Letters To the Editor

Vote on Leadership Style

The defeat of four Republican Loudoun supervisors and the takeover by the Democrats for the first time since 1991 are being viewed as a referendum on growth and traffic. But it also was a referendum on the four men who lost and their styles of leadership.

In Frederick, Clarke and Fauquier counties, Republicans still control their supervisor boards. In 2003, the year Loudoun elected a pro-growth GOP board, Frederick County did the same, but the latter were reelected Nov. 6. Why?

Besides dissatisfaction with Republicans on the national and local level, Jim Clem, Bruce E. Tulloch, Mick Staton Jr. and Stephen J. Snow could not overcome being depicted as the "Gang of Five" by board Chairman Scott K. York, his allies in the Democratic Party, the Piedmont Environmental Council and several disaffected Republicans.

As a Republican, I had high hopes for the GOP board that took office in January 2004. I wanted to see an emphasis on building roads, reversing the forcible down-zoning of farmers and ending the use of tax dollars to purchase the development rights of the rich. I also wanted to see lower taxes and less spending.

However, these supervisors doomed themselves from the get-go with the manner in which they implemented their agenda. It began after the 2003 election when the six met in secret with certain developer interests and big players in the GOP, instead of bringing in the larger community.

The GOP board took away many of York's duties, and input from opponents was limited to them trying to get the board's attention during the public comment portion of meetings.

The discord at meetings and verbal abuse levied at county staff and at several speakers and reporters contributed to the perception that the new supervisors wanted to railroad their agenda, not build consensus. This was similar to how the "smart growth" York board treated farmers and developers when they were on the outs.

The take-no-prisoners approach of the Tulloch board cast suspicion over the Republicans, which I believe led the media and FBI to single them out for investigation above other local governments in the D.C. area. It also didn't help that the GOP supervisors failed to control spending and taxes.

I hope the new supervisors do not seek revenge or try to swing the pendulum back to where things were before 2004 simply because they have a big majority. These wide policy shifts just polarize the community and lead to one board being replaced by another.

The new board will be out on their tails in four years if they revive forced down-zoning, remove roads from the comprehensive plan -- or oppose their construction -- and try to resurrect the purchase of development rights when we have a potential $100 million deficit. Failure to bridge the gap they face with farmers, property rights activists, developers and folks concerned with high taxes and illegal immigration will doom them, too. I also hope the new board realizes that market forces -- not board policy -- will play the biggest role in determining the rate of growth.

From my standpoint as a Leesburg council member, I hope the new board will support, not fight us on annexation as the 2000 York board did, respect our town's sovereignty to set water and sewer rates and keep the new county government center in Leesburg.

Fortunately, the new board has some growth tools that were unavailable before. This includes transferable development rights, transportation impact fees and a dedicated source of funding for roads via the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, so the county need not rely on bond debt or developer proffers.