Distilled stated “And I certainly don’t buy that she’s doing this 100% for the common good of her fellow citizens, but rather on a crusade to expose certain high-up LCPS staffers.” 

Not sure what distinction Distilled is making.  If ‘certain high-up staffers’ have something that can be ‘exposed’, how could exposing them be anything but for the ‘common good’?

Audits are standard operating procedure for many organizations.  What is the big deal?  The School Board’s push back is very strange and disconcerting.

Very much informative thanks for sharing.
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I would like to see a full, comprehensive audit done on this system. I still am wondering why LCPS hires TRTs who should be teaching instead of mentoring teachers who already have enough to do.

Perhaps Sarah (or someone) could investigate the hiring practices of a few schools too.

About Barbara Munsey in this thread: It seems to me that she is more focused on attacking as well as dismissing the validity of Sarah Stinger’s efforts. I’ve read about Munsey and she seems to be the self-appointed advocate for the folks in her area (South Riding)... much like Sarah is for the North Western sector of the county. Munsey’s niche is growth, where Stingers is responsible placement of schools. Munsey takes it personally when folks want to curtail growth, Stinger takes it personally when the school board and its staffers don’t negotiate in good faith in the land acquisition process.

Barbara, attacking stinger with “pointless points” only makes you look that much more interested in knocking down rather than finding the truth. The truth regarding the manner in which LCPS staffers have managed the art of hosing the land deal.

What the hell does it matter if Sarah lives in the town of Lovettsville, or not. I don’t live in town but am located so close that my home is serviced by the town’s post office and fire department. I don’t live “in” the town but the school district has my nephews going to Lovettsville Elementary School.  Should I not have a say in how and where the schools should go just because I don’t vote in the town elections or pay taxes to the town?  Lovettsville IS NOT self sustaining. They receive county tax dollars as well.

I’d like a little info from Munsey before I go any further. Barbara, what details do you have in regards to the negotiations, contracts, and hydro studies for the following properties: Grubb, Cangiano/Burgess/Rackham, Miller?

Barbara, the only answer I get is that I already have documents that don’t exist!  Since you somehow know answers have been given, maybe you can clear this all up right now and answer them yourself?

LCPS’ ONGOING sabotage of an option that conforms to the Comprehensive Plan, has Town support and sewer access is confirmed.  It’s not my first choice but it is the Town’s.

Why LCPS doesn’t just make a deal on this site and another North Ashburn site where those residents have proven a school was needed years ago underscores LCPS’ spendthrift incompetence or hidden agenda with respect to siting.

jq3333 is a fine example of sheeple that follow their government without question.  There are a huge number of glaring problems with LCPS land acquisition.  Now that the LTM eyes seem to have been fully opened about LCPS, I expect we will see a lot more about these issues.

taylorstown, read the comp plan—it actually says “when possible”.

That isn’t an absolute.

Many of Sarah’s questions have been asked and answered multiple times.

She doesn’t like some of the answers, therefore it is a huge conspiracy.

Perhaps she should just file charges?

(and if it is determined that none are applicable under existing law, maybe just go back to advocating for the school of her choice on the land of her choice, instead of repackaging conspiracy theories for an election year?)

Conspiracy theories make me laugh.

Loudoun County School Board = Bell, California mayor and town council!
They are corrupt and they know it.  Why won’t they agree to an audit?  Because they know it would come out they have special interests that they are helping and probably getting benefits from those for favoring those interests.
The only way to correct this big mess is for all the School Board and Hat Trick to resign!
Let’s clean house!
They are hiding something and they don’t want the citizens to find out about it, just like the mayor and city officials of Bell, California.

It’s not adults acting like children, it’s adults acting like criminals.  Where did one get the money to pay off a $150,000 mortgage in full?  How does another afford a Mercedes on that salary?  These people will go to extreme measures, threaten, disrepect, lie, intimidate, etc… to get the fat envelope.  Will be sweet to see them go down because sooner or later someone is going to rat them out or they’ll screw up or both.

distilled, please read through Sarah’s report.

http://tiny.cc/lqdjd

She documents many landowner offers that were in or adjacent to the towns that were far cheaper than the LCPS preferred sites.  LCPS killed them all - by denying they ever received them, by coming up with wildly exaggerated road improvement costs, etc.

The properties LCPS preferred were 5 miles from *any* town, and in the case of Grubb Farm, were more than a mile from paved roads.  There are many available parcels in or adjacent to the towns.

With absolutely no concrete knowledge, I would say, maybe the property owners of land “in or near towns” didn’t want to sell. Ever think of that? Folks, LCPS can’t build on land they can’t buy, no matter if it fits every requirement to a “T”. Maybe those best appropriate parcels are being offered for a ton of $$? See, all that is usually done in closed session, as sale of real property transactions should. So where do you get off claiming the location policy when you can’t give us, accurately, the location and price of the appropriate pieces of land you so claim?? You can’t. You just spout a policy when a site is disclosed and it doesn’t meet one or more of the policy criteria. No site is going to be 100% compliant. And who’s to say, the site that is outside a town now may not be annexed someday in the future…then it WOULD be in a town. So there! Come on, try being positive rather than nit-pick the heck out of everything. This is adults acting like children, discussing where children should go to school

distilled, forget about all the audit questions, how do you explain the 2x price premiums LCPS has offered Wheatland sites when the County’s Plan says “Existing Towns will be the principal location of public facilities in western Loudoun.”

“Exposing waste of taxpayer monies, demanding accountability and transparency from public officials” - is this idea, event, or people? It looks like an indictment of people to me by Sarah, so to quote Eleanor, Sarah is a small mind. That’s how I see your attempt at disparaging those of us who think Sarah is on a power trip of her own, the full reasons for which I’m still unsure.

“Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

Exposing waste of taxpayer monies, demanding accountability and transparency from public officials is to be commended rather than questioned.

I agree Dan…personal attacks have no place in this discussion. Stick to the facts, it’s all in Sarah’s report.
http://tiny.cc/lqdjd
(for those who prefer to read before they comment)

It’s very interesting how so many people are making personal attacks against Sarah.  Her report documents dozens of irregularities and questionable activities by LCPS administration, yet the only response is to attack Sarah’s motives.

Sounds like a witch-hunt to me, now that I’ve read enough posts from this Sarah. Personal vendetta, clash of egos and intellects, disrespectful snub, something’s set her off. And I certainly don’t buy that she’s doing this 100% for the common good of her fellow citizens, but rather on a crusade to expose certain high-up LCPS staffers…will we ever know the truth behind her convictions??

LCPS has literally hundreds of very talented people working for them, so it is a shame when a few are enabled in this way because the indirect effect is that the excellent work of their collegues is somewhat diminished.  One bad apple….

BS like what Sarah just pointed out is why LCPS needs a top down house cleaning.  There is NO EXCUSE for not supplying public information to citizens!!!

Why does LCPS continue to be so incredibly resistant to giving information to citizens?  Here is my latest email exchange with Mr. Byard over my request for a copy of the results of the September 2009 Wheatland Hydrogeologic Study. 

http://tiny.cc/vc1gy

I have asked for that report on behalf of homeowners living very close to that area yet just beyond the distance threshold allowing their wells to be monitored during the pump test.  They want to understand the findings of the test and what it could mean to their only available water supply.  However, as you can see from the email, it seems that LCPS is saying there is no report. 

The invoice I reference in the email is Attachment C of the Audit Request.  I absolutely do not believe that this firm would jeopardize their excellent reputation by billing LCPS $23,100 for a report they did not prepare and submit.  Therefore it comes down to LCPS simply not wanting the public to see the results of that testing.  Or perhaps they don’t want people to know that they continued to spend money on that study despite the BOS rejecting that site.  Byard clearly states in his email the contract was terminated and the study not completed.  However LCPS was billed for step tests on two wells.  Adjacent homeowners had transducers placed in their wells and we know some data was collected.  So…while it appears the design of the hydro study may have been modified, the invoice clearly indicates the contractor evaluated the data they collected and summarized their findings in a report. 

All LCPS has to do is disclose that report.  But instead they become obstructionist and defensive.  Think about it, if you did nothing wrong and are questioned, you can blow it off easily.  In contrast however, LCPS’ habitual defensive stance suggests strongly they are trying to hide something. And this just makes everything FAR worse for themselves.

Thanks for the compliment but I have many reasons which will definitely keep me from running.  Wish I could say I’m sorry to disappoint Barb, but honestly that kind of disappointment feels pretty darn good.

ATP, Hatrick isn’t going until these supplicant idiots on the School Board get booted out.  Unfortunately these geniuses just gave Hatrick a four year extension, so the new SB will have to pay him off to get him out the door.  I doubt Sarah Stinger would run for School Board, but she is exactly the kind of new blood that dysfunctional gang needs.

doesn’tsurprise me. It’s beginning to look like LCPS is more corrupt then any taxpayers thought. The only reason to hide information is because it will show bad spending. It’s time to clean house, just like this past election of all school admin. Start with Dr Hatrick and bring in someone young, to get rid of all the old timers. School board members should have term limits. Some don’t budge on any topic. And others use this as an ego boost.

Audit LCPS, the projections historically have been within a percentage point or two—the macro numbers estimating student growth are quite good.

I remember, proffer dollars have gone up, yes, but your by right comment is correct, and by right does not furnish proffers.

lville, if you don’t live in the incorporated town, pay taxes in the incorporated town, or vote in the incorporated town, it can be really hard to get the incorporated town to put a school where you want it to.

Sarah fan, finally someone gets to the point! Run for school board!  Could be.

Barb Munsey is saying someone else is seeking attention, wow, is that the pot calling the kettle black!  Sarah and others are right, good people have been demanding real answers to real questions for years and all we get is the runaround.  Hatrick, Adamo, and some of the School Board members just love to play God with all of the taxpayer dollars they give so freely to their special friends.  Sarah Stinger deserves a medal for all she has done, on her own time.  Don’t even get me started on that turncoat Jen Bergel, she is worthless on that board.  Go Sarah - you should run for School Board!

“Now is the time to acquire the land we need, or secure agreements with landowners to purchase the property in the future.” - one could hav said this in 2005, 2000, 1995, 1990, 1985…get my drift. It’s a hugely complicated answer as to why LCPS is not ahead of the curve on school sites. But it’s not because, at least recently, Schools have been shortchanging their estimates on referrals. Look them up for any recent rezoning. I think the standard line is “residential development can never pay for the capital facilities (or O&M for that matter) needed to keep pace with the growth of the school district.”  And it’s even moreso for by-right residential development, of which much/most of the western non-suburban development is.  Thought the proffer $$‘s have increased, they haven’t been able to keep pace. The slowdown in building permits for the homes approved have further stressed things the last few years, as several new schools still had to be built and the students keep coming (and being born). So, at some point, when the rush to build occurs again, there should be an influx of capital facilities dollars, but that’s too little too late.

If you want to know “who”, look at the Board members voting yes on upzonings. And look for the ones who accepted roads instead of the cap facilities dollars.

OK we need land for schools, but why didn’t the newer developments proffer sufficient land in the first place?  Could it be that LCPS staffers FOR YEARS have been intentionally underestimating the number of children generated in their agency review (referral) of subdivision applications?

The net result is developers’ proffers are smaller than they should be and then the developer can turn around and sell the land, at a handsome price.

I haven’t read the audit request but hope the sunshine goes into this aspect.

I have to commend the citizens from Leesburg who spoke last night.  The one statement that stands out in my mind is the one about (I believe it was) Balls Bluff elementary where 4 and 5th graders are responsible for mentoring kindergartners on reading skills.  The problem she described is that the mentors are paired with little ones that do not know their letters.  In Lovettsville the Reading Buddy program was great, but it was the high functioning children that were pulled out and paired with the older kids. 

That citizen and her neighbors spoke very well and I sincerely hope that the Board listens and takes immediate action to remedy the situation.

Some if not all of the questions raised at the meeting last night have been asked repeatedly and yet have gone unanswered for YEARS. If an audit is what it takes to get the answers to which constituents are entitled, so be it.
And when my mailing address (and Sarah’s) is “Lovettsville, 20180”, that is where we live. 
It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

To be clear, I am not lobbying for the construction of HS-10, only the purchase of land for it.  I support purchase of land for HS-8 where ever the community (North Ashburn) determine by consensus is the best place, and expediting the construction of that facility before or simultaneous with HS-6 at Loudoun Valley Estates.  I believe that because that is what the citizens who live there want and I believe they know their community better than most of the members of the School Board.  I have never voted against a school bond because, despite my concerns, I know schools in many parts of the County are needed now and will be needed throughout the County in the years to come.  Now is the time to acquire the land we need, or secure agreements with landowners to purchase the property in the future.

The Request for Audit of LCPS Planning Department is posted here:

http://tiny.cc/lqdjd

I have been going to my rep and the entire Board for years asking for them to look into what has happened and, as a Board, they have ignored my concerns, so I felt no choice but to ask more formally for answers. 

My agenda is very simple:  for LCPS/BOS to develop a transparent siting process so we can have the best sites for the best price, County-wide. 

My children went to Lovettsville Elementary and while it is true I do not live within the Town limits, Lovettsville is my community.

Members of the Town Council have expressed support of Lovettsville High School in the form of a Resolution and, in the past, have voiced that support to the School Board.

Nice new set of sockpuppets.  Props for the gratuitous developer meme, disgusted.  Yep, that must be it.

Sarah is whatever she needs to be to get attention.

Tell me, why did she “deserve” an immediate vote on a document dump, that the school board hadn’t read yet?

She went here to the press before she went to the meeting.

Has she thought of getting with her school board rep to get support for her idea of an audit?

Granted, it makes much more effective political noise to do the document dump and then generate a dustup about the lack of an immediate vote.

There’s a right and a wrong way to do everything, and that has always been one of Sarah’s problems:  if she doesn’t get the answer she wants, then “the process is broken” and needs to be scrapped in favor of…whatever she wants at the moment.

Well, maybe.

But there is also a process for changing process.

I’d love to see a follow up, perhaps with input from Ms. Bergel?, detailing Sarah’s efforts to gain support for her position, and a serious discussion of any auditing process, rather than the usual Loudoun histrionics.

Oh, and Lville?  I have a Fairfax zipcode, but Loudoun expects us to write the tax checks to Loudoun.  Which they cash.

Lovettsville is an incorporated town with its own government, tax structure, etc.

“Aldie” zipcode means the Stone Ridge shopping center east of rte 15, as opposed to the unincorporated rural village in Blue Ridge.

Zipcode is somewhat meaningless, unless of course it fits the argument of the moment—kind of like the guy near South Riding, who lobbies the Loudoun school board against the budget by saying he lives “in South Riding”, and the Fairfax school board by saying he lives “in Chantilly”.

Both of which are sort of true.  Based on zipcodes.

Sarah produced documents at the meeting showing that LCPS could have acquired land for the schools as early as 2006 for a far more reasonable price.

Furthermore, the land offered for the schools was made long before the Wheatland deal was ever approved.  Why was the deal rejected? 

Citizens deserve to know the reasoning behind the failure to acquire the land necessary to build.  LCPS should have been well beyond the land acquisition stage at this point in the process.

An audit is necessary to determine what happened, why, and to recommend changes to prevent this from happening in the future.

Lovettsville is the 20180 zip code, NOT just the town limits.  Sarah has lived in Lovettsville for over 20 years.

The first poster mentioned the .55 acre parcel purchased by the school board.  County records indicate they paid $998,800 and fair market value is only $559,300!  It appears to me they blew $439,500 of taxpayer money.

Barbara Munsey shows her true colors on this issue.  While she tries to portray herself as such a fiscal watchdog on verything the county does, she shows she is little more than a shill for Greenvest and their ilk who want to keep their cozy deals with Adamo.  Sarah Stinger is no bully - what a rock, the only bullies here are the LCPS Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

cmac, the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily anyone’s friend here.

Yes, Sarah has every right to ask any questions she wishes, without bullying.

It does not give her the right to bully on her own—which she does, nor use partial truth to advance a personal agenda—which she does, nor lay down a barrage of incomplete and sometimes incorrect infortmation to insert herself into any and every school issue in order to advance said personal agenda—which she does.

By all means, go after the school budget, if that is YOUR issue.  Key word here is YOUR issue.

Sarah has hers, and if any means justify a desried end, then give her a medal and join up.

All I’m saying is do a bit of your own research before canonizing this (personal) agenda.  Sarah has done a lot of research, true.

Does it “prove” all of her conclusions?

No.

Leej
Hatrick talked last night about his recent trip to Switzerland and Germany and from that trip he thinks LCPS should do as you say, put more emphasis on trades.  Why the man has to travel across the world to figure that out is a mystery to me.  Let’s hope LCPS didn’t get an expense report for that trip and that he was required to use his leave.  His answer is the CIP recommendation for $85M Monroe Tech project.  While it is a great idea, he needs to work harder on getting corporate sponsorship.

And our school board are supposed to be highly educated even some PHD’s ha ha so much for education.  My neighbors kid is a welder and he is only 25 years old has own company and makes more then Hatrick. Another friend came here when he was 17 years old and could not speak English 20 years later he has made millions profit not gross but profit for himself even in this economy. And has been making millions in profit for over 10 years.

My point is this my friends in the trades with no college and one with only a eighth grade education could buy land for the schools far better then this school board. And yes they have bought fairly large tracts of property in Loudoun at phenomenal prices in this economy.

And the schools should also put much more emphasis on the trades (instead of foolish useless to most Chinese)  for the kids that don’t want to go to college. Many times they will make far more the college graduate in time.

Sarah Stinger has every right to ask the questions she is asking, she also should be congratulated for not backing down. When citizen’s are bullied by any elected body, true representation ceases. I’d like to buy Sarah a cup of coffee, or something stronger - to say THANK YOU.

Great job Bobby O and Guzman! Thank you for representing us instead of Hatrick and Company.  I cant beleive any member would vote against this…what kind of slimy deals are Reed and Guerin up to?

Everyone in the room was embarrassed for Chairman John Stevens when he stupidly tried to block Ohneiser from asking Sarah a question about her request.  He went on and on about Roberts rules of order. Seriously bad move.

Great work, Bob Ohneiser and Joe Guzman, and a half and half to John Stevens.  The rest of them need to go, pronto.

To clarify, NAY votes for exploring ways to make land acquisitions more transparent were cast by At-Large’s Tom Reed, Leesburg’s Tom Marshall, Blue Ridge’s Priscilla Godfrey, Catoctin’s Jennifer Bergel, Sterling’s Warren Guerin, and Dulles’ Robert Dupree.  They seem to have amazingly short memories.  Because they forgot that last year after Cangiano’s contract became public, a significantly lower offer was made for a different site and Cangiano dropped his price.  It’s Economics 101, competition works to drive down prices.

Approximately 20 people attended the School Board meeting last night and stood (literally) in support of an independent audit of LCPS’ land acquisition department.  Responding to the citizens’ concerns, fiscally responsible Board members Ohneiser and Guzman voted favorably.  However votes of ALL other Board members proved to citizens that they do not care about our concerns.  Guzman made a separate motion to ask their attorney to determine how the Board could conduct land acquisitions more in the public view.  Ohneiser and Stevens voted in support but the motion failed.  Shockingly, their nay votes showed their apparent disinterest in simply exploring how they could involve the public more!!!  After the meeting, instead of taking ANY responsibility for the narrow passing of the last week’s school bond referendum, Tom Reed directly accused us, and even voiced his blame to several Leesburg parents in attendance.  His votes last night demonstrate his true allegiance and that he does NOT represent his constituents.  Later today I will post the audit questions and supporting LCPS files obtained by FOIA for wide citizen review.

Why can’t LCPS just provide the information that is being asked of them? After all, they are spending 70% of the entire budget for Loudoun County.

Since when does Sarah live in Lovettsville?

I know she’s wanted a school there since forever, but that’s not the same thing.

This is the same group of “experts” at Loudoun County that hired an appraiser who said Loudoun County should pay a premium charge of (can’t remeber the exact mark-up) of around 15% just because it’s the county buying.  And the same gang who offered Cangiano waaaay above market value for his land.  There are bona fide reasons why so many do not trust LCPS in this regard.

It’s not having fun in Loudoun unless there is a conspiracy theory to banty about, now is it. Somebody is always ‘on the take’, and in this case, it’s who? LCPS staffers, are they taking under the table graft from Farmer Brown? Or is School Board members from the likes of Sal Cangiano and other ‘developer/investors’ who hold large land holdings in the west and are just waiting for development to come their way? I’m not saying that some of the land owners out there aren’t sleazy (at best), but it’s exactly that reason that land transactions can’t take place on the public pulpit. Why do you think the BOS has closed sessions for real property transactions almost every month? Because the law recognizes that such discussions can’t be done in the open, due to the sensitive nature of land purchases. So many of you folks want your govt. and schools to tighten up and operate like the private sector, yet you won’t let them play by the same rules in an attempt to do so. The more the schools want a site, the more it potentially is going to cost. Again, supply and demand. We’d all do the same thing w/ our homes or land if we knew somebody wanted it bad enough. Sheesh.

Yeah, those “experts” have built us into huge amounts of debt with their hare-brained insider deals.  It is far beyond time for an outside look at the way LCPS acquires land.  Obviously the powers that be are scared of any sunlight being shed on their private play toy.  Nothing disinfects like sunlight - let it shine, baby.

Build a school in Lovettsville?  Are you crazy?  How does that boost the economy?  I am sure driving around a bunch of mostly empty buses from what would be the largest attendance boundary, on a road network that would take hours to travel daily. 
You are going to cost us millions by sticking your nose into something that is far above your understanding.

“costs will increase” is clearly an LCPS staffer or associated tool.  It has been proven time after time that LCPS already pays overly inflated costs for their properties.  it’s just that they like those extra costs to go to their connected pals.  Thank God at least Bob Ohneiser is willing to show some fiduciary responsibility.  Sarah Stinger deserves a public service award for all of the hard work she has put in on this issue.  LCPS land acquisition is corrupt at its worst, and inept at its best.

So Citizen Sarah thinks she knows everything about large scale land transactions, does she? She’s a realtor, a land speculator, a mortgage financier, an engineer and land planner, an architect and transportation engineer, a construction bid expert, as well as a fiscal planner minding bond rates and markets. Interesting. The private sector has to do all the same type of work in order to buy land for development, and they can do it in all the necessary ‘off the grid’ means (you publicize an intent to purchase, guess what - everybody’s land gets more expensive. It’s called supply and demand), but with the Schools, it’s supposed to be exempt. And gee, maybe those land owners won’t jack their prices because the Schools can’t go about their business like everyone else, but instead leak everything to the public…right. It’s just going to cost taxpayers more if the Schools can’t acquire property like the rest of the development world.

Check out the money spent for the .55 acres for the pending Douglass Elementary School!!