Another Dirty Move By The Dems?

I am going to start writing a bit more about local level politics in my area because it interests me a bit and because it is going to be a crazy election year for the county I am in.

For the past while, the board has been dealing with redistricting. The county is growing extremely fast and some districts were getting too big. From the beginning everybody knew this would be a "fun" issue and that it has the potential to get dirty.

A couple nights ago the board finally chose a plan. The problem is that the plan doesn't make sense. Before I go on, I will let the Chairman of the Board explain:


Dear Friends,

As you may be aware, the Board of Supervisors adopted a redistricting plan during our business meeting yesterday. The plan adopted was Miller 5 that was slightly amended. You may see the unofficial version of this map here. Also posted is the map of the election boundaries that the new map will replace. Voting for the new districts were Burton, Kurtz, Buckley, McGimsey and Burk.

I did not support this plan as it was put together and pushed by one of Loudoun’s political parties. The eastern districts were gerrymandered and make absolutely no sense. We setup a process that invited all to participate and many citizens came together and formed a map that geographically did a much better job of keeping communities together and was much more logical. I want to thank those citizens for all their efforts. So much more intelligent was the citizen’s plan that even Stevens Miller, the supervisor that sponsored the so called Miller 5 plan, attempted to remove his name from it, but his motioned failed 4-5. Miller then put forth the question of the afternoon to those Supervisors pushing the Miller 5 plan, asking, “If you are so proud of this plan, then why don’t you put your name on it?”

Sincerely,

Scott



This plan was put into place by Democrats and one lone Independent who clearly did not have the needs of the County in mind. Maybe they know their chances of being reelected are slim at this time and are probably just trying to go down in some weird twisted glory. Or maybe they know something I don't, and Gerrymandering* the districts will actually work. At a time when every county, city, and state should be trying to save money, they put in a plan that will force the electoral board to spend more money maning more voting locations. And that doesn't even include all the time that will be spend dealing with this mess.

I can't wait for the day when the majority of the Board knows that doing what is right for the county is more important than special interests. Not sure that day will ever come. At the very least, just have pitty on us a little bit and don't raise taxes again. I don't care if our kids need more electronic white boards in their classes. NO MORE TAX INCREASES.

*In case you don't know what Gerrymandering means the definition from Dictionary.com is as follows: The dividing of a state, county, etc., into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible.

Gerrymander is named after E. Gerry (governor of Massachusetts, whose party redistricted the state in 1812) + (sala)mander, from the fancied resemblance of the map of Essex County, Mass., to this animal, after the redistricting.

If just happened to be their word of the day Wednesday, September 8, 2010. I am that behind on my emails. But good news is I only have 130 more to go through :)