The Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce has a great site summarizing the candidates for election to the Loudoun Board of Supervisors and our Delegation to Richmond. The purpose of the site is to:

…keep our members informed about which candidates for state and local offices support the Loudoun County Chamber’s pro-business policy agenda.[...]

A significant aspect of the BizVotes Campaign will be a candidates’ questionnaire, which the Chamber will ask each of the candidates for the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and the Virginia General Assembly representing Loudoun to complete. Then we’ll share with you the answers and let you decide which candidates have the best ideas to lead Loudoun County and represent our interests in Richmond.

It’ll be interesting to see what the questionnaire entails. Every time you hear political types talk about questionnaires from “special interest” groups, it’s usually with either teeth clenched or with eyes rolled. Typically the questions they get range from simply inappropriate to downright odd:

1) Will you bend down and kiss the little toes of our representatives at a moment’s notice if and when we deem it worthy to endorse you and you happen to win.
2) Will you raise (lower) taxes (wages) for _____ (insert your group here) EVER…under any circumstances.
3) Do you solemnly swear to march in picket lines, bomb buildings, maim, pillage, and murder, to keep HR789837-78898 from passing?
4) Do you realize if you score less than a 99.9% on this questionnaire that we will support your opponent?
5) Did you know the average lifespan of a politician who DOESN’T support OUR cause?

I exaggerate of course (GASP!, ME?), but you get the point. “Special interest” questionnaires are typically pretty “specialized.” I trust of course that the Chamber’s questionnaire will be more balanced, as they are explicitly not endorsing anyone.

Below is the summary from the Chamber’s site of the races in question:

General Assembly Races (* denotes incumbent)
Senate 33rd Mark Herring* (D) Patricia Phillips (R)House 32nd David Poisson* (D) Lynn Chapman (R)House 86th Tom Rust* (R) Jay Donahue (D) House 67th Chuck Caputo* (D) Mark Cadin (R)	Senate 27th Jill Holtzman Vogel (R) Karen Schultz (D)House 33rd Joe May* (R) Marty Martinez (D)House 13th Robert Marshall* (R) Bruce Roemmelt (D)
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Races (* denotes incumbent)
Chairman Scott York* (I) Mike Firetti (R) Potomac District Bruce Tulloch* (R) Andrea McGimsey (D)Blue Ridge District Jim Burton* (I) Mark Albright (R) Broad Run District Lori Waters* (R) Jack Ryan (I) Phyllis Randall (D) Catoctin District Sally Kurtz* (D) Geary M. Higgins (R)	Dulles District Steve Snow* (R) Stevens Miller (D)Leesburg District Jim Clem* (R) Kelly Burk (D) Ken Reid (I)Sterling District Eugene Delgaudio* (R) Jeanne West (D) Sugarland Run District Mick Staton* (R) Susan Buckley (D)
Voter Registration information Commonwealth of Virginia voter registration form: http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/documents/ VirginiaVoterRegistrationApplication.PDF Loudoun County Voter Registration Office http://www.loudoun.gov/government/voting.htm

Loudoun County Chamber Bizvotes

Maybe unanimous votes are more common than I think, but this is definitely interesting to see this sort of unity from the Loudoun Board of Supervisors. Mick Staton raised this Constitutionality question months ago, and I’m surprised it’s taken this long for it to become a real issue. Nothing like an actual levying of taxes to prompt action.

Meanwhile, I got this email from the NVTA yesterday:

Transportation Authority Voting Members

Need to Hear from YOU

NOW!

Sometime after 8:00 p.m. on July 12^th the fourteen voting members of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority will be asked to vote on seven new regional taxes and fees that will generate more than $300 million per year for regional transportation projects.

If better regional transportation is important to you, you need to contact Authority members and urge them to vote “Yes” for each of the seven new mechanisms.

The message is as simple as – “Northern Virginia’s future won’t wait. I urge members of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority to adopt the seven regional taxes and fees at your July 12, 2007 meeting.”

To email this or your own message directly to Authority members, please click here.

For contact information for Authority voting members, please click here.

Twenty Years Is Long Enough to Wait!

Contact the Authority Now

To Get Northern Virginia Moving!!

This should be really interesting.

Leesburg Today

Apparently the board of supervisors thinks that the poor residents of Loudoun are just too confused by streets’ changing names.

So they want to initiate a study. Good idea. A study on why roads have different names.

Lori Waters reads my mind:

“Who will pay the cost to change documents?” Waters asked during the board meeting, saying she would be willing to have a committee study the topic, but she did not want staff to get “bogged down with this.”

Meanwhile “Red Rum Dr.” has Mr. Snow waking up at night in a cold sweat thinking about Jack Nicholson coming up his stairs.

Update: Just noticed Bacon’s Rebellion has also posted on this heart-wrenching and thought-provoking issue.

Leesburg Today