Perfect Storm this week in Loudoun

Wrapping up this week is WAPO's announcement that the Republican-machined transportation bill had passed committee, now awaiting the Guv's surgical knife. For us in the Dulles South region, the main funding would cover 6 lanes of Rt. 50 between Loudoun and Fairfax, thereby alleviating the primary traffic nightmare this side of the airport. Our area delegates were somewhat split on the vote, with Delegate Marshall (R), Senator Herring (D) and Colgan (D) voting against the measure, and Del. Rust (R), Del. Hugo (R), Del. May (R), Del. Caputo (D), Del. Poisson (D), and Sen. Cuccinelli (R) voting "for". Senate District 33's turning into a circus, thankfully for our entertainment value.

The Easterner checks in with a page-turner, stranger than fiction, with Roger Zurn (county elected treasurer) accused of assaulting (pushing into the snow) his neighbor's boy. Just part of an ongoing feud, evidently. A new Citizen's Police Academy (the 21st) gets started, so get your bad boyz-fightin' face on. The headliner includes the Kincora development at the intersection of Rt. 7 and 28 (west side), as a "smart growth" design - appears to be fairly uncontroversial to Dulles North constituents and Supervisors. Nice guest column from Del. Rust 'splaining' things down at the Assembly, good background as to how the vote turned out. Some lighter fare around the columnists on snow, ice, school closings, and mice control rounds out a decent overall read.

The Loudoun Independent was all about the bickering on the BOS between Tulloch and Burton ("are you accusing me of lying?"), adding to the circus-like atmosphere beginning to pervade this year's elections. Add a few letters to the editor supporting and bashing Lori Waters (a constant theme in this paper), and your read is over. There is a nice "Loudoun Health" insert, giving "readers and inside look at the area medical community", but it was focused only on dental care and a weight loss contest. We will note an "all-too-ignored" newsworthy event in the Loudoun area, in Dominion High School capturing the recent Dulles District academic team competition - Freedom High coming in 2nd.

The Connection was basically the same as the Easterner in core news coverage, albeit 2 pounds ligther in advertising. Some "old" news on the county budget analysis, notification of the Senate 33rd district republican firehouse primary on Mary 19th (between John Andrews and Patricia Phillips), and a roundup of last week's Ridgewater Park outcome (to send the project to a March work session for further study, mainly on environmental concerns). Nice bunch of South Riding snow pictures, and your read is quickly done.

Leesburg Today was predictable in its decent coverage of all things in and around Leesburg - for Dulles residents, take notee that the county website's been updated with 2007 real estate tax assessment information - the average home value has declined about 7% this year, according to the county assessor's office! The Rt. 50 "calming" project got kicked off, calmly, last week - which principly means another set of choke points for commuters passing through Middleburg and Aldie on their way to Fairfax, but a "roundabout" (traffic circle) at Gilbert's corner (Rt. 50 and Rt. 15) to improve the backups there. A mis-placed advertisement for Jey Jeyanathan (why in this paper?), complete with a major mis-spelling, rounds out our interest in this rag.

The Middleburg Eccentric showed up yesterday, so we'll spend an icey Sunday absorbing this monthly roundup, which shows good promise if only based on the compressed typeset and very colorful artwork.

WAPO - consistent 8
Easterner - an 8 this week
L2day - 6 (not so much for Dulles people)
LoudounI - 4
Connection - 3 (old news, really don't like the new website)