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A case of 'not getting it'
The question of are they "getting it enough?” is crass and inappropriate for a newspaper Web site and it will not be addressed here. Sorry. We can’t go there. But in terms of getting it, we now know that Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge) will not be getting his request granted to dim some of the sunshine cast by the Freedom of Information Act.On Oct. 2, the board rejected Burton's motion that the board make a suggestion to state lawmakers that subscribers to individual supervisor's electronic newsletters be given the option of opting their e-mail addresses out of public record. Meaning: Their addresses could not be retrieved by a FOIA request.
FOIA is sometimes referred to as a sunshine law because it sheds light on government misdoings which otherwise would be obscured from public view.
It is also something the media and residents alike use to catch elected leaders acting poorly online. Earlier this year, The Washington Post published an e-mail it retrieved from Supervisor Stephen Snow (R-Dulles) through a FOIA request where he said Supervisor Lori Waters (R-Broad Run) "needs to be ostracized" from the Republican party because she is "anti-growth."
Bad netiquette is what Hamilton’s Sally Mann and Waterford's Milari Madison are accusing Burton of doing. In August, Madison filed a FOIA request demanding to see Burton’s newsletter subscriber list. Burton in turn, sent out a mass e-mail, containing Madison's contact information, to everyone in his list advising them of her request. Mann has filed her own FOIA requests to supervisors.
In an e-mail care-copied to Burton and obtained by Madison and Mann, the two women say that Loudoun resident Jeff Wolinski wrote: "She [Mann] and Milari Madison just need to be ignored. They are obviously not getting it enough at home and are crying out for attention."
In response, Madison wrote to county officials and the media: "It is not OK for the County e-mail system to be used for vicious, lewd, indecent, and personal assassinations against private citizens."
Both women are demanding that Burton be investigated and are accusing Wolinski, who they believe is the infamous Loudoun Insider who posts regularly on the blog Too Conservative, of libel.
Needless to say, the discussion by supervisors on the matter Oct. 2 was both awkward and heated.
"I've never stooped this low," Snow said to Burton, while holding a stack of e-mails. "Sunshine is good enough for everybody else, it should be good enough for you."
Chairman Scott York (I-at large), himself FOIAed on occasion, then demanded to know why Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), also FOIAed, has not complied with a request to turn over his list of newsletter subscribers. The reason why, according to Delgaudio, is that his newsletter is paid for by his own political action committee.
Sounding a fed-up chord, Board Vice Chairman Bruce Tulloch (R-Potomac) finally proclaimed: "Everybody on this board has been FOIAed to death."
Burton's motion failed 4-4, with Supervisor Jim Clem (R-Leesburg), who also has been FOIAed in the past, stepping out just before the vote took place.
There is a small powerful group of western landowners who have no respect for anyone, or the law, and who expect selective enforcement of the laws, and made up laws, and then expect the county to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside attorneys fees, and years of staff time litigating ridiculously petty and frivolous issues, not supported by the law. I have been a victim of this, with an Agricultural District (that on its face had expired) was imposed on me to stop a 6 lot cluster subdivision where I wanted to put lots in family members names. The county said the expiration was a "typo" and the Ag district, prohibiting my subdivision went until 2008 (not 2002)--but only after I went through the whole subdivision process, spent more than $100,000 drilling wells...etc. I am not allowed to rely on the only published version of the ordinance available to me. Somebody important complained, and that opinion was more important than my rights or the laws. The County has already spent more than $100,000 on outside attorneys fees litigating against me on this one issue. Then they tried to make Milari Madison rebuild a whole house that had no roof and only three sides using a "maintenance" ordinance which anyone could have told you did not apply (and the County lost after spending close to a half milliion dollars of litigation fees--and it's not over.) Then there is the blue roof, in Lincoln. The County tried to make a couple take a new blue roof off, after a permit was issued (by operation of law, since the county did not respond in writing to deny the permit in the legal time frame.) The county spent more than a year and a lot of money and staff time trying to make the couple change the roof, when almost everyone in their town (Lincoln) --125 people_- signed a petition saying they liked the new roof (somebody more important wanted them to paint it black voiding the warranty and heat saving measures.)
When Ms. Madison and I voice our opinions, we are treated with complete disrespect by York, Burton and Waters, who have routinely supported the more powerful instead of the more right in western loudoun.
We have asked all of the members of the Board to denounce Ms. Waters campaign who wrote the x-rated email, Mr. Wolinski, and to denounce the Too Conservative Website, with inappropriate clip art, mocking me.
Posted by sallymann
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