Comments Off

By O.Hank!, February 20, 2013 8:18 pm

February 18, 2013 — In an op-ed in yesterday’s Fredericksburg Freelance Star, Alfred King, Spotsylvania Republican money man, perennial candidate and budget advisor, admitted that math, not ideology, is the driver behind budget making and praised former Spotsylvania County Board members for sound fiscal stewardship.

In his piece, King concluded that the current Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors, headed by the new Republican majority, has to decide between cutting services or raising taxes when formulating the County’s upcoming budget.  As a wise man once said, “No sh***, Sherlock…!”

Now, most rational people understand that this is pretty much always the case when formulating budgets.  But the new Republican majority, like their brethren at the state and federal levels, promised no new taxes!  That they would take this pledge is nothing new, but they also promised to fully fund education, strengthen public safety services, particularly fire and rescue, return to taxpayers the $9 million surplus built up by the previous Board AND cut taxes!  Alfred King, running for Commissioner of Revenue, was right there with them.

It will be interesting to see how they tap dance their way through this budget and hold onto their promise.  They spent a lot of time and money in 2011 lying about how the old Board and County Administrator mismanaged budgets and other services.  However, now that they are in charge of a growing County with a growing appetite for good schools and safe streets, they are finding out that governing is hard work and not something you can do with bumper sticker slogans and empty pledges.

I fully expect them to walk back their promises by blaming the old Board or announcing something unforseen that they just learned!  No matter what they do, it will be interesting to see if the people of Spotsylvania County – and the Spotsylvania Democratic Committee – hold the new Republican majority to the bold promises they made in 2011.

Comments Off

By O.Hank!, February 12, 2013 12:19 pm

Feb. 12, 2013 — After a year in office, we know that the new Republican majority on the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors has broken campaign promises. They also promised to be more open and ethical than the previous Board. Looking at their actions, it looks like the Republicans have broken that promise, too.

In 2004, the previous Board adopted a Code of Ethics  ”to  assure public confidence in the integrity of local government and its effective and fair operation.” It has been endorsed and signed by Board members, top officials and appointees ever since.  Out of the 18 ethical tenets, these are perhaps the most important ones that govern the actions of Board members:

Act in the Public Interest
Recognizing that stewardship of the public interest must be their primary concern, members will work for the common good of the people of Spotsylvania County and not for any private or personal interest….

Comply with the Law
Members shall comply with the laws of the nation, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the County of Spotsylvania in the performance of their public duties. These laws include, but are not limited to: the United States and Virginia constitutions; the Code of the County of Spotsylvania; laws pertaining to conflicts of interest, election campaigns, financial disclosures, employer responsibilities, and open processes of government; and County ordinances and policies.

Conduct of Members
The professional and personal conduct of members must be above reproach and avoid even the appearance of impropriety….

Decisions Based on Merit
Members shall base their decisions on the merits and substance of the matter at hand, rather than on unrelated considerations.

Conflict of Interest
In order to assure their independence and impartiality on behalf of the common good, members shall not use their official positions to influence government decisions in which they have a material financial interest, or where they have an organizational responsibility or personal relationship that may give the appearance of a conflict of interest.

In accordance with the law, members shall disclose investments, interests in real property, sources of income, and gifts; and they shall abstain from participating in deliberations and decision-making where conflicts may exist.

Gifts and Favors
Members shall not take any special advantage of services or opportunities for personal gain, by virtue of their public office, which are not available to the public in general….

Policy Role of Members
The Board of Supervisors determines the policies of the County with the advice, information and analysis provided by the public, boards, commissions, and committees, and County staff. The Board of Supervisors delegates authority for the administration of the County to the County Administrator.

Members therefore shall not interfere with the administrative functions of the County or the professional duties of County staff; nor shall they impair the ability of staff to implement Board policy decisions.

Looking at these once again, I would say that the new Republican Spotsylvania Board has violated all of these ethical guidelines.  For instance, the proposed Route 3 bypass had been reviewed and advanced by state and regional government officials, experts and private sector partners for eight years. They invested hundreds of thousands of public-private dollars.  Studies showed that the road would alleviate congestion on hated Route 3 for 30 years, and its alignment was the least intrusive of other alternatives studied, perhaps impacting four or five properties. Granted, any property impact is problematic, but this alternative was better than others that would have destroyed hundred of homes, not to mention the historic  battlefield and the beautiful Rappahannock River.

But the new bypass might’ve impacted Supervisor David Ross’s property. Ross, a retired Marine and government employee who had never been involved in local affairs, ran for office for the sole purpose of killing the road project to save his property. He was subsequently elected, and two months later on the night of his first meeting, the first vote he made was to stop the project, and his Republican cohorts followed suit. With that one vote, Ross killed the road project, saved his property from being impacted and therefore, personally benefitted, and violated six, if not more, tenets in the Code of Ethics. Legally and according to the County’s Code of Ethics, Ross should have recused himself from voting, but he did not. No one, not even the County Attorney, said a thing.  Oh, he and his Republican colleagues, all of whom were backed by the Tea Party and like to brag about saving tax dollars, ended up wasting hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars.

It was bad enough that Ross and his Republican Board killed the badly needed road project and wasted tax dollars. They also forced the Commonwealth Transportation Board to take away the $14 million dedicated to the project and give it to a project in Stafford County. Moreover, Ross and his Republicans didn’t have an alternative plan to fix Route 3 traffic for the next 30 years. Their big idea was to get VDOT to synchronize the lights on Route 3, which made things better for a week – until someone “unsynchronized” them during Sunday church service at Life Point - but it’s not a 30-year solution.

In their ignorance and arrogance, Ross and his colleague, Tim McLaughlin, started bragging to people, as recently as a November HOA meeting in Lake Wilderness, that they had a plan to build the outer connector along the Route 20 corridor in Orange County. This came as news to property owners, preservationists and state and regional officials, who have never seen any real plans and would have to approve and fund the project. Of course, Ross and McLaughlin don’t have a plan, nor do they have any idea where the money would come from. They are finding out that they are no longer barking orders in the Marines; they are finding out that the pesky thing about being an elected official is that you have to govern….

Fast forward to the budget and tax vote in April.  At least two of the four Republican Board members – Heidig and McLaughlin – are substantial property owners.  Heidig owns the Lake Anna Winery, and McLaughlin owns over $3 million in commercial and residential properties, which he manages on the side in his real estate business.  During the tax deliberations, McLaughlin and Heidig led the charge to cut the property tax, directly benefitting themselves.  Furthermore, McLaughlin led the plan to cut the BPOL tax, which, again, directly benefitted his real estate business. Again, legally and according to their Code of Ethics, Heidig and McLaughlin should have recused themselves from voting. But, again, no one, not even the County Attorney, said a thing.

(As a side note, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that McLaughlin is ethically challenged. It was reported by LeavingMyMarc during the 2011 election that public documents indicated that McLaughlin committed voter fraud and dodged Virginia state taxes by claiming as his primary residence in Florida a house that he sold in 2005, while also claiming to live in Spotsylvania since 2002.)

God knows what these guys did over the summer months when no one was watching, but jumping to the fall, the Republican Majority came up with the plan to directly hire the deputy county administrator and other department heads. This move not only subverts the authority of the County Administrator, but it also violates another tenet in the Code of Ethics:

The Board of Supervisors delegates authority for the administration of the County to the County Administrator…. Members therefore shall not interfere with the administrative functions of the County….

Then, to add insult to injury and to commit more ethical violations, the Republicans worked with Republican State Delegate Mark Cole to hire him as the new deputy county administrator.  (As was noted in reports, Cole, a professed government-hater, was laid off from his government contracting job.) Cole and the Republican Majority had campaigned together in 2011, and exchanged campaign contributions. One would think that hiring Cole was and is an outright conflict of interest, not to mention the appearance of one, but they were allowed to vote and give Cole his new cushy job with a salary and benefits approximating $150-160,000 a year.

It is almost comical and very Spotsyltucky-esque that the government-hatin’ Republican Majority, who each now receive 2-3 government paychecks a month, would turn around and give a top government job to their friend and fellow government-hater, Del. Mark Cole, who is also on the government dole. But, as they say, we get the government we deserve, and Spotsylvania voters elected this bunch….

As I mentioned in a post last month, the ethical violations surrounding Cole’s hiring go beyond Spotsylvania. According to the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Code of Ethics, the hiring and retention of Cole violates at least two of the tenets, possibly more: personal relationships, conflicting roles and participation in elections.  In any case, his hiring does violate common sense and our intelligence when he and the Board try to convince us that out of 104 candidates, Cole was the most qualified.

After a year in office, the new Republican Majority has broken promises and committed ethical violations that would sound alarms in most towns and counties. But, no one, not even the Freelance Star, or the Spotsylvania Democratic Committee, or the County Attorney, or the people of Spotsyltucky say a thing. And so it goes….

[Read: Spotsy GOP Board: Do as We Say, Not as We Do - Part 1]

Comments (3)

By Marc, September 13, 2011 8:20 pm

I’m betting many residents are not aware that Sheriff Charlie Jett (R-Stafford) was the lead acquisition official in charge of Stafford County’s procurement of a $40 million public safety radio communications system from Motorola.

In past blog posts, I’ve alluded to my outrage over this purchase. In this post, I want to elaborate a bit on just how bad of a deal this was for Stafford taxpayers; and, make the case that we are in desperate need of procurement reform in Stafford and new leadership.

Let me be clear. My main concern was with the overall cost of the system and the procurement process. I recognize that we absolutely needed to upgrade our outdated system and that the 700 Mhz Project 25 compatible system purchased from Motorola appeared to be in full compliance with Virginia’s Strategic Plan for Statewide Communications Interoperability.

It wasn’t until the Economic Development Authority (EDA) was asked to approve funding, in 2007, for bonds in order to finance several capital projects approved by the Board of Supervisors, which included this system, that significant flaws in the procurement process began to come to light – not to mention a complete failure of leadership from our elected officials.

To start off, why on earth was the Board of Supervisors asking the EDA to approve funding for the issuance of Lease Revenue Bonds, rather than the more appropriate and less expensive General Obligation Bonds?

Per Wikipedia, “a revenue bond is a special type of municipal bond distinguished by its guarantee of repayment solely from revenues generated by a specific revenue-generating entity associated with the purpose of the bonds.” Can anyone tell me what “revenue” is being generated by this public safety radio communication system? Is anyone else scratching his or her heads? You should be.

Plain and simple, the Board of Supervisors did not want to fund this with General Obligation Bonds – as they would require approval from Stafford County voters, and not just the EDA as is the case for Lease Revenue Bonds. They simply didn’t want the added level of scrutiny on this procurement. It was a bad deal for taxpayers and they knew it from the start.

Worse yet for taxpayers, Lease Revenue Bonds generally carry a higher interest rate than General Obligation Bonds. According to notes, which I’ve obtained from a November 16, 2007 meeting of the EDA, it was estimated that that Lease Revenue Bonds would cost $750K more than if these projects were funded with General Obligation Bonds.

Talk about a bad deal. If you’re upset about the financing chosen, you probably won’t be surprised that there was little concern by the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Jett over the cost of the system – in general.

In a September 30, 2007 memo to the Board of Supervisors, EDA members Ted Hontz and Jack Rowley wrote about their concerns over cost not being an “important enough parameter in the development of options” in the Request for Proposal (RFP).

They went on to express their significant concerns over the emphasis of performance over cost containment and wondered whether the goals specified in the RFP lead to the contractor discounting cost as a factor; thus, proposing a system with “more expensive characteristics.” They ended up performing independent research on similar systems by the same vendor and concluded that the procurement may be “overpriced by $4M to $10M.”

Hontz and Rowley wrote, “A 700 MHz, Project 25 system like the one recommended for Stafford in Johnson County MO is projected to cost $23M; however, Johnson County MO is over 1.7 times the area of Stafford and the population is over 4 times as large as Stafford.”

A similar system in Albemarle County, which was developed by the same consulting company used in Stafford, relied on significantly fewer cell towers than what was being proposed in Stafford, even though the coverage area was three times that of Stafford. When prodded by Hontz and Rowley on why lower cost options were not presented, the consultant hired by Stafford County indicated that Albemarle County was financially constrained in their procurement. Whereas the consultant provided lower cost alternatives, such as repeaters, to Albermarle, no such options were provided to Stafford. The consultant also indicated that the Board of Supervisors directed him to only consider the existing shorter towers rather than a potentially much less expensive option with fewer taller towers.

During the November 16, 2007 EDA meeting, Rowley also noted a huge conflict of interest that existed. The consultant that Stafford hired to advise the county on this procurement would benefit $800K for their work on the project and their ongoing billings were estimated to be $200K per year. Conflict of interest anyone?! You have to wonder whether or not the consultant was motivated to choose the most expensive solution, since it would have a direct impact on their bottom line.

Hontz separately wrote that the process did not include a Validation of Requirements or it’s equivalent; an Analysis of Alternatives or it’s equivalent; and the consultant didn’t provide lower cost alternatives, like they had done in other counties to meet cost constraints.

How could a system of this magnitude be procured without any sort of validation of requirements? Hontz and Rowley wrote, “We are unable to comment on appropriate levels of coverage but do note that in Albermarle County, the decision was made not to require 8 db in-building coverage in rural areas but instead to require 95% on ground coverage. No known analysis was done to determine cost and coverage tradeoffs in this regard for Stafford’s system.”

So in the end, a system was procured that endorsed a “many” cell tower leasing approach (13 in total) – with no new towers to be considered.

When you take into account the subsequent leases, the cost of this system rises by between $10 and $15 million over the next 30 years. It’s also unclear, from my research, what costs may be incurred by the choice made to modify certain county-owned towers to accommodate the additional gear. When you add in this additional cost to $23.8M reported price tag of this system, you’re looking at least at a $40 million system over 30 years.

Hontz and Rowley rightfully concluded, “the robustness of this system, and the cost, exceed that of any other municipal system that we found in our brief research.”

Worse, in talking to folks familiar with cell tower leases, the long-term leases negotiated on these cell towers seem to be only a good deal for the tower owners and not taxpayers. The 4% to 5% annual escalation rates on the leases are considered quite high. I was told that 3% annual escalations are usually considered medium to high.

Part of the reason that Stafford is paying so much is that they designed a very complex, expensive “many” cell tower system, which has a large amount of gear on each of the towers – displacing other potential users. The county will tell you that they are free to cancel these leases anytime; however, folks familiar with the system have explained to me that Stafford will NEVER cancel any of the leases, due to the complexity of the system design and the fact that any re-configuration of a lost tower or towers will come at a significant cost.

It’s no wonder this ended up being such a bad deal for Stafford. After all, why in the world was Sheriff Jett the lead acquisition official in charge of this procurement? He had no background or education, that I’m aware of, that would lead to him being an acquisition and contracting expert. It was Jett who asked the Board of Supervisors to approve the negotiated leases (see here and here, as examples). Shouldn’t this have come from the Stafford County Administrator, Anthony Romanello?

When EDA members questioned and pointed out problems with this system, a funny thing happened. No one was jumping up to take credit for it. According to sources close to the procurement, Jett’s reaction was to accuse anyone who pointed out any problems with the system as intentionally trying to hurt the police and firefighters. Apparently, Jett wasn’t too concerned with the taxpayers – or the fact that if he had saved some money on this system, he could have better supported raises, benefits or bonuses for his own people! How getting a good deal for Stafford would hurt police and firefighters are beyond me.

Maybe Jett was pushing the “sweetheart” leases for other reasons. After all, under the tower lease with the Free Lance Star they will make $1.3M over the next 30 years. One has to wonder what promises (or ideas for stories) may have been exchanged?!

Maybe if Jett paid more attention to fighting crime, instead of procuring overpriced systems, we wouldn’t have seen a 66% rise in violent crime over the last five years.

In fairness to Jett, he isn’t the only one to blame. There’s plenty of that to go around.

The Stafford County Board of Supervisors failed all of us too. There were only two supervisors who stood against this huge waste of money. They were former Supervisors Pete Fields (D-George Washington) and Joe Brito (I-Hartwood).

In the end, it was the Republican-led Board that mustered the necessary votes to actually pass this thing. And one of those Board members, Mark Dudenhefer (R-Garrisonville) now wants everyone to vote for him in Virginia’s newly created 2nd House District. Sure, let’s reward him for his complete lack of leadership. Thank goodness he is being challenged by Esteban Garces (D-VA-2nd). He understands what leadership is all about.

And getting an honorable mention is former Griffis-Widewater Supervisor, Jack Cavalier (I-Griffis-Widewater). Apparently, this huge waste of money wasn’t that important to him – as he didn’t even bother to show up for the vote. Now that is leadership – NOT! This is the same individual that wants everyone to vote for him again. Are you kidding me!

It’s time that logic and good stewardship of our tax dollars return to Stafford. Sheriff Jett, while he may be a personable, likeable guy, must be held to account for his failure in leadership and for a complete lack of results (see increase in crime numbers and budget). It’s high time that we got a new sheriff in town whose sole focus was fighting crime and his name is Chuck Feldbush (I-Stafford). Being more fiscally responsible with our tax dollars wouldn’t be bad thing either.