Kudos, ear buds and the color brown

By Charles Houston

Kudos

Phyllis Randall, Chair of the Board of Supervisors, gets kudos for her attentiveness and engagement with a large delegation of citizens protesting the ill-conceived proposal to link Waterford and Paeonian Springs with 2.5 miles of new water and sewer lines along Clarkes Gap Road. (If this is new to you, check out last month’s Op-Ed: https://blueridgeleader.com/a-stupid-project-is-getting-pregnant/ )

Her next step is possibly to get Staff to present alternatives. Kudos also to the Waterford Preservation Group for leading this effort.

Staff

Loudoun County Staff has all the characteristics of any bureaucracy: A hierarchical structure, a specialization of labor, formal rules and procedures, slow decision making, rigidity and lack of responsiveness to individuals’ needs. (Thank you, AI, for this list.) I’d add foundational directives of any bureaucracy: Self-preservation. Defensiveness. Controlling information flow. Grow in size. Increase its power.

Here’s one way our Staff controls information, presumably with the goal of protecting its plans. When citizens, and probably Supervisors, ask for information, they are told, “That won’t be possible until the feasibility study is finished.” Sounds logical, right? Wrong – by the time a feasibility study is finished, years may have passed and millions have been spent. At that point citizens can only squawk impotently and the Board finds it impossible to pull the project back.

A Populist Solution

When a project is first ideated, the County first should convene a public hearing to gauge opinion. Is the project wanted? Hated? 

Staff doesn’t do this and sometimes pays the price: Without any public input, it proposed to convert Mickie Gordon Park, just east of Middleburg, into a massive cricket center. Middleburg erupted against losing its old park. Staff finally understood that cricket players mostly live miles away to the east, and so its grandiose scheme was scaled back.

One characteristic of governmental bureaucracies from the Capitol to Richmond to Loudoun is the sense that it is permanent and can outlast the current legislators. That’s arrogant, but it’s also reality.

Ear Buds

At Dulles a few weeks ago, I heard one side of a conversation and turned. It was a middle-aged man in suit and tie, striding forcefully down the concourse, yammering away as if speaking to the air. It made sense when I saw bright white ear buds. 

I had four thoughts. First, speaking in a stentorian voice was rude and this was far from the first time I’ve witnessed it. Second, I would never want strangers to listen in on my half of a conversation. Third, the combination of ear buds and a smartphone are creating a zombie culture. Fourth, ear buds should be available in colors other than white.

I did buy a pair of ear buds, in black. That’s a bit more subtle, but I seldom wear them because I fear that if one falls out, I won’t be able to find it against any dark flooring. 

Here’s a suggestion for ear bud manufacturers: Produce the things in several skin tones, from light to dark.

Buying Insurance

What a dreadful task. When I was young it was actually simple: Buy the cheapest. Later, during my career, a development project’s insurance needs were complex, but I could hand things off to someone else. Now, owning a farm and getting the right coverage for a potentially risky sport becomes important and there’s no one to whom I can toss that duty.

Now it’s more important to get insurance right rather than to get it cheaply. That means truly understanding what is covered and what is excluded. Carefully scrutinizing the entire insurance policy document is critical.

There’s a problem. Insurance companies will quickly quote a premium and give you a one-page “Declarations,” which details the amount of coverage and the deductibles. I need more than that, so I ask to see the full policy. “Sure,” says the insurance company, “we’ll send it to you after you’ve purchased the policy.”

That’s akin to walking into a clothing store and asking to see its coats, then being told, “Pay $500 now and then I can show you the coats we have.” My old Marketing professor’s adage was “Find out what the customer wants and sell it to him.” That’s the way buying insurance—or coats— should work.

The Color Brown

A century ago, my great aunt and uncle built a small house on a quiet street in Augusta, Georgia, my home town. It had a grand front porch but its exterior was brown-colored wooden siding. Color popularity comes and goes, and maybe brown was favored at the time. They lived there for perhaps seventy years and if they ever had the house repainted, they kept it dark brown. 

My father inherited the house and kept it as a rental. He wanted to spruce it up and I suggested a lighter exterior color such as cream or pale yellow. He eschewed my advice with this declaration, “It’s always been brown and should always be brown.” 

Later my youngest brother owned the house and he, too, wanted to update it. Once more I suggested a light exterior color and once again I heard, “It’s always been brown and should always be brown.” Today, brown, yellow and orange are the least-liked colors. Had father and brother followed my advice, I’d bet they could have raised the rents.

Strangely, dark brown now seems to be a popular color for multifamily developers in eastern Loudoun. Look along Route 7 and the Greenway and you’ll see such abominations. Taste is subjective and personal, but despite that I’m sure Staff would be all too happy to regulate aesthetics.

Charlie Houston and his wife live in a farmhouse where one wing is fieldstone and the other is dark red siding. The barns and outbuildings are cream colored. One of their cars is a sage green, the others are shades of gray and bronze. Houston usually wears black polos or turtlenecks.