Opting -Out is a win win for Loudoun County.

Dear Secretary LaHood:

I am deeply troubled by the findings released today in the interim report from the department’s Inspector General (IG) on the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (WMAA) Board of Directors. I requested this audit last year and am sure you agree that the report raises significant concerns about the current board’s policies and procedures, including contracting practices, ethics and transparency. This demands immediate action.

Most egregious are the IG’s findings about MWAA’s contracting practices. The report notes that in many cases MWAA failed to even abide by its own established contracting procedures, which already fall short of industry standards. Particularly concerning are the number of sole source contracts issued. As you know, MWAA is required by law to fully compete any contract over $200,000, with limited exceptions. Yet the IG’s report states that “[d]uring the period of our review, MWAA awarded five sole source contracts that were over $200,000, but did not fall under any of MWAA’s categorical exemptions. These contract awards, which amount to $6 million, did not have Board approval.” Not only did MWAA abuse the exemptions permitted under federal law, they issued numerous contracts that failed to meet even these basic standards.

The report points out that while MWAA’s Contracting Manual says some exemptions are allowed, but “comprise only a small portion of MWAA’s contracts and their dollar value,” the IG found that the use of exemptions “has amounted to 40 percent of the Authority’s $589 million in contract awards during the period of our review.”

The rest of the letter only gets worse, the rest of it can be found here. Scott York, Ralph Buona, Shawn Williams and Matt Letourneau are hellbent on hitching us to the MWAA/WMATA plow. Please call or write to these men and try to talk some sense into them. Time is running out for Loudoun.

All this to get an estimated 12,000 riders? The report that claims this number assumes people are willing to pay for a $10-$20 round trip into Fairfax to DC. Why do this when the current bus system does the same job for a lot less? Why ride when driving costs less, but is more convenient? The price does not include the cost of parking your car at the Metro. The estimated ridership has been called into question given the reality of the cost for using the service. The ridership will be lower. We are looking a cost per rider to the tax payer that is in the thousands. Think about that.

Now, The in politics the golden rule is, “He who controls the gold, makes the rules.” How much Loudoun tax money will MWAA and WMATA have control over, if Loudoun opts-in? Loudoun will be giving up a fair amount of autonomy because the county will be on the hook to feed the Union Machine that is MWAA/WMATA. This is a lot of money for Loudouners to pay just for two periphery stations at the end of the Silver Line. The time for a Loudoun Rail has not yet arrived — and it should never yoke us to the union machine in DC.

Warning: Spelling errors are left unattended with this remote posting. I just get tired of correcting tjis technology for the errors IT makes. It’s not my fingers.

Currently Loudoun is on the hook for 4.8% of the $6.0B that is the price tag for Silver Line construction. The construction bonds could be in MWAA’s name. MWAA due to its poor historic handling of its finances, has a BBB credit rating. This means that they cannot secure 4% loans; the best they can get is 6%. The life time cost for servicing what would be Loudoun’s $285,000,000.00 share of these bonds is around $605,000,000.00. Lets now consider the Capital Improvement Costs that are in the neighborhood of $13.5B, what if Loudoun were saddled with 4.8% of that mountain of debt? Then add in a yearly operating budget of of around $13M. The operating budget is based on WMATA’s estimate — this organization has a poor record when it comes to all matters fiscal — the real operating budget likely will be far higher. Think about what this will do to our taxes. Now remember that MWAA and WMATA get to pump all this tax money into their general fund before it is put towards its intended use. Think about that.

This is a bad deal for Loudoun. Mr. York should know better, but he apparently does not. We are being set up to pay millions per year in order to restore the badly mismanaged MWAA budget. Even the original loans for metro, still have not been fully retired. We are seen as a cash cow by DC and MD Unions; a cash cow that is to be milked for all it is worth. All this just to get 2.6 miles of rail into one corner of the county. York claims this is needed to reduce traffic congestion, when the studies show it will do no such thing. The plan makes no sense Chairman York, why are you pushing us into this?

Supervisor Clark asks a simple question, “How much is this going to cost the Loudoun Tax payer?” Chairman York fails to make the distinction between cost and reasonable cost. It seems that Chairman York does not care. This is outrageous, it is the Loudoun taxpayer’s money, Mr York.

Chairman York then tries to demean Supervisor Clark by trying to compare building a school with paying WMATA and its Union forever. Mr. York not only failed, but he made a fool of himself to boot. This is classic York. He is utterly ruthless and has no regard for the facts. Then, York acts surprised when called to task for his bad behavior. Mr York’s retirement from public office is long overdue Loudoun. When are we going to learn? Loudoun County has been duped once again by this charlatan.

Mr. York, the studies show that ridership on metro will not lessen traffic in Loudoun. During the meeting, Supervisor Reid was quoting pages from these studies earlier that very same evening York went ape on Supervisor Clark. Here again, Mr. York ignores any and all data that does not support his stated goal of bringing rail to Loudoun.

Rail supporters and even WMATA all agree rail will still come to Dulles Airport, even if Loudoun Co. does opt-out of this incredibly costly deal. A deal that appears to cost more and more every time it is revisited or discussed. Loudoun’s share of the Capital Improvement Costs that run currently 13 Billion Dollars, is an unknown that would give pause to any reasonable executive who has the public trust. Yet, York refuses to take this under consideration. Why? This only makes people wonder all the more, “What is the really driving Mr. York here?”

Of the twelve men (well, eleven men and a boy) competing for the title, only one, GM Robert Hess, was born in the United States.  One other, the youngster GM Ray Robson, was born in Guam, so that’s close enough.  The other ten are immigrants.

Of the ten women in the competition, four were born in Ukraine.  None were born in the United States.

This nation attracts the Best and Brightest.  GM Gata Kamsky is #14 in the world, and GM Hikaru Nakamura is #7.  As Americans, they do not have to ask the government’s permission to go play a tournament in another country, and they get to keep all of their winnings.

At the same time, where are all the US-born players?

Those with such intellect and drive go into other fields here — business, architecture, engineering, etc.  In much of the world, those choices simply do not exist.  In the former USSR and the Eastern Block nations, if you were a good chess player, you played whether you wanted to do something else or not.  The same goes in China now.

I like it here.  What a country!

It is funny how the homosexual lobby characterizes their opponents: “gay marriage opponents, mostly conservatives….”  In state after state, red-state and blue, gay marriage has gone down in flames.  Yet somehow, these same people refuse to acknowledge that ours is a center-right country.

UPDATE: Obama has come out of the closet, as it were, and announced his support for gay marriage.  We all knew he was lying in the last presidential campaign — he knew he would not get the nomination if he had come out then.  Now, he has no primary competition, and has to do something to energize the base.

Metro Phase 2 to Dulles and its 2.5 mile jaunt into Loudoun County is unraveling as we speak. This is a good thing. Let us hope that as a result of the poor planning of the project and its financing that those interested in crafting a rational and affordable fix can get engaged and reconfigure the projects lay-out and its costs. As presently configured, this project with its subsequent long term costs and debt, are a losing proposition for Loudoun County taxpayers.

The 2.5 mile section of this project projecting into Asburn is the portion of this project that simply has to go. This portion of the proposed route is not a transportation project, it is a huge land deal that tethers Loudoun County taxpayers to Metro and MWAA for the rest of our lives at the behest of a select few landowners and developers who stand to profit in a big way. They make millions we get the bill. They get to profit from development directly adjacent to the proposed stations, we the tax payers get to fund not only the rail project, but the surrounding infrastructure that feeds the development. BTW, those of you in the west get to pay huge tolls for the privledge of driving to these end of the line stations to park and hop on the Choo-Choo. Just this week Supervisor Buona admitted that tax increases will be required in order to construct and maintain Metro. No kidding, this is a large part of the opposition to Metro 2.

If the Obama administration were to design and implement this scheme as a part of some Stimulus Package, or other such Federal Mandate, Republicans of all stripes would be screaming at the top of their collective lungs-Crony Capitalism ! However, when the local Republican leaders join the big spending Democrats in Richmond, the  Public Sector Unions, and the Editorial Board of the Washington Post,  all we get is crickets. Those same supposed fiscal conservatives who would tear into Barack Obama like a free lunch, have all of a sudden lost their voices.

Those trying to ram this project through like Nancy Pelosi at midnight, based on the Choo-Choo as the tool of economic development for Loudoun, should give it a rest. Please don’t urinate on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Does anyone think that Tysons Corner, Reston or Herndon is lacking developement? Tysons Corner has more office and retail space than the entire city of Miami. All of this happened without rail service. Metro into Ashburn is not the magic solution to Loudoun’s development imbalance.

One has to ask the question, if Metro Phase 2 is such a great idea, why aren’t the feds kicking in funding for the project? They helped fund Phase 1. Well, it turns out, that this phase of the Silver Line does not meet the federal guidlines for a transportation rail project deserving of federal funding. That’s right, even the inept Obama administration, a group that can not walk past a rat hole without filling it up with cash, will not fund this sorry excuse for a transportation project. It would appear the gang who failed 10th grade economics because they were in the parking lot listening to Jefferson Airplane while doing bong hits have come to the conclusion that even they can’t in good conscience, fund this land deal. Which leads to my second question. If these goof balls figured it out, why can’t 9 Republican Supervisors do the same? BTW, I am not going to let the Obama Administration off the hook entirely, they did dispatch Ray LaHood to broker a deal and convince the stakeholders to flush more of their own cash down the Metro 2 rat hole. Thanks Ray, but please stay in Washington and assist your boss in the destruction of the rest of the country, we here in NOVA are perfectly capable of screwing this up all by ourselves.

Don’t let them tell you that if Loudoun Opts Out, Metro Rail to Dulles won’t happen. Metro to Dulles Airport is going to happen come hell or high water. This is all the more reason for Loudoun to Opt-Out and spend our tax dollars on projects that actually effect transportation in a meaningful way.

When I interviewed Ms. Clarke before the election I saw something in her that I believed would help change the way Loudoun does business. I asked her a question on both my behalf and Eric’s about conflict votes and campaign contributions. When specifically asked about what she would do when OpenBand business came before the board, she said she would are recuse herself. Not legally whether it was voluntary or not…..but to recuse herself period. It seems that again these politicos feel it is the campaign money in their pockets and not the citizens that got them elected. Wrong. And I was wrong about her. Just goes to show how peoples words mean nothing anymore. No ethics other than power management and helping their “buddies”. Too bad. I guess it is time for me to start using some of my retirement time digging dirt on all these slimeballs. Maybe I’ll get lucky enough to dig up something criminal that can be chargable. Whatever may come your way I have no more sympathy. It looks like shit politics with shitty people all over again. You lied, Janet. Have you no moral code?

It appears that the University of Richmond has its annual beach week right before graduating ceremonies and the kids go wild.  Parties every night (can’t fault them for that), fireworks in a restricted danger area (like to beat their ass for that) and just care free fun in the sun.  I talked with some of these youngins and asked what they were going to do after graduation.  Most of them don’t have a clue.  My guess is that they are not ready to face the world and figure that mommy and daddy will be some endless money pit for their fun.  Some were actually prospecting jobs but pickens was slim.  Ya think?  All I got from these conversations were a sense of non-chalance. They are having a young Republicans gathering here but I get the feeling that kids just don’t care much about politics or voting these days.  Some had some sense about not voting Dem but they really didn’t have a good answer why not.  I’m getting a sense that the new crop of young voters won’t be helping the nation out much this election.  And Obama just “officially” went on the campaign trail today.  I’m only glad that no one is paying attention–especially the knuckleheads!

The laws transition over the evil category when they are used to entrap. Manipulating posted speed limits is one example. Back in the 1970’s, a county in Texas had speed limits drop from 55mph to 30mph so fast that even slamming on the brakes would not keep you below the posted limit. A deputy was on location 24-7 writing tickets. A judge had the county take the sign down. Many jurisdictions subtly engage in similar practices.

Laws that impinge directly on other freedoms, in the name of regulating travel, are more egregious. The price we pay for flying is ridiculous. We have our dignity violated in the name of security; our privacy stripped away. We cannot even bring a bottle of water from home because everyone who wants to fly is under suspicion. This violates the 4th Amendment. The TSA thugs inflict indignities upon flyers that are worse than the profiling of El Al. Think about it, would you rather be questioned or fondled, or, scanned naked?

Children running up to hug grandma are subject to rank thuggery:

a recent incident in Wichita, Kansas has reinforced that argument, as a four-year-old girl was apparently subjected to a humiliating ordeal after she hugged her grandmother while she was waiting in line.

We have gone well past necessary into evil here. People flying from London to Rome have their rights less trammeled than do Americans flying from New York to Atlanta. Considering that London and Rome are the capitals of two separate countries, while JFK and ATL are but airports inside a single nation, this is absurd. What is even more absurd is that many celebrate their shiny new chains.

The next step will be railroad and roadside check points. The TSA has declared such activities to be myths. Then why have such check points been established in Tennessee?

A week ago, Tennessee became the first state to team up with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to implement highway checkpoints for random searches in a move to counter terrorism.

According to the LA Times, the TSA has been busying itself elsewhere:

The Transportation Security Administration isn’t just in airports anymore. TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass transit locations around the country.

Other societies have succumb to fear, and sought to trade security for freedom. These societies paid a heavy price for such folly.  Americans historically bridled at the thought that their liberty was for sale at any price. Americans have a proud heritage of seeking freedom and opportunity, eschewing security — our frontier epitomized such freedom and opportunity. The Frontier Spirit gave us the power to persevere in the face of danger.  We would do well to remember it.

The most pernicious aspect of all this is that such restrictions and indignities have become the new normal. How can one miss something, if one never had it in the first place? Most people are too young to have experienced a world without the constraints that exist today, or they simply do not remember. An animal born in captivity does not notice the bars on the cage either.