, a Christmas tree, fine…Things that weren’t of an innately religious value,” he said, noting there also was a case of a nativity scene put on a courthouse’s steps, and that the court ruled that was going to far. “The tough work will be in deciding what the government-sponsored seasonal display is. I think we do have some good guidance from two Supreme Court cases. If we put out a secular display, we should be fine.” [My emphasis]
Ken Reid decides to invite lawsuits
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Posted on his Facebook page:
The Board of Supervisors last night unanimously adopted my amendment to temporarily ban those ugly atheist billboards on the Courthouse lawn (and other ‘unattended displays’ ) until the Supervisors issue a new policy on religious and other holiday displays. This is not a ban on the creche of Christmas tree, as the Board also issued a request that its Finance Committee (on which I serve) devise a new policy to allow government sponsored holiday displays, including the nativity scene and Christmas tree — but NO private displays, which would allow for things like the skeleton Santa nailed to a cross. It is my hope the full Board will adopt a new policy by spring.
Mr. Reid had previously stated his support (along with Scott York) for the constitutionally permissible policy of a single, county-sponsored Christmas tree. This is a solution that almost everyone could support, including the Atheist groups. The reason is that a Christmas tree has been found by courts to have a legitimate secular purpose related to the federal holiday, and is not a religious symbol. It could be a joyful community focus for the holiday season, and would eliminate both the antagonism associated with the limited public forum and the risk of lawsuits.
I gave Mr. Reid the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t express my suspicion that he would do exactly what he is now doing. I sincerely hoped that I was wrong. I defended him publicly for supporting a sensible solution, in spite of his sometimes inflammatory rhetoric in doing so. I can’t say I told you so this time, because I refrained from telling you.
What Mr. Reid is now telling us is that he doesn’t want a solution, he wants a lawsuit. It’s unfortunate and disappointing.
Road spam and special rights: Two great tastes that taste great together?
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Now this is really getting interesting. The new Board of Supervisors is apparently considering a motion to kill the volunteer illegal sign removal program, and it is not going over well with LI. I happen to agree; the program seems like a perfectly sensible way of dealing with the vexing problem of road spam.
“So in keeping with the overriding theme of this Board, paybacks, one of their first acts will be to kill this program as payback to those who helped fund their campaigns – the builders and developers and David Ramadan, and Godfather Dick Black as well. Here is the link to the staff report for this item, pay special attention to the motions at the end. They’re not doing this to keep things the way they are. This program costs Loudoun very little in minimal staff oversight, and provides its citizens with a great service – keeping our roadways safe and free of trash. But does that matter to this Board? Apparently not – this program ticks off their masters, so it must be done away with.”
Conduct unbecoming
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See if you can follow the logical arc here:
Newly elected supervisor Janet Clarke makes an embarrassing gaffe right out of the gate, getting her board-mates to “fire” the Blue Ridge representative on the Economic Development Commission (only to find that, since his term isn’t actually up until the end of the year, the board action is null and void. Awkward.)
Why the retribution? Because of (in the words of Leesburg Today, not Clarke) “his public criticism of the Purcellville Town Council over its efforts to build the final segment of the town’s Southern Collector Road through a portion of Crooked Run Orchard.”
The truth is that EDC member Steve Mackey has the integrity to stand up for the David in this conflict, against the Goliath that is Clarke’s Purcellville Town Council. He shares what happened when he tried to reach out to then-candidate Clarke here, and Crooked Run Orchard owner Uta Brown explains what the Town is doing to them and other small businesses here. It’s pretty obvious that this is unethical political payback of exactly the sort a code of ethics is meant to address.
James A. Bacon on the Era of Foreclosed Possibilities
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If there is one single message to convey to our new local government representatives it’s that the cost to refactor our land use to; 1) enable us to live within our means and 2) sustain our quality of life (gross national happiness) will be huge. Furthermore, we’re late to the starting gate and we’re running out of time.
I’d love to see the BoS task the staff to develop an online Gross Local Happiness survey and to provide a database front-end and download site for reviewing the results. I’m sure there are many local statisticians who’d love to review the data. Maybe the BoS can work with the school system to survey all high-school seniors to insure that all classes income-levels are surveyed. The survey must include the address of the respondent, the year the home was built, and one or more tags that describe the home type.
By the way, this piece was inspired by James A. Bacon’s, The Era of Foreclosed Possibilities. Bacon credits the Piedmont Environmental Council for sponsoring his work. No wonder the PEC is so hated. The PEC works in a reality-based world and they are guided by common sense.