Tag Archives: Local elections

Post modem post election

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electionSigns2015Every election has its themes and forces that shape its outcome – that is – who will govern and implement what policies?

While there were a series of familiar campaign issues in this last election, there was an underlying concern about the character of our Loudoun County government.

We had a crowded field of experienced and inexperienced candidates offering themselves for public service.

Experienced hands enjoyed some special advantages, name recognition of course, but also incumbency, and those solidly gerrymandered election districts strewn across the Commonwealth’s electoral maps.

The greatest and most telling changes to the County’s character came, however, in several key contests for the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

Eugene Delgaudio, the orange-hatted incumbent Sterling Supervisor, has been attacked for years for his allegedly questionable ethical and discriminatory antics on and off the Board of Supervisors. To its credit, the Board itself recoiled from Mr. Delgaudio’s misconduct, citing a scathing special grand jury report to do so. The Republican Party members took the Republican Board to task for its modest sanctions against Mr. Delgaudio, signaling a split in the party that proved deeper than may have been first understood.

Mr. Delgaudio’s conduct prompted a bitter and abiding distaste more generally for the Board’s ethical ambiguities.

There was legitimate unease with the Board’s cronies in construction and development who contributed heavily to Board members. Continue reading →

To vote or not to vote

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voteThis year we have we have many elective posts in Loudoun County that will be filled with candidates in opposition to each other for the countywide board of supervisors, for constitutional offices, for the school board, for the soil and water board, and for the general assembly.

These offices generally and specifically determine policy that intimately affects the lives of each and every person living in the County.

But many won’t vote.

Indeed, it is highly likely that non-voters will determine the election by failing to vote; the number of non-voters is so large, it’s often referred to as the party of non-voters.

One observer noted that maybe what we are losing among the non-voters are a disproportionate number of the uninformed and uneducated who wouldn’t vote intelligently anyhow.

That may sound harsh but there is data that those with more schooling and more income are much more likely to vote in any election.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “A nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be.” Continue reading →

Trick or Treat – another election

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Halloween_Trick_or_TreatWe Irish know in our genetic sinews, no scholarship need be considered, that Halloween, or all Hallows’ Eve, springs from the medieval Gaelic Samhain, marking the end of harvest and the beginning of the darker half of the year.

It is little wonder then that we have most of our elections as the natural light dims and darkness grows.

In one tradition of All Hallows’ Eve, souls wander the earth until this evening for their one last chance to gain vengeance.

This election season we have the feeling our candidates are making the holy day’s danse macabre their inspiring motivator, calculating a revenge comprised of how they may get theirs — at our expense.

The right to vote that we “enjoy” is a forced choice made before the primary or caucus is held, the product of back room paper and power shuffling that pre-selected whom we may consider.

The districts themselves are drawn not rationally but by the force of numbers in the line-drawing state legislature with one clear purpose – to pre-determine each election’s outcome.

Our voting discretion is “informed” by tall yarns, name calling and distracting issues that make the blood boil.

One clamoring voice outshouts another with high cost hard copy and electronic propaganda that muddle or drown out any contrary fact or opinion.

The election “trick” is the threat of how bad it will be if you don’t choose the imperious “me.”

Continue reading →

Sterling hate descends on Purcellville (Updated)

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Warner Workman stands in front of a Telos sign at the Sterling Teen Job Fair 2013

Warner Workman stands in front of a Telos sign at the Sterling Teen Job Fair 2013

Reveling in the unapologetic hate of Supervisor Delgaudio’s inner circle, supporter Warner Workman is working Purcellville social media for the LaRock Campaign. LaRock is a close confidant of Delgaudio. Here’s Workman’s latest comment on the Gazette Statement on LaRock Campaign Claims article, emphasis mine.

I got plenty of time with the obummer and socialist slimdown…

The problem with healthcare is government involvement. There was never a healthcare problem, just a government involvement problem. It is much worse now…part-time employment, mass cancellation notices…all so little Mary can get laid and not pregnant….and if she does…we’ll pay for the abortion as well.

The solution is, as it always should be, is free market solutions…not goose-stepping socialist mandates.

Posted by Warner Workman | October 25, 2013, 7:57 pm

[Update] Conservative activist and former Reform Commissioner Barbara Munsey commented that Mr. Workman resides in Lovettsville. So why does he spend so much time and energy working for Supervisor Delgaudio?

Workman’s LinkedIn page confirms a Lovettsville, VA residence and a position of “Senior Program Manager–Senior Systems Engineer–Electrical Engineer at Central Intelligence Agency”, currently working for beltway bandit ETG. His prior job was in the CIA’s Directorate of Administration.

Initially, I thought his online comment demonstrated he’s mentally challenged. I was wrong. There’s no excuse. He’s seething with hate, and the politicians he supports appear to approve of his behavior.

“God” is alive! His office is in the NVTA

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[Update 2013-09-14 – Edited for spelling, grammar and clarity]

The Leesburg Town Council apparently stepped out of line by considering opposition to the Tri-County Parkway, a North-South corridor connecting I-95, Manassas, and Route 7 via Route 659.

Loudoun BoS Chairman, Scott York asked his aide, Robin Bartok to read a letter to the Town council at their June 25 meeting. The Washington post reports that Bartok read:

“The chairman asked me to ask you: Do you support roads? And that’s a really important question,” she said to the council members. “Because if you oppose this road, it appears that you don’t support roads.”

And if the council opposed the road, she warned, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority would “keep that in mind” when determining how to allocate funds from the landmark transportation funding bill passed by the General Assembly this year.

York is on the board of the NVTA. Continue reading →

“Not a peep on Loudoun Progress” (Edited to add what I said on DBQ)

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Well, that’s because I’m making noise at doorbellqueen.com. I’ll post some thoughts here later, but the thoughts I’m expressing at the moment are not appropriate for this space.

Earlier this year I resigned from the LCDC because it was the right thing to do. I knew I would not be supporting Andrea McGimsey for re-election and Party politics being an all-or-nothing proposition, I knew I must step away.

Shortly before my resignation and for the months thereafter I sat saddened as the current LCDC leadership often paid more attention to petty personal squabbles then they did their candidates for local office. Fundraising was non-existent. They failed to take advantage of the Loudoun Republicans making international news with their Obama Zombie screw up. They sat quiet as Republican Supervisors openly accepted contributions from corporations with business before the board. They felt it was more important to punish dissenters than to fight for a common cause. And, of course, the redistricting debacle.

The LCDC is so fractured that they couldn’t agree on one single location to have a watch party. Each faction had their own gathering: one in Leesburg; one in Cascades; one in Sterling.

Loudoun County being what it is, Republicans would probably have won pretty big this year anyway. But it is due to the leadership of the LCDC that the Republicans won all but two and a possible third. The LCDC leadership forgot what its mission is: which is simply to elect Democrats.

In May, I resigned from the LCDC because I should have. After the results yesterday, I hope Mike Turner, Ellen Heald, Bob Moses, Denis Gordon, Evan MacBeth and Jenniffer Denegris-Kalinowski do the right thing too. It’s time for them to resign.

I will not be rejoining the LCDC, since it’s pretty obvious that my focus and that of the committee often diverge. But I hope that whoever steps up to take the reins will be someone who can woo back some of the good people lost during the past two years and who will make the LCDC into an organization even people on the outside can view as energetic and effective.

A “new, dark legacy” that should be decisively rejected

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The following letter is online at Leesburg Today. It presents even more troubling information about the threatening political climate that came spectacularly into public view with the exposure of two violent images sent by Loudoun Republican leaders.

This is the first I’ve heard about the threatening phone calls to League of Women Voters members, or the harassment of the Electoral Board.

Where are our investigative reporters?

Like Sarah Palin’s bull’s eye on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s congressional district, the Loudoun County Republican Committee’s image of President Barak Obama with a bullet hole in his head adds to the violent imagery that has increasingly taken over public discourse in this nation.

This is not a single, anomalous event in recent Loudoun politics. A significant factor behind the Loudoun League of Women Voters cancellation of a candidate forum for this election was threats made to LLWV members by phone at their homes by advocates of concealed weapons, and the League’s concern about the cost and adequacy of security for what has been a regular voter education event.

Sterling District Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio’s bloody handprint in literature denouncing homosexuality is another item to add to the pile.

Continue reading →

One more problematic image: The case of Ting-Yi Oei

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With all the focus on images lately – from witlessly offensive to intentionally menacing to so hilariously unexamined that the possibility of sabotage has been raised – it’s no wonder that Governor McDonnell didn’t stay longer for a photo op with Loudoun Republicans.

There’s another image for voters to keep in mind. It’s an image that a man had cause to upload to his phone one day in the course of doing his job – and he paid dearly for it, due to an inexplicable series of actions taken by Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman.

TOLD THAT a judge was dismissing all charges against him, Virginia educator Ting-Yi Oei had just one thought: “Hallelujah.” Given his nightmarish prosecution on child pornography charges, it was an understandable, even restrained, reaction. What’s not understandable is why criminal charges were ever brought against an unassuming assistant high school principal who was just trying to do his job. Loudoun County residents are right to wonder about the unsettling circumstances of this case and to demand better answers.

–A Nightmare in Loudoun; Why was a respected educator subjected to baseless child pornography charges? Washington Post, April 30, 2009.

Continue reading →

Okay, so Plowman dropped the charges

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That doesn’t change the fact that you should still write in Joy Maloney for Broad Run School Board.

My issues with Mr. Kuester’s candidacy remain the same, I feel that people on the school board should believe in the value of public education, and should be fiscally responsible. Mr. Kuesters fails both those tests.

Mr. Kuesters sends his school-age children to private religious school. That’s his right, obviously. But I think someone who wants to be in charge of our public schools, who has school-age children, should be invested enough in the schools to have his children attend them.

The School Board has fiscal oversight over the schools budget. Mr. Kuesters filed bankruptcy last year and is in more financial hot-water this year with his HOAs.

And then there is the arrest. I have volunteered with LAWS, the Loudoun Abused Women’s Shelter, and I am aware of how common it is for abused spouses to withdraw complaints against their abusers. Mr. Kuesters may or may not have abused his wife, but whatever happened, it’s clear that he has personal issues that are too complex to be completely dealt with before swearing in on January 1.

Meanwhile, Joy Maloney has a daughter at Eagle Ridge, her family is on a good solid financial footing, and she’s not facing family turmoil. PLUS, she has a Masters in Educational Leadership and a Bachelors in Secondary Education. She taught high school for 5 years, and she works in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) field.

Write in Joy Maloney for Broad Run School Board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Crossposted at Doorbell Queen)

Is this acceptable to you, LTM?

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A second update (the first one appears at the bottom of the post): This is the original image that was photoshopped by Loudoun Republican Eugene Delgaudio to turn the blood “rainbow,” which he then lied about to the Loudoun Times-Mirror. This was found by a commenter via google using the search terms “blood door.”

Image included in the header of an October 25 fundraising letter sent by Eugene Delgaudio

Editor: Please direct the following to all individuals with input into political endorsements at the Loudoun Times-Mirror.

Is this what the Loudoun Times-Mirror editorial staff had in mind when you said of Eugene Delgaudio “his view on social issues is unsettlingly conservative and his antics distracting”? The attached image of the GLBT rainbow symbol in the shape of a pool of blood, complete with a gruesome bloody handprint, was sent to the presumed supporters of an elected official to whom you just gave your endorsement for reelection. While it could be described as unsettling, especially if one has been witness to such a crime scene, I don’t think that “conservative,” “distracting” or “antics” would apply.

Continue reading →