Supervisors punt on Confederate statue control

The Loudoun Board of Supervisors will not seek authority from the Virginia General Assembly in January to move or remove a statue of a Confederate soldier that stands in front of the county courthouse.

On Wednesday, the supervisors narrowly defeated a motion by Board Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) to request that the General Assembly amend state law to give the county discretion over the bronze statue, which was erected in 1908. Under state law, Virginia localities are not permitted to “disturb or interfere with” war memorials.

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The Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2017

Parking garage project plagued by sinkholes

Two sinkholes that formed during the construction of a parking garage for the Loudoun County courts complex on the Pennington lot in downtown Leesburg have set the project back by about five months and raised the cost by more than $5 million.

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The Washington Post, Sept. 10, 2017

Loudoun Museum is straightening out finances

One year after the Loudoun Museum faced the possibility of having to close because of the potential loss of county funding, museum officials say they have taken the necessary first steps to straighten out the organization’s finances.

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors directed the museum’s trustees to make fundraising a top priority, officials said. So in May, the trustees hired Leslie Mazeska, who has a professional background in fundraising and grant-writing for nonprofit organizations, as the museum’s executive director.

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The Washington Post, July 30, 2017

Loudoun Supervisors consider raising Board salaries

A proposal to increase the salaries of members of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors drew little opposition at a public hearing Wednesday evening.

The three members of the public who spoke at the hearing said they supported higher pay for the board. The only objections to the raises — which would take effect when a new board is seated in January 2020 — came from supervisors who expressed concerns about the amount of the increases and the timing of the proposal.

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The Washington Post, July 16, 2017

Board approves controversial contract for inmate medical care

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on Thursday approved a two-year, $4.7 million contract with Correct Care Solutions to provide medical and psychiatric services to inmates at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center.

The Nashville-based company has been providing those services at the jail for more than a decade. However, several supervisors expressed frustration with the selection process, saying they had little choice but to stay with the current provider, even though two competing firms submitted proposals with lower price tags.

Supervisors also questioned whether the process of reviewing the proposals had been tainted because Correct Care Solutions has made campaign contributions to Sheriff Michael L. Chapman (R), who is responsible for overseeing the contract.

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The Washington Post, June 25, 2017

Randall: Exciting times in Loudoun

In her annual State of the County presentation, Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) described Loudoun as strong, thriving and “standing on the cusp of an exciting future.”

A standing-room-only crowd that included business leaders and public officials from across the region packed the Board of Supervisors’ meeting room Wednesday, as Randall recapped the county’s successes of the past year. She also pointed out some of the challenges associated with Loudoun’s high cost of living, including the lack of workforce housing and an inadequate pay scale for public safety workers.

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The Washington Post, May 28, 2017

Supervisors debate including transition area in plan’s vision statement

A narrow swath of land between eastern and western Loudoun County dominated the discussion as the Board of Supervisors wrestled recently with the wording of the vision statement for a new comprehensive plan that will guide development in the county for decades to come.

On May 2, six months into the 18-month process of creating the plan, supervisors began discussing a draft vision statement and goals that had been developed by a committee of stakeholders after a period of public input.

Most of the discussion focused on the “transition policy area,” which was zoned to serve as a buffer between rapidly developing eastern Loudoun and the rural west. Supervisors disagreed over whether the vision statement should include the word “transition” as one of the primary types of land areas in the county, along with “rural, suburban and urban.”

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The Washington Post, May 14, 2017

School Board accepts budget reduction

When the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors adopted a budget for fiscal 2018 on April 4, it handed the school board the task of trimming its expenditures by $5.5 million.

On Monday, the school board completed the budget reconciliation process by approving a list of reductions recommended by Schools Superintendent Eric Williams. That list avoided cuts to the school board’s key initiatives, such as expanding full-day kindergarten, boosting employee salaries and buying new school buses.

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The Washington Post, April 30, 2017