LTE: Board Should Reject Delgaudio Request to Fund Newsletter

Dear Editor, 

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors (BOS) should deny Supervisor Delgaudio's requests for funding control ("Delgaudio Relents On Censure, Apologizes For 'Embarrassment' Caused"). Additionally, the BOS should adopt an ethics policy modeled on that of San Antonio, TX, prohibiting "the use of public employees and city resources for political purposes, and [avoiding] any appearance of bias or favoritism in carrying out public policy." 

Other news sources report that Delgaudio will request funding for his fall newsletter on Wednesday Sept 4, 2013. There is ample evidence, obtainable through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, that Supervisor Delgaudio abuses his "newsletter" privilege. He produced five of them in 2012. In one instance he provides his campaign email address as the way to contact him as an elected county official. In another, he compiled a so-called "small mailing" that was sent only to a small subset of constituents. Who were they? Why did they receive this special correspondence? Who paid for staff to select the recipients?

The real purpose of the "newsletters" is clear: Every one contains a "survey" that is used to develop lists, and these lists are then used for political purposes. For example, during the Metro debate constituent emails were regularly forwarded to anti-Metro activists Dave LaRock and John Grigsby to assist them in orchestrating their campaign. Supervisor Delgaudio also used his government position to personally disparage pro-Metro constituents, in one case referring to a taxpaying citizen as an "English twit."

Supervisor Delgaudio's office spends more than $20K per year on these mailings, composed by a former county aide who currently heads an out-of-state lobbying group; that lobbying group in turn funded 2011 election robo-calls in Loudoun. Since the BOS can't monitor the content of Supervisor Delgaudio's "newsletters," and would be in effect blindly funding his political research, the answer to his request must be "DENIED." 

Jonathan Weintraub
Lovettsville, VA