The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors will return to the dais Sept. 7 after a month-long recess to a full – and somewhat controversial – schedule. Here’s a look at several hot button issues that are expected to be discussed:
• Public displays on the courthouse grounds: At issue is whether supervisors should ban all public displays from the county courthouse lawn, including nativity scenes and menorahs during the holidays, or continue with the current policy. The policy now allows for 10 displays on the lawn on a first-come, first-serve basis.
• The Chesapeake Bay Protection Act Ordinance: The proposed ordinance, designed to protect Loudoun’s waterways, would designate portions of the county as resource protection areas or resource management areas. The ordinance has caused heated debate among residents and county leaders over its merits. Those opposed to the plan say it is too intrusive on property owners’ rights and would do little to protect the waterways. Supporters believe the ordinance would help to heal the county’s streams. A link to more information about the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, including documents from previous board and Planning Commission meetings, are on online at http://www.loudoun.gov/chesapeakebay.
• Additional school funding: The Loudoun County School Board has asked supervisors for $4.5 million to eliminate the need for furlough days scheduled for the week of Thanksgiving break.
• Staggered Terms: As it now stands, all nine supervisors are up for election at the same time every four years. If the board adopts staggered terms, supervisors’ terms would expire on a staggered basis, meaning only half would be up for election at any one time. In September, supervisors will continue talks on adopting the new plan.
• Western Loudoun sheriff’s substation: A vote is expected on the location and size of a new sheriff’s substation planned for the western edge of Round Hill. The substation, if approved, would be built on 14 acres on the north side of West Loudoun Street.
• Towing advisory committee: Supervisor Kelly Burk (D-Leesburg) has asked that the county form a citizen advisory committee to ensure fees charged by towing companies in Loudoun are fair. Burk proposed the committee after many constituents complained about a wide variance in the prices they were being charged by towing companies.
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Delgaudio, maybe you should say you drink to give yourself an excuse for your behavior. Just sayin. Trying to help you out there bud.
Thank you Mr. Delgaudio.
I wish more Supervisors cared as much as you do about their constituents. Seems Ms. McGimsey and Mr. Miller, especially, only care about pleasing the far left extremists of the Democratic Party elites, about pleasing the Sierra Club and the PEC big money (not the regular folk who work for a living) and about building “green” credentials.
The County Energy Policy, shoved on us in a hurry without any real notice, and its Cap and Trade provisions (appendix J) and now this Chesapeake Bay land grab are examples of goverment run amok—that Delgaudio has tried to stop.
They tried to shove the Chesapeake Bay Ordinance on us, sneak it in during May. They ranted and raved from the dias about how citizens were spreading misinformation, criticized citizens for telling the truth about the Ordinance—and THEN admitted months later they had not even READ it yet. Citizen uproar forced them to put off the Chesapeake Bay Ordinance so they could educate us over the summer—so they could convince us they need to “manage” all of us dirty masses, to tell us if we can have a locational clearance or waiver to put in a play set or patio (for a fee)—because we cannot be trusted to locate our own play sets and patios, and they want to study our property because they may just decide our backyards are NO DISTURB zones. Half of the County is proposed as no disturb zones, but they have the gall to speak on video at public sessions when they think the public is not there, that the biggest decision is how much to tell the public, to strategically reveal information and to map the proposal, so we don’t figure out that they think HALF our County should be no disturb.
This shows no respect for the People of Loudoun, for what the People of Loudoun want, or care about, and this is an abuse of the power of the purse and taxing authority—just more government waste and studies of us, every inch of our property, what trees do we have (and do they property support wildlife?) what bushes did we plant, is our yard too big….and it is an outrage. Delgaudio has said NO.
We need more Delgaudios, with common sense, to perform the necessary functions of government, and then to STOP spending our money, stop raising our taxes—do no harm!
The current far left extreme Board just does not get it, and are too preoccupied with wealthy elite outside of our County… like the Simpson’s DOME sweet DOME, nightmare in Loudoun County.. under the microscope of government bureaucrats who will be using more and more sophisticated satellite photographs to “protect” us from ourselves (and where we want to garden/plant/play) simply surreal!
Regarding Fri, Sep 03 at 03:44 PM by Eugene DelGaudio. Note to editors: that is not me. It is slanderous and can be removed. I do not drink. And I have been working as Supervisor throughout August as one newspaper noted. To get the real deal, go to www.joineugene.com where updates and statements are posted regularly. Thank you.
maps of extensive “possible” no disturb buffer areas and costs:
http://lecva.org/rparma-maps.html
Elder Berry, as you well know, the other counties who adopted this were mandated to adopt it, and were tidewater localities. They were mandated to buffer tidal shores and tidal wetlands—we have none here, and 100 foot buffers have been shown by Virginia Tech studies NOT TO WORK in the Piedmont, where our ground water runs deeper than in Tidewater…
Plus NO OTHER locality has proposed the extreme buffering that Loudoun is proposing. Loudoun’s map shows HALF the county as proposed No Disturb. Most other localities were sensible and only buffered what they were required to buffer, they did not even buffer every 100 year flood plain, but Loudoun who has no tidal shores or tidal wetlands (mandated buffers) is proposing to study every drain and ditch in the County and proposing to buffer HALF of our land mass… it is pure insanity, with an inevitable huge growing of government…
This is the camel’s nose under the Tent, to “manage” us all in Resource Management Areas, and unbelievably to volunteer our small farmers for EPA oversight, adding to the paper work, regulation, etc… permission for them to scrape their farm roads when they get rough, permission for every small decision… we are already doing a great job with our Soil and Water folks, and we should not volunteer our small farms for this oversight by the Federal EPA.
Political Hot Air is only coming from the extreme Left. Even Democrats oppose this! Malcolm Baldwin, Democrat, Environmental lawyer, questions the science, questions the conclusions, questions the remedies, questions why we are doing this now, when the State and Federal Governments are both working on TMDL laws/regulations which will be more effective than buffers which have been shown not to work. The problem is fertilizers, the 90 lb bag Harry Homeowner puts on his lawn every year is over fertilizing with phosphorus and nitrogen. That is the problem…
We need a solution that addresses the real problem, not an extreme left Agenda 21 buffer half the County with no disturb areas?
No people allowed! type solutions are not practical when fertilizer is the issue, and can be regulated..
All of the stirred-up outrage over the Bay act is just political hot air from the don’t tread on me crowd. There is no significant outrage in the more than 80 counties that have already adopted it. Does physics and chemistry work differently in Loudoun than in those counties? Unless you want to disturb or develop within 25 feet of a perennial stream, the Bay act will most likely not be a problem for you. Anyone with some intelligence would know that you need to protect the areas right next to streams and creeks. I just finished reading that at Jamestown and Plymouth the Native Americans found it hard to believe that the European colonists put their latrines right next to where they got water. Have we learned much since then, or not?
Staggered Terms means getting things changed with a vote will be nearly impossible. This just means the rate of political change will be slowed to a crawl. So much for throwing out the bums when they don’t listen to voters. Now they will likely build in a system of “You can only throw out 2 of us at a time”.
http://www.townsrealty.com
Regarding “The Chesapeake Bay Protection Act Ordinance” I believe it was first proposed to reduce the run off from the roadway systems. This direct run off of oil/gas needed to be stopped in the counties directly next to the Bay because the run off went directly into the Bay. Is the county going to fix the run off from roadways? My guess is that they have zero intention to do this. When will the Board fix the problems that need fixing and leave those that aren’t broken. Hey, the road system is broken…fix that! Are you telling me there are no other agencies that are charged with the water quality that ends up in the Bay? How about the Riverkeeper of the Potomic? How about the State, who owns the waterways? How about the Federal Governments EPA? Leave us alone!
The fact is the school budget is way out of line!
I agree teachers need raises and do not need furloughs, but Hatrick and the School Board refuses to make cuts where it won’t affect students and teachers. There are travel budgets, building costs, ballooning administration staffing, expensive furniture purchases, and many more areas that need to be cut to bare minimum before they furlough or freeze salaries of the most important employees of the system, teachers.
The BOS needs to address the high salaries of the administration staff in the Broadlands office. Compare salaries there with like positions in other county departments. They make much more than other county positions.
It’s obvious that Hatrick doesn’t care at all about his most important employees. He would rather have his high salary, excess benefits and elaborate offices at the expense of teachers pay.
There is a lot of areas, not affecting teachers pay or benefits, that the Hatrick and the School Board could make cuts. But that wouldn’t make the news and wouldn’t cause people to protest any cuts. Everyone, including people without children in school, wants teachers to get a fair pay and want all students to get the best education. At the same time Hatrick and the School Board wants their admin staff paid high, and have big budgets to spend.
I, along with many loudouneers, would fully support increases in teachers pay, supplies for the classrooms and the best for all students if the Hatrick would present realistic budgets and realistic cuts.
If the school board really wanted to eliminate the furloughs they would find 50% of the money in their existing budget before asking the BOS for increases.
Many in the private industry not only have not seen a raise in 3 years but actually have taken pay cuts.
The average government worker salary is now double the average American worker and the benefits and retirement plans for the average government worker also exceed the average american worker.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/inco…ST_N.htm?csp=hf
To A: County Government employees have not had a raise in 3 years.
To Martin. The BOS already took federal money from the School Board to help with the County Government raises for their employees. Also, since you obviously don’t have kids in the school system, the reason the School Board is asking for that money is because the Federal Gov’t (you know the President) gave that money to schools across the nation to help them.
Tell the school board the budget is done, live with it. Don’t come back for more during the budget year.
If they want to do away with the furloughs then they can find excess money in their already bloated budget or get over it.
Give it to them now and they will ask for more in next year’s budget request.
Hold your ground BOS or pay for it with the election.
Also keep the election like it is so we can vote all of them out at one time.
Correction…the article was titled, “In Reserve,” and it was at the beginning, in the “Opinion” section. You can go online as well to check it out.
There was an interesting editorial article in Leesburg Today last week, I believe, titled “In Balance.” It outlined what exactly was going on with the furlough days…the outcome was very interesting.
November is going to be crucial, both nationwide and local, for politicians, so please remember to vote! There needs to be some serious
“housecleaning” going on.
Aside from the jobs going to China and India, we also have massive abuse of the H1B Visas, where companies who don’t offshore work, just bring the workers to America for pennies on the dollar. steam cleaning
Another excellent website: Loudoun Environmental Council
http://lecva.org/
They need to be thrown overboard if they pass the Bay Act Regulations. Does everyone know how much they will have to pay if they want to make simple improvements to their property? If you’re in an RPA you can kiss the little money you saved up to put in that long-waited shed or deck. If this passes on September 21st (THEY HAVE THE VOTES TO DO THIS PEOPLE!!!) you will have to retain experts to conduct studies, hold your hand through the special exception process and then pay fee after fee to the county. This is to feed their big government. There is an excellent website called www.bigloudoun.com which describes this boondoggle of a proposal. Also, mark your 2011 calendars for November 1st and make sure you vote in someone who will actually put in water protection measures that make sense.
And I will add a link that I mentioned on another thread about the bay act.
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2010/07/12/story3.html
Now this may not be exactly about the bay act, because Loudouns proposed not final mapped will be a million times worse nightmare then what that article says.
Does not look like Loudoun is very happy with their BOS ha ha
Well these are some things to look for in the future. We must make sure this happens if the board approves Lerners proposed town center at the mall fronting rt 7. and that is a URBAN interchange at rt 7 and country side and it can be done without condemning land. It is very simple rt 7 goes under country side because rt 7 slopes quite a bit down hill toward tysons and then you build urban ramps which are tight up to rt 7. It is done all the time in tight urban areas. The reason I bring it up is, there are people saying in order to do a rt 7 interchange you would have to condemn land not with the design I just mentioned.
Also why is there not a investigation in McGimsey’s super promotion of her Loudoun energy plan and it’s connection to her private personal career in her making money in the energy business. Is she really using her government position and tax money to further her private business in energy. And people are suspicious about this all over the internet.
Excellent suggestion, T. I think we should throw all of them into the Chesapeake.
Alby, right on two counts.
Staggered terms mean interest groups only have to spend their resources on two races at a time, instead of all nine.
As for a “Towing Committee”, the “Energy Committee” was ad hoc in 2008, and disbanded in December of that year for poor attendance.
In spring 09, while we heard daily wailing about “the toughest budget ever faced by the county”, it came back as a standing committee, and started to crank out these credential ops for the committee chair, where “free” grant money is used to create other government programs (that we’ll have to fund and staff ourselves to bring to full fruition, but hey), thereby creating the opportunity for more press releases, and more credentials, and more grant requests that turn into more government programs, and so on.
Is there a way for those bastards to illegalling raise your assesed value when the house will never sell for that price?
On August 10, the school board voted 8-1 to ask for the additional funding to eliminate the furlough days. The county surplus exceeded $18 million from last budget year.
Committees, committees, committees, talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah. Typical government junk.
A Towing advisory committee? Are you kidding me? A wide variance in the prices are what we call Free Markets. The towing company charging extremely high prices won’t get many calls for a Tow. The winner will be those who can offer their services for the least amount.
Now it appears the Government plans to try and set prices based on what it thinks a tow should cost. Price Controls set by Commissar Headquarters is a clumsy and inefficient way to deal with towing prices. The better solution is to figure out how to increase the competition among towing companies.
As for anybody who gets towed for parking in the wrong place and being charged a crazy price, that is what I would call, “Learning a lesson the hard way”.
We don’t need a Towing advisory committee.
Staggered Terms means getting things changed with a vote will be nearly impossible. This just means the rate of political change will be slowed to a crawl. So much for throwing out the bums when they don’t listen to voters. Now they will likely build in a system of “You can only throw out 2 of us at a time”.
I may be wrong, but it’s my understanding that Chairman Stevens of the School Board is requesting the furlough money, not the School Board. I don’t recall the Board actually voting on this request. Your article makes it sound like it has the backing of the board which I think is incorrect.
How about this: The Board of Supervisors remain on vacation, until, oh, I don’t know, maybe November, 1, 2011. Then about that time, we can throw most of them out of office at election time. This way, they won’t do us any harm.