The Republican majority on Loudoun County's Board of Supervisors yesterday rejected a request to vote on whether growth restrictions thrown out by Virginia's Supreme Court on a technicality should be reenacted.
Supervisor Bruce E. Tulloch (R-Potomac) said he decided against scheduling a vote after discussing the matter, one-on-one, with his five GOP colleagues and after considering the opinions of "legal observers familiar with the case."
It was a lesson in political arithmetic for the 15,583 voters countywide who elected Scott K. York (I) chairman of Loudoun's Board of Supervisors in November 2003. Tulloch won his district election with 2,443 votes. But six was the number that mattered yesterday.
York and Supervisors James Burton (I-Blue Ridge) and Sarah R. Kurtz (D-Catoctin) had asked Tulloch to schedule a vote next week on whether to take action to restore the slow-growth regulations. That would involve readvertising the regulations to correct the public notice cited by the court in tossing them out, holding a public hearing and voting on their adoption.
Although York was elected chairman, the six Republicans have voted to strip him of his power to set the agenda for board meetings. They granted that power to Tulloch, who yesterday chastised York for publicly rebuking the court for its ruling. In recent days, York had called the court's reasoning "bogus," "asinine" and embarrassing.
In a letter to York and his two allies, Tulloch warned that legal wrangling "might bring the County back to Virginia's highest court. While I know you do not agree with this Supreme Court ruling, I would ask, because of your role as County Chairman, that there be some restraint in future comments."
York, first elected chairman as a Republican in 1999, responded in a letter saying Tulloch's failure to schedule the vote was "an egregious betrayal of the public trust and lends to the cynicism that the public interests are being subverted by the special interests."
He added, "It is shameful with one of the most pressing issues facing our County that you have chosen to deny" a vote.
Burton urged his colleagues to reinstate the overturned rules soon. When the county reverts to zoning that allows one house per three acres -- instead of 10 or 20 acres per home required under the overturned 2003 rules -- there could well be a land rush as property owners subdivide large parcels to allow more homes, he said.
But Tulloch said that he and his GOP colleagues have found no "clear consensus" among legal observers -- whom he did not identify -- on the short- and long-term implications of the ruling and that the board needs time for "careful consideration" and debate. "Political grandstanding is dangerous ground and will be an impediment to finding successful solutions," Tulloch said.
Mick Staton Jr. (R-Sugarland Run) said it would be a mistake to restore the overturned rules and called for new countywide discussions to come up with new ones.
In closed session, Staton has suggested a range of five to 20 acres per home. Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles) has suggested that one home per five or seven acres might be acceptable.
"Simply reenacting to what we have now is to tee up the same lawsuits," Staton said.
Kurtz said that she did not object to gathering information on the issue but that she and her colleagues had spent years doing so.
"What he's pushing is not supporting the three years of planning that went on, and that somehow, if we open the whole thing back up again, there's going to be a wonderful consensus," Kurtz said. "Does he not realize we had three years of differing viewpoints? Does he not realize how difficult that was?"
