WRSYDHT - slow week, except for today!

Leafing through the rags (so you don't have to) wasn't especially helpful or entertaining this week, except, of course, for this morning's WAPO article on greedy developers, nepotism-laced lobbying, up-for-sale supervisors, the FBI and a holistic disregard for selflessness in the course of public service - we're talking of course about Loudoun County (according to the Washington Post). More to come on that, be assured...

The Easterner was especially disappointing - old and non-interesting news, a "Real Estate" section with no actual real estate news (as opposed to the Independent), a few very local tidbits from our busy community liaisons (including a plug for South Riding Inn under the guise of some anti-smoking news, and duplicate news between Suzanne and Elena), a decent discussion (under Tim's Sterling section) of a new "impact fee" policy proposed by Mick Staton, and, well, that's it after a brief 55 pages.

The Loudoun Connection was slimmer by half (23 pages!), and good only for three items; first, the excellent coverage of our new Gum Spring Library to be opened in 2008 (with Karen Montgomery, chair of the Friends of the Gum Spring Library board, prominently appearing on the front cover). Second, an overview of the School Board's proposed operating budget and apparent reluctance to decrease class sizes and/or increase teacher salaries significantly. Third, the gloves are off for the 2007 election season, with Dick Black (former delegate) quite pointedly blaming the Democrats for bringing transportation to a "screeching halt", and for being "an unmitigated disaster for traffic-clogged regions of Virginia". Nice.

The Independent was similarly bogged with out-of-date news (at least for those who read about things online, or get a daily newspaper), though they've captured a bit of the Jey Jeyanathan from Gum Spring mystique (is opposing Snow this November) - he purports that Dulles District residents were opposed to last Fall's CPAM change, in contrast to their duly elected representative (Snow). Therefore, where's Snow's representation and support coming from? Jey doesn't come out and say, but today's WAPO sure stirs the pot. We're looking forward to a very carefully-worded political struggle for the Dulles seat.

Leesburg Today - now there's some fuel for the fire (literally, at 80 very heavy pages). Front and center is the new school budget, a hike of $104 million. A bit of material on the developing initiative to move the government offices out of Leesburg, perhaps following the School Board over to Ashburn. We did notice, in the Government File, a note that the BOS initiated a petition to the State Corporation Commission seeking a portion of tolls collected along the Greenway (just like Fairfax gets from the Toll Road). This fairly important to our Dulles traffic situation, because Fairfax county is already opposing the use of money from Dulles Toll Road fares to improve Rt. 606 in Loudoun....after that, our eyes glazed over the very Leesburg-local content, and it's time to root on the Patriots...