Loudoun's Exclusive Club

Only elected officials and their pals need apply.

FOR MONTHS, federal investigators have been picking through the sweetheart deals that Loudoun County's elected officials have done to the delight and pecuniary benefit of their political allies and land developers these past few years. Time will tell whether any of those deals rose, or rather stooped, to the level of conspiracy or other illegal activity. What is clear, though, is that the Republican majority that took control of this region's fastest-growing locality in 2004 has operated with blatant disdain for ethical common sense.

It shouldn't be too much to ask that elected officials refrain from mixing their personal financial dealings with their duties in office and abstain from voting on projects that would directly benefit themselves or their friends -- even if doing so is not technically illegal under Virginia's flimsy ethics laws. But that basic principle of governance was apparently lost on some members of Loudoun's Board of Supervisors. A case in point is Supervisor Bruce E. Tulloch (R-Potomac), the board's Republican vice chairman and its de facto leader. Earlier this year The Post's Michael Laris and David S. Fallis detailed how Mr. Tulloch was instrumental in pushing the county to pay $13.5 million for a piece of property on a hurry-up basis. The transaction netted a hefty sales commission for Mr. Tulloch's key political ally and sponsor, former board chairman Dale Polen Myers, who was acting as the seller's agent for the property.

Now it turns out that Mr. Tulloch had little compunction about pursuing private financial deals by dropping the names or seeking the help of developers whose projects he pushed toward approval by the board. The details, as reported by Mr. Laris and Mr. Fallis in Friday's Post, sketch a portrait of an elected official for whom the line between the public business and his own is faint to nonexistent.

You could say that Mr. Tulloch's transgressions were petty; he does not seem to have parlayed his position into great wealth. But his dealings are emblematic of the snug relations between supervisors and developers that have lent county government the air of a club operated for the benefit of well-connected insiders. Fortunately, with local elections coming up in November, there is a solution on the horizon: Throw the rascals out.