LTE: Reader Questions Validity of Keirce Statements

To the editor:

Your recent portrait of Cliff Keirce, Independent candidate for Supervisor from the Broad Run District (“Keirce Lets Loose on Broad Run Opponents,” September 22, 2011) cannot be allowed to stand without rebuttal.

If he is quoted correctly, Kierce states that “[t]he Broad Run District is completely gerrymandered [and that Supervisor Andrea McGimsey] created this District for her own interests.” Kierce cites no evidence for this belief, but it takes no particular stretch to realize that he is channeling the false claim being propagated by his biggest patron, Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles). Unfortunately for Supervisor Miller, a detailed record exists of the Board of Supervisors’ actions on March 15, when the final district lines were adopted by the Board. That record demonstrates that Miller himself had more to do with the final contours of what is now the Broad Run District than did Supervisor McGimsey (D-Potomac).

Significantly, in light of the incessant criticisms Mr. Miller has directed at Supervisor McGimsey in his blog and elsewhere, the transfer of the Oak Grove precinct to the new Broad Run District, and the accompanying transfer of parts of the old Potomac District from Broad Run to the new Sterling, were accomplished not at the insistence of Supervisor McGimsey, but on a motion made by Mr. Delgaudio and seconded by Mr. Miller. Miller and every other supervisor save one – Vice Chair Susan Klimek Buckley (D-Sugarland Run) – voted for Delgaudio’s motion. Miller did not protest that Oak Grove belonged in Sterling; on the contrary, he provided the necessary second, and he voted to support Mr. Delgaudio’s request. (The detailed record of that day’s proceedings is found at Chairman York’s Action Report for the day at chairmanyork.wordpress.com.) [Editor’s note: The action report from the March 15, 2011 board meeting is attached as well.]

Moreover, the Delgaudio/Miller effort to divest Delgaudio of the Oak Grove precinct succeeded only after an earlier effort to accomplish the same thing, sponsored by Supervisor Waters, had failed, even though that motion also had Miller’s support. That failed effort, which Miller supported, would have moved Oak Grove into the new Algonkian District.

Miller’s attacks on Supervisor McGimsey began almost immediately after the March 15 meeting. They centered on the claim, which Miller knows to be false, that Oak Grove was moved into Broad Run as a sop to gain Supervisor McGimsey’s vote. See for example, the long comment Mr. Miller posted on the True Adventures of the Doorbell Queen blog on March 17, 2011. Given the actual record of the Board’s actions on March 15, described above, Mr. Miller’s March 17 blog comment bears examining. He said there:

“That’s because . . . [Oak Grove] would have been a major step in dislodging a man with no place in elected service:  Eugene Delgaudio. [Oak Grove] belongs in his new district. We [Oak Grove] residents have a right to vote in his election this November. The people you name just took away our rights and gave them, in effect, to a man who profits every day in the business of retail hate. If he wins, it will be their fault.”

Their fault, indeed!  If by “they,” Supervisor Miller means the supervisors who engineered this shift of Oak Grove, his own name belongs at the top of that list.

The Board’s own record, cited above, proves that Supervisor Miller was, himself, instrumental in arranging to move Oak Grove out of Mr. Delgaudio’s new district, but that has not deterred Supervisor Miller from continuing to propagate this falsehood. 

All of which leads back to Mr. Keirce and your Sept. 22 piece.  If Mr. Keirce is the straight-shooting Independent he claims to be, I would have thought he would be prepared to substantiate his claim that Supervisor McGimsey had engineered the transfer of Oak Grove to her new district. But instead of providing some evidence to support his claim (what we in the legal profession refer to as “facts”), Mr. Keirce simply followed Mr. Miller’s lead.

And instead of either asking for such evidence or inviting Supervisor McGimsey to respond to this false charge, Ashburn Patch simply reported Mr. Keirce’s falsehood. Winston Churchill famously observed that a lie will be halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on. Purveyors of falsehoods like this one count on that, and their reliance will be well placed unless responsible journalists do their part to combat the lies. Readers of your publication, and voters in the Broad Run District, are entitled to more, both from Mr. Keirce and from Ashburn Patch.

Denis Gordon
Unison, Virginia
September 25, 2011

[Editor's note: Denis Gordon is a vice chairman of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee.]