Op-Ed
By Charles Houston Let’s talk about sex. A pollinator is anything that carries pollen from the male stamen of a flower to the female stigma of that or another flower. Honeybees are the most recognizable pollinator. Here’s the usual vision: Pastel flowers on knee-high stems, sprouting in a sunny garden. Bees and a few other…
By Kwasi Fraser, Former Town of Purcellville Mayor Mayor Stan Milan, Vice Mayor Erin Rayner, and Council members Mary Jane Williams, Caleb Stought, and Kevin Wright conspicuously avoid discussing the 2013 debt restructuring necessitated by the enormous debt we inherited from my predecessor. This omission reveals the fallacy in their assertions and undercuts their attempts…
By John Ellis In their zoning decisions, some County supervisors seem to apply a double standard that puts the interests of developers above the interests of citizens who are impacted by development. When developers apply for re-zonings and “special exceptions” that allow them to super-size their projects, supervisors have no concerns about the developers’ motivations.…
“Gaslight” was a film of the 1940’s in which a husband tried to convince his wife through the flickering of the ominous gas lighting that she was going mad; “losing it,” in today’s vernacular. The term has made it into the present-day to mean a manipulation the purpose of which is to make people believe…
By Charles Houston Ceremony Everyone expected the April 10 Board of Supervisors’ Public Hearing to be brutal. There were at least four contentious items and every seat in the Board Room of the Government Center was filled. Most estimates were that the meeting would continue until at least 3 a.m. Chair Phyllis Randall was pessimistic…
By Purcellville Council Member Chris Bertaut Purcellville is in budget season and the outlook is not good for the town’s residents. For the first time since 2012, millions in new debt is being proposed that will reverse progress made, with $12 million of our inherited town debt having been eliminated since 2012. The FY25 budget…
By John Ellis Loudoun citizens’ frustrations continue to rise as breakneck growth and development overwhelm our roads, schools, neighborhoods, and countryside. And that’s even before we start to consider how much it costs us as taxpayers; which is a lot. Congested roads and crowded schools have direct impacts on County spending. The County needs to…
By Charles Houston Abridged conversation: Citizens: “We must reduce housing density in the county.” Big easement donor and a developer: “That’s downzoning and is illegal. If you enact it, we won’t do anything more in Loudoun.” This person is wrong, and selfish. Abridged conversation: Citizens: “We must reduce housing density in western Loudoun.” Department of…
By Kwasi Fraser Citizens of Purcellville, let me clarify my position on the Rt. 7/690 Interchange. I once supported this proposed project based on the Loudoun County Interchange Justification Report (IJR) design. I envisioned relief for Hirst Road congestion as documented in the IJR. My endorsement was based on an earlier design presented in the…
By Charles Houston Time to nerd out a bit. At the end of this piece there’s a two or three-line, italicized bio. Yes, I was a developer and yes, I handled millions of square feet of major office buildings, from Miami to Louisville, and from New Orleans to Richmond. My biggest building was 1.2 million…