Right now, scandal is brewing in Loudoun County, and no doubt, FOIA requests are being filed into why a planning commission member from the Dulles District sent an e-mail asking other board members not to show up at a meeting to discuss countywide transportation. The Loudoun Times-Mirror was the first to report about this scandal on July 1st after a June 25th hearing was postponed due to not having the necessary amount of participants to call a quorum. The same thing happened on June 27th. This meeting was discussing a transportation plan that would have created new roads in Loudoun, and now, it has been delayed until next quarter. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? Considering that the planning commission member in question was involved in an anti-growth environmental group.
For several days, there have been numerous statements that have been released regarding this email. Sterling Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio released a statement that appeared in the Loudoun Times Mirror on Thursday, July 2, 2009. Delgaudio said:
“Anyone who orchestrates the disbanding of any government meeting or causes a meeting to be cancelled through any effort is to be condemned. I ask the board of supervisors to investigate and find out exactly how 2 separate meetings of the Planning Commission failed to achieve a quorum and that the board of supervisors, if necessary restore a sense of confidence that the Planning Commission continues to function.
In response to the statement made by some that “its only two meetings” and “the transportation plan can wait until September”, I can only state that as far as my position: it is intolerable and not acceptable for anyone to purposely encourage dereliction in their duty to perform their responsibilities at scheduled meetings.
Additionally, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Scott York filed a FOIA request with Sandra Chaloux, the Dulles District Transportation Planning Board Member(Both the Washington Examiner and Loudoun Times Mirror have each filed a FOIA request as well into this matter) requesting any e-mails that she may have sent regarding the Planning Commission’s work session on the Countywide Transportation Plan.
This scandal only continues to unfold, but there are some questions that rise from this so-called manifesto. Is it illegal to tell a county employee not to show up to work (unless he or she has been terminated)? Can a county appointee or employee purposely not show up for a meeting, so there is not a quorum of members there to conduct a meeting? If anything, this is a shady way to govern.
CCC, you might want to tag this with Stevens Miller too, since Dulles would be his commissioner.
The same commissioner who walked out of a subsequent meeting, at which the commission was told by the supervisors to stop work until they can agree on a schedule.
http://leesburg2day.com/articles/2009/07/09/news/fp135%20ctp070309.txt
Miller has been having some schedule issues of his own.
He recently cancelled a joint meeting between school board members and supervisors because he had a conflict on that date.
It turned out to be holding his own fundraiser for his delegate race.
Screwy priorities in Dulles, all the way around.