Monthly Archives: March 2011

Rise up, “Ashdowne”

Ok, BoS. You’ve had your fun. Supervisor Waters, you managed to come up with the worst district name ever, a brilliant parody of someone’s perception of someone else’s stereotype of the idea of suburban hell memorialized in so many adolescence-themed television shows. It’s hilarious, and I mean that truly. The rest of you guys who went along with the joke: Epic. Really good stuff.

Now that you’ve all made your points, whatever they were, let’s allow the residents of what we all know everyone under a certain age, and many of the rest of us, will refer to as “Assclowne” to have their dignity back, ok?

HOD and Senate seats for Loudoun

Holy guacamole, those HOD and Senate maps make Loudoun’s redistricting look rational.

Here’s what we’ve got:

4 Senate Seats

  • A bit of a district that runs all the way from Arlington into Sugarland Run. Long and narrow, runs along the Potomac. That’s one that’s probably going to have a heavy primary.
  • Blue Ridge, and some of Ashburn, including my old house in the Broadlands, are in a district that reaches into Fauquier and Prince William Counties and stretches down as far as Warrenton. That there is Colgan and Marshall country. I’m guessing it’ll be pretty red.
  • Herring’s district is an L with one line stretching from Leesburg, along the Potomac into Sterling and then down into Herndon below Rte. 50.
  • I can’t even believe the last one. It’s a check mark that includes most of Catoctin, gets every thing to West Virginia and then slides down under the district that includes the Broadlands. It is a mess.

6, possibly 7 HOD Seats

  • Rust’s district no longer includes Oak Grove, Buchanan, or the other couple of precincts he lost in Loudoun.
  • Lemunyon keeps Little River.
  • Greason’s district shrank a bit.
  • May’s district moved farther West, and lost most of Leesburg.
  • Leesburg is now in an open district.
  • Mike Kondradick is in an open district…including some of the precincts Rust gave up.
  • And it looks like there’s a little tongue of a Fairfax district up in Sugarland Run.

All-in-all, it’s…impressive.

Pound foolish elitism

One third of the children in Virginia are overweight or obese. Not coincidentally, soft drinks and other “foods” containing high-fructose corn syrup are readily available in our public schools. And now, thanks to Governor Bob McDonnell’s veto, there will be no half hour per day of physical education for public school students. According to the governor, we can’t afford to take time away from preparing for standardized tests or the cost of additional instruction. Continue reading

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Come one, come all. Be kind, be respectful, stay on topic.

If you think someone is breaking the policy, please don’t call them out for it in the thread. Instead, you can email me, or put a comment on our commenting policy page.

Thank you for your cooperation and contributions.

This is what I know for sure about seats and Dem candidacies.

BOS:

  • Chair: Tom Bellanca is the Dem challenger to Scott York (I, formerly R).
  • Algonkian (formerly Sugarland Run): No candidate yet for the open seat being left by Susan Buckley, though I’ve heard rumblings.
  • Ashdowne (Ashburn, Lansdowne): Valdis Ronis is running for this open seat.
  • Blue Ridge (Brambleton/Middleburg/Hamilton/Purcellville/Blue Ridge Mountains): No Dem challenger has appeared yet to run against Jim Burton (I).
  • Broad Run (Dulles Town Center, Broadlands, Sterling): Andrea McGimsey is the incumbent. No primary challenger.
  • Catoctin: Malcolm Baldwin is running for the open seat being left by Sally Kurtz.
  • (Jennie) Dean (South Riding/Airport/Loudoun Valley Estates): Larry Roeder is running for this open seat.
  • Leesburg: Kelly Burk is the incumbent. No primary challenger.
  • Sterling: the Dems have three candidates to run against Eugene Delgaudio (R): Al Nevarez; Bahri Aliriza; and Dan Lloyd. That’ll be a good primary. I’m looking forward to it.

Constitutional Offices:

  • Clerk of the Court: No Democratic candidate as yet to run against Gary Clemens (R)
  • Commissioner of the Revenue: Joshua Actor is going to challenge  Robert Wertz (R).
  • Commonwealth’s Attorney: Jennifer Wexton is running against Jim Plowman (R).
  • Sheriff: No Democratic candidate as yet, though it seems the Republicans have a few! Four candidates there to run against Sheriff Simpson (I, formerly R)!
  • Treasurer: No Democratic candidate as yet to run against Roger Zurn (R).

Soil and Water Conservation District

  • There are three seats up for election this November. Peter Rush is a Democratic incumbent on this board. I sent him a note yesterday to ask if he’s running again, I’ll update with his answer.

I won’t discuss the School Board in this post, because there are so many unknowns still. Many incumbents have said that they’ll decide what they’re going to do after the budget is done.

Nor will I discuss the House of Delegates or the State Senate races yet, since we still don’t know what the districts are for those races.

As I get more information about these and other races, I’ll post ’em up here.

UPDATE: Lloyd put up a post at TC about the state of the races from the Republican point of view. Apparently, one of the candidates for Sheriff dropped out.

A Pledge from the Doorbell Queen

Starting with this cycle, and continuing until I say otherwise, I will not endorse any candidate for any office unless I personally put some shoe leather into the game for that candidate.

No walking? No talking.

If you see me endorsing a candidate here, it will mean I put some sweat equity into their campaign.

I may expand this to candidates I donate trackable money to.

District 4 is Now the Jennie Dean District

March 24, 2011
Dear friends,
 
I am pleased to tell you that District 4 is now the Jennie Dean District.   The vote by the Board of Supervisors stimulated much discussion; but in the end, the supervisors decided to go along by a wide margin.  As a result, probably for the first time in the history of Virginia, and certainly in Loudoun, a district has been named after an African-American!   Loudoun leads the way, again! 
 
Just returned from the victory party.  It feels great being part of creating something not only all African-Americans can be proud of, but also all Virginians.  But the real praise rests with the Baptist Prosperity Church, its Pastor and the children and mothers who came tonight, one of whom was the oldest living descendant of Jennie Dean, a woman in her nineties who felt it important to lobby for an historical vote.  They set up their own rally, created home-made signs, sent emails, and called around the county and the region to build support.  They were the true victors, making this a grass-roots effort, and that’s the way it should have been.  I have no idea of what party any of them are and never asked.  This was about the people, about doing the right thing, not about party.
 
To get to this point of course required a lot of preparation by a lot of people, as well as discussions with the Library of Virginia in Richmond, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Black History Committee at the Balch Library, all coordinated and led by the members and friends of the Prosperity Baptist Church, especially Reverand Lawson, and true progressives around the county and region.  Kelly Burk of  Leesburg led off this evening on a very positive tone with a discussion of the historical facts and significance related to the vote.  One of the things I am particularly proud of was how bi-partisan the effort was.  In my case, I contacted all of the Supervisors, including Republicans and Independents.  Though the financial well-being of the church was a campaign project (which did very well), I worked as a private citizen, not as a candidate, to advance the name change for District 4.  Of course, anything a candidate does is considered “political” by someone, so it was also wonderful to hear Sally Kurtz in a loud, strong voice of reason, with beauty, intelligence and passion, remind all who might doubt, that this effort by so many people was the best kind of politics, something to be proud of.   She also rightly reminded us that it was the kind of politics one runs to, not from.  Only someone very shallow of character could think otherwise.  Jim Burton, Andrea McGimsey and Kelly Burk were also brilliant in their support.  Even Eugene Delgaudio rose to provide a wonderful, warm tribute.  
 
Success was indeed bi-partisan and in the best tradition of what politics is supposed to be about —  helping people and doing the right thing.   That’s our Loudoun, our Virginia, and now our Jennie Dean District, and this was a very important moment in my life, for sure.
 
Have a great evening.  
 
Larry Roeder