April 2011

The new State Senate district maps appear to be on their way to being approved by Governor McDonnell.  I was told by a very good source tonight that John Stirrup is now in the newly formed 13th Senate District (this website always has troubles, but here’s a link to the state mapping), which will include much of northwestern, central, and southeastern Loudoun County along with a good portion of northern Prince William County.  This is the general area Dick Black had planned to parachute into to try to get himself elected to the State Senate, that includes PWC right wingnut counterpart Bob FitzSimmonds.

This newly drawn district also includes the home of PWC Supervisor John Stirrup, and he supposedly is all set to get into the race.  Stirrup has a great reputation and will connect very well with those in the Loudoun County portions of this district, besides having a great base of support in PWC.  Stirrup is a great guy and a non-abrasive conservative who could actually get things done in Richmond for his constituents, while Black or FitzSimmonds would be sideshow distractions.  Should Stirrup do this he becomes the immediate strong favorite in this race.  Please do it!

Suzanne Volpe has finally put up a website, which is pretty bare bones – no specifics whatsoever.  As bad of a candidate that I think she’ll be, it looks like she’ll be unopposed for the LCRC Algonkian Supervisor nomination.  A couple of names were floated at one time, but let’s face it, with the Black Brigade in ascendency again at the helm of the LCRC, and it being centered in that district, no one in their right mind would challenge BB Queen Volpe for the nomination.  It’s a losing proposition.

No one has come forth for the Dems yet, and their bench there is razor thin.  School Board Chairman John Stevens was rumored to be considering it, but he seems to have his hands full with “his” Educate Loudoun PAC with  John Wood.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Wood convinced Stevens to stay out of the Supervisor race since he is backing a number of Republicans this year and having Stevens remain as School Board Chairman suits the PAC. 

 Interestingly enough, Suzanne Volpe gave $1,000 to Ralph Buona’s (Woods’ VP at Telos) campaign, who hardly needed the cash as the biggest supervisor fundraiser this past quarter.  Her fellow social warrior Eugene Delgaudio only got $250 from her, with no other local donations.  I didn’t realize Volpe had so much cash to give out this year, you would think she would be saving it for her own campaign.  The big donation to Buona is odd.

Awesome.

I am in a rush to get out the door, but need to put up a post about this since the Wheatland comment thread below keeps getting sidetracked on the proposed lease deal that LCPS is working on for the building currently leased by Telos, led by John Wood.  The same John Wood who employs Robert DuPree, School Board king of the LCPS land deals, sits on the SB-BOS Joint Committee on schools, heads a new education PAC, and is making huge political waves in the county.

Loudoun Conservative just made an excellent comment below that I am attaching to this post:

The Telos deal is 15 years into the lease. They have a 20 year lease that expires in 2016. They are trying to sell their lease off to the School Board! If the lease is above market, then why is the school board even negotiating with them when there is 15 percent vacancy in the county. There should be alot of office buildings they can look at to put the Monroe Technology Center into. This is a stinky deal of one shrewd businessman with the knowledge of the real estate market taking advantage of ignorant public figures. The fact that they are ignorant is exactly why they shouldn’t be holding these offices. That’s our money, our tax money, and they have a responsibility to manage it wisely and prudently. THEY AREN’T! Somehow the sale of the building is also tied into this stinky deal. Perhaps the owner who is out of New York City cannot refinance right now so they are trying to sell to someone who can. This doesn’t excuse anyone from trying to PAWN off the building at a higher than market rate. Of course, we don’t know all of the details yet, but intelligence says that this pawning at a higher than market rate is exactly what they are attempting to do. By the way, the owner will not let them out of a lease unless a replacement tenant is found at an equal or higher market rate than they are currently getting. This is likely the reason the School Board is the ONLY one who would ever consider such a BAD deal.

UPDATE:  The Telos building lease deal is discussed in a Leesburg Today story on the Educate Loudoun PAC.

This from a Dick Black Facebook post:

 ”If you put $10,000 in the bank last November, it’s worth just $9,000 today. Isn’t Ben Bernanke the greatest? It’s called Zimbabwe-nomics. Just print all the cash you need. Liberals are so smart.”

 Huh?  The inflation rate is nominal (but, of course, so are the interest rates), so I just don’t get what the heck he’s trying to say, especially since the term “Zimbabwe-nomics” is not used, well, anywhere.  Guess I’m not as smart as the liberals he references.

UPDATE:  Now that I’ve had some time to do some additional research on Mr. Black’s claim,  it appears that it’s not just fuzzy math – it’s a complete fabrication.  The 20% inflation rate simply doesn’t exist, obviously, and, furthermore, there’s no reference to numbers like that  anywhere.

Brings to mind a recent post by Quotable Joe on The Danger of Uncritical Thinking.

Well at least it’s finally over.  However, there were last minute flips by Burton and Delgaudio just to make it more interesting and terrifying.  Here are links for the Leesburg Today and LTM stories with some juicy quotes.  We’re stuck with this mess for the next ten years now.  Yipee.

UPDATE:  More crazy potential discussed by Stevens Miller at his blog.

Amazing.  I was just forwarded this email, which certainly sounds realistic.  Stevens Miller actually voted against going into closed session to discuss this and was probably dead set against this.  Apparently Susan Buckley was absent and will be the swing vote.  It’s hard to believe we’re back at this point after what went down with this purchase a year ago.

“Folks

I have excellent intelligence that the BOS voted on whether to buy the 36 acres of Cangiano property last week, and the vote was 4-4. They will take another vote on Tuesday May 3^rd. I don’t know who voted which way beyond a pretty good sense that Burton was against the purchase.”

As troubled as the Los Angeles Dodgers are with MLB having taken over the team, things aren’t looking much better for our local team.

The Loudoun Hounds, who originally promised to throw out the first pitch in May 2011, now say it won’t happen until the 2012 season.  However, since construction apparently has not yet even begun on the stadium, much less the surrounding Kincora development, even that date is in question.  There’s this photograph of a pretty little backhoe on the Hounds’ website, but there are none of the promised construction cameras nor any reference to the stadium’s ground breaking.   Add to all that the issues about the club’s financing, and it’s highly questionable whether they’ll be ready next year.  If ever.  Has the project gone to the dogs?

Don’t get me wrong – I very much hope they can pull it off.  It’ll be a great addition to Loudoun, and, in my excitement, I’ve even bought some Hounds gear.

I just hope I’ll have a game to wear it to someday.

Boy, do the Dems have a poor lineup this year.  Across the board.

McGimsey. Bellanca. Roeder. But no one is worse, in my opinion, than zombie used car salesman Josh Actor running for Loudoun County Commissioner of the Revenue.  First, let me just point to the observations previously offered by NVTH a few weeks back.  What’s more, though, is that even the Dems won’t touch him.  He’s apparently been disowned by the LCDC (not even listed as a candidate), and Loudoun Progress has tried to do him a favor by NOT linking to his “website.”

Contrast that with incumbent commissioner Bob Wertz.  In short, an all around great guy.  Calm and unassuming, Bob has delivered meaningful results in his eight years in office that have made Loudoun a better place for all of us. http://www.bobwertz.org/  His campaign officially kicks off this Thursday, April 27.  

 Be there or risk being eaten by zombies.

Some one told me last week about Dulles District Democratic supervisor candidate Larry Roeder having a $2500 in-kind contribution for a “campaign jingle”.  I surely thought they must be joking, but alas, I was mistaken and it is indeed there on his last campaign finance report.

Since Roeder is pronounced very close to radar, I thought maybe the jingle would be a re-use of the great classic “Radar Love” by Golden Earring:

If only Roeder was so lucky.  Instead we get this.  I’m warning you, it’s bad.  But in a way, it’s so bad that it’s kind of catchy, in that “I can’t believe this song is stuck in my head” kind of way.  Unfortunately it sounds as if it was recorded in Larry’s bathroom! 

I think maybe a TC parody tune is in order.  Feel free to give me some sample lyrics and I’ll see what we can do.

Matt Letourneau has absolutely nothing to worry about!