Author Archives: Pariahdog

Show me your public comment

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[promoted by Liz]

It’s nearly March and I haven’t spoken to the new BoS.  Public speaking used to be easy.  Any time I wanted to talk, I’d leave work, show up, and speak.  Now it’s not so easy.  For the first comment, I followed my usual schedule and arrived as the last speaker finished.  Chairman York gaveled the meeting and I was deflated.  The second time, I landed at a public hearing, not a public comment, and the next time, and the next… the comment period was too early to even try.

But I’m determined.  I signed up to speak twice this week.  The new speaking sign-up process is interesting.  I used to call in and say, “I’m going to talk about the budget” and the aide would say ok.

Here’s what I experienced.

“Hi, I’d like to sign up to speak at the budget hearing”

“What would you like to speak about”

“The budget”

“The budget?  Nothing more specific”

“It’s a budget hearing.  I’d like to speak about the budget”

“So I should put you down for ‘budget, general?'”

“Yes, ‘budget, general’.  I’d also like to speak to the Reform Commission tomorrow”

“I’ll transfer you.”

The aide transferred me to Ilene Mallory.

I’d like to sign up for public comment.

What would you like to talk about?

The Reform Commission.  It’s a Reform Commission public hearing.

Do you have anything specific you’d like to address.

Yes, I’d like to address the Reform Commission.

You will have three minutes.

Great! thank you.

Both aides asked me to explain myself, and this is coming from a BoS that is “reforming government” to make sure that their clients don’t have to jump through hoops.  I’d like to know who their clients are, because they sure are not me.  Why do we have to show our public comment to the aides?  They are counting.  That’s why.

 

 

 

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.

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.

Eugene Delgaudio fails the Clarke test #0001

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[Promoted by Liz]

In just two days, Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) failed “to have a positive approach with the community” (the Clarke test).  He must resign.  He must resign from his day job or from his Supervisor position.  The two are incompatible.  As Clarke puts it “I don’t think that people who hold themselves contrary to that position should be allowed to serve“.  We agree.  Now show us that you mean it.

Politico’s Dylan Byers reports that Supervisor Delgaudio, President, Public Advocate of the U.S. used the Weekly Standard’s marketing arm to issue a fundraising email warning that:

“radical homosexuals” were “infiltrating the United States Congress.”

“Their ultimate dream is to create a new America based on sexual promiscuity in which the values you and I cherish are long forgotten,”

The publisher of the Weekly Standard, Terry Eastland explained that the Standard’s “vetting process broke down“.  The Human Rights Campaign asked editor William Kristol to condemn the email and Delgaudio is using the HRC exposure to raise more money.  The Public Advocate web site reads:

“Giant Homosexual Assault On Public Advocate Launches — David Vs. Goliath!”

And round and round we go, only this time Delgaudio plays the role of both the corrupt politician and his own deflector/defender.
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The Janet Clarke litmus test

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[Promoted by Liz]

Janet Clarke, Vice Chairman (R-Blue Ridge)

Loudoun’s 2011 BoS held its first meeting on Tuesday Jan 3, 2012 and Janet Clarke (R – Blue Ridge), the Vice Chairman graciously handed the public a litmus test to be  applied over the course of the board’s tenure. The Leesburg Today reports that Supervisor Clarke blocked the reappointment of Stephen Mackey, owner of Notaviva Vineyards to the Economic Development Council. Her rationale was:

“We want to have a positive approach with the community, with the towns, with the businesses,” she said. “I don’t think that people who hold themselves contrary to that position should be allowed to serve.”

Geary Higgins, Ken Reid, Eugene Delgaudio and Shawn Williams voted with Clarke. Scott York, Ralph Buona, Matt Letourneau and Suzanne Volpe abstained. Clarke was upset by Mackey’s “heated exchange” with the Purcellville Town Council. Mackey blogged about the issue.

 

Stephen Mackey interviews Sam Brown after land was siezed

July 11, 2011

Mayor Lazaro, Purcellville Town Council Members:

I am writing to inform you of our alliance with Sam and Uta Brown, owners of Crooked Run Orchard in their efforts to preserve their farm.

For some time now, we have followed with mounting disappointment and ire the news reports of their ongoing battle with the Town of Purcellville. Perhaps, like many others in the community, we held high hopes the issue would somehow “sort itself out” and that the Browns would prevail in their campaign. And perhaps, like many others in the community, we also held high hopes that their rights as citizens, rural business owners, and landowners would be preserved.

We reacted with shock as we learned of the Town’s aggressive tactics in removing the injunction preventing the seizure of the Brown’s property, and your subsequent acquisition of their land. In our opinion, you have violated a sacred American right, and we find it unconscionable that the Town of Purcellville has engaged in such actions.

Picking blackberries at Crooked Run Orchard

Given the negative actions of the town – bisecting a thriving farm with a road – most would see Mackey’s response as a positive approach. But we are dealing with elite Loudoun Republicans who have consistently aligned themselves with so-called “property rights” activists, activists who, aside from Joe Lafiandra, ignored, and perhaps even celebrated the Purcellville land grab.

Let’s add some perspective.  Judeo-Christian scripture confirms, over and over, that opposition to injustice and hypocrisy is positive. But let’s turn the other cheek and give Ms Clarke her litmus test. Like Ms Clarke, we’ll ignore Mackey’s credentials; Board of the Virginia Wine Council, President of the Loudoun Wineries Association, Co-Founder, CEO and President of Notaviva Vinyards and focus on the one item she deems important. For the next four years, we expect a “positive approach with the community” from all members of our local government and their appointees. If there is a deviation, the guilty party should not be “allowed to serve“. If you witness such a deviation, post a comment and be sure to let Janet Clarke know.

Give DAAR a second chance

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[Because it needed to be said.. -Epl.]

I doubt that the general membership of the Dulles Area Association of Realtors (DAAR) wants to be associated with the model pictured below.

The RW triangle

How corrupt politicians stay in office

The illustration shows one way that corrupt politicians continue to win elections. They start by repeating outrageous lies about concerned citizens; for example, that anyone who wants to protect the quality of water in our creeks and streams is a “socialist” or “radical environmentalist” attempting a “land grab.” Along the way, the corrupt politician receives campaign contributions from financial interests who profit by building large, high-end homes on top of limestone karst, or in riparian buffer zones. Their profit is realized through their disregard for the environment, their own clients (homebuyers), and the common good.

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Occupy Chanukah and Christmas

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The actual meaning of Chanukah and Christmas has taken a back seat to the culture war thanks to vandals and government authorities who justify their behavior.  Lest we forget the actual meaning of the holidays, Tikkun’s Rabbi Lerner reminds us of their scriptural roots of the traditions.

Chanukah was the first recorded national liberation struggle against Greek imperialism, and Christmas celebrates the birth of a hoped-for messiah to free the Jewish people from Roman imperialism.

The symbolism of a homeless couple giving birth in a manger surrounded by animals because the more comfortable people have not been able to make room for them inside a roofed home is akin to the symbolism of the candles lit on Chanukah to celebrate the victory of the powerless over the powerful: both offer a powerful reminder that both Judaism born of slaves in Egypt and Christianity born of a movement of the poor and powerless were in their times the “Occupy” movement that confronted the powerful and those who served them.

I’d add that Chanukah is not a religious holiday.  It is a secular celebration of a military victory.  God did not speak to the Maccabees as he spoke to Moses and the prophets.  The Book of Maccabee is not a part of the Torah or the Old Testament, but I digress.  Rabbi Lerner laments the sins of modern-day religious authorities.

Major forces in the Christian world have sided with the war-makers, ultra-nationalists, and the blame-poverty-on-the-poor cheerleaders for vast inequalities and protection of the rich against the needs of the rest. Jews, while retaining their commitment to domestic liberalism, have become tone-deaf to the cries of the oppressed in Palestine…

One of the reflections of the way both religions have lost their ethical core is that the vast majority of people in both religious worlds have allowed their winter holidays to be turned into orgies of consumerism.

He also provides hope and ethical guidance as any good rabbi would.

The good news is that a counter-movement of spiritual progressives has emerged in the past few decades—spiritual progressives who are willing to challenge the distortions in their own religious communities while simultaneously doing battle with the institutions and practices of the wealthy and powerful. Spiritual progressives recognize that even those who appear most insensitive to the needs of the poor and powerless, as well as most committed to war and to policies that benefit the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent, are themselves often quite decent people in their private lives who have simply accepted the fundamental structures of capitalist society as immutable, and have therefore decided that in an oppressive society they’d rather be on top than on bottom. For us, the struggle is not simply about winning specific battles that slightly limit the ability of the powerful to exploit the powerless—it is a battle to transform the fundamentals of this society, to create the kind of rebirth of goodness symbolized by Chanukah and by the birth of Jesus.

An in the midst of this, it’s remarkable that the Atheists who have occupied the courthouse square are truly square with Lerner’s message.  All people of faith, or not faith at all should support their occupation and their powerful message that no single set of religious beliefs is entitled to exclusive domination of the public commons.  Once we’ve cleared that up, we can move on to the normal struggles against militarism, greed, conspicuous consumerism and the positive transformation of the fundamentals of this society.

Citizen Oversight Panel

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The newly-elected BoS was sworn into office on Friday night at an apparently pretty posh affair paid for by Suzanne Volpe (R – Algonkian) with unspent campaign funds.  The celebration was a break from the traditional ceremony held at the Government center but not from what I observe as a culture of triumphalism.  The newspapers are reporting that this new BoS has been very busy.  Most alarming was a Leesburg Today report that:

The board’s first meeting Tuesday, Jan. 2, will include the votes on the vice chairmanship and the committee assignments as usual, but the board also will follow through on the formation of the government reform commission. Supervisors said the appointment of members to that group would take place at its first meeting.

This action seems a bit hasty doesn’t it?  The BoS hasn’t even met.  They are actively developing a strategy to court new businesses but haven’t been outspoken about relationships with ordinary citizens.  In its “Choose Wisely” editorial, the Leesburg Today offers good advice regarding the government reform panel:

The work of the panel will only be successful if the right people are tapped to serve. This isn’t the place for political paybacks, partisan hacks or self-serving opportunists. This is an opportunity to get some of the county’s brightest people-students of government, industry experts and finance gurus-around the same table to examine the operations of Loudoun County government in detail, and identify ways to make it function better.

This is a good opportunity to ask the citizens of the county – not politically active people the supervisors already know – to step forward.  The least they can do is to try to appear to be free from the influence of “partisan hacks and self-serving opportunists“.

The OpenBand law suit doesn’t help their image.  The article reports that five of the Supervisors received large contributions from Bill Dean (OpenBand’s owner) and MC Dean (OpenBand Media’s parent company).  The law suit won’t be served if the BoS agrees to renew the cable franchise agreement which guarantees OpenBand (according to my hasty calculations) $400K/month in revenue.  This isn’t a bad return for $35K in campaign donations.  Will the recipients of campaign contributions recuse themselves from the franchise agreement vote?

We also have the Loudoun Delegation meeting with a highly anti-environmental Chamber of Commerce.   It appears that road building and opposition to health care reform top their priorities.

All this activity should raise a red flag.  The representatives are going to move fast to favor more of the same development and economic “growth” and political hackery.   Their momentum is high and they are taking advantage of the holiday season to sprint ahead of citizen oversight before they “officially” take office.  It’s imperative that we form a Citizen Oversight Panel (COP) as quickly as possible.  More to follow.

Ken Reid justifies mob rule

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Update: After consultation with the author, I’ve changed the headline to more accurately reflect what happened here. Is the meaning different in this context? No. By telling the public that it was the lawful display, and not the unlawful vandalism of it, that “crossed the line,” Ken Reid gave his tacit endorsement to anyone who is offended by a future display to take the law into their own hands. Knowing that other displays would be going up in the near future, and knowing that angry citizens have already made their feelings about those displays known, his statement ‘calls for’ mob rule in all but the most narrow, legalistic sense. However, the term justified makes the same point without being needlessly hyperbolic. -Epl

If Supervisor elect Ken Reid’s comments to Darcy Spencer of NBC 4 portend anything, it’s that the rule of law is dead:

 

View more videos at: http://nbcwashington.com.

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Eugene Delgaudio’s pants are on fire, again

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[Promoted by Epluribusunum. Although surely our readers do not need that much help.]

WMAL reports on this year’s Courthouse Christmas controversy.  Here is the quote from Supervisor Delgaudio and the facts as reported by WMAL.  Can you spot the lie?  If not, I’ve bolded it.

“This is the same location that for three years running, crowds of people have shown up to protest the elimination or the barring, outright barring, of a nativity scene.  Why are we revisiting this again?” Delgaudio said.

This year’s accepted applications, in order, include:

– The Welsh family nativity scene