Justified or is Frosty melting on us?

By Michael Laris

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, April 25, 2004; Page C01

A Loudoun County supervisor working to roll back growth restrictions in the nation's fastest-growing county said he has scoured a list of county staff hired in the past four years in an effort to ferret out alleged political bias.

Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles) said he analyzed where employees live in Loudoun and netted evidence to support his contention that local government offices have been packed with people from the county's more rural west who are trying to undermine Loudoun's new development-friendly leaders by feeding them bad information.

"I believe the 'smart growth' community has salted a lot of people with their political bias into the county government. That's not fair. That's not right," Snow said, adding that, by his count, most people hired by the county since 2000 live in the west, not the suburban east where the bulk of the county's population is concentrated.

"The majority of them have come from essentially west of Route 15," he said, referring to the northwest highway west of Dulles International Airport that divides the county.

"I got a list, by department . . . and you just go through it," Snow added, noting that he wants to put county employees who live in western Loudoun, or elsewhere, on notice not to slant their analyses based on personal lifestyle choices. "There does appear to be an ideological bent that is not aligned with the new composition of the board," Snow said.

Disclosure of Snow's study -- and a sharply critical response to it from members of Loudoun's government staff -- came at the end of a week of unprecedented rancor between the county's elected Board of Supervisors and the county staff, and underscored the intense distrust that has developed between some supervisors and many of the civil servants who run the machinery of county government.

At issue is the countywide struggle over the pace and nature of development in Loudoun after the mixed messages voters sent in November on the issue of how best to try to manage the county's growth. Also at issue, according to county employees and outside observers, are matters of privacy for government employees and claims that some supervisors have sought to intimidate county staffers.

Voters in Loudoun elected a new, Republican-led board majority after GOP candidates promised to pull back from some of the growth controls put in place by a previous board. But voters also reelected a key architect of those building limits, Scott K. York (I-At Large), in the countywide race for board chairman.

Some board members, most notably Snow, have accused the staff of trying to manipulate -- or even lie about -- data in order to put the slow growth efforts of the previous board in the best light. "I do not trust the county's numbers," Snow said.

County employees strongly deny that they would slant their analyses and say that members of the new majority routinely become combative when presented with information that conflicts with their preconceptions.

Loudoun County Administrator Kirby M. Bowers, who is in charge of hiring, managing and firing employees who work for the county government, said his staff is ready to help the board meet whatever goals it sets as a body. But Bowers also said he did not understand the relevance of Snow's inquiry into where county staff members live -- and could not confirm the results because he wouldn't do such an analysis.

"I don't see how that would be in any way applicable," Bowers said. "It's certainly not in any way relevant to our process of hiring qualified employees."

Outside government observers said Snow's research into where employees live was improper.

"It's frightening that an elected official is surreptitiously investigating the personal lives of public servants with whom he may not be in agreement," said Steve Calos, the former head of the Virginia chapter of Common Cause.

John Mercer, a government management consultant and former Republican
counsel for the Senate Government Affairs Committee, termed the tactic
"bizarre."



"That's highly inappropriate and unprofessional conduct by an elected
official," said Mercer, a former mayor in Sunnyvale, Calif. "That kind of analysis doesn't have any place in modern, effective government."

Mercer said employees' personal opinions or proclivities ought to be
irrelevant to elected officials. "It doesn't matter if a staff member is an arch-conservative or a flaming liberal. It's, 'Are they doing the job they are told to do?' " Mercer said. If they are not, he added, the county administrator should take action against the insubordinate employee -- or the board should take action against the county administrator.

Several county workers said in interviews that they would speak about the matter only on condition that they not be named because they did not want to put their jobs at risk. Some are considering leaving Loudoun's government.

"A lot of people are looking around," said one employee, who added that he had interviewed for jobs elsewhere. "I've seen too much agony on the part of the staff in the last three months to let it slide."

Some workers cited the case of planner Sarah Coyle, whom Snow targeted at a public meeting last week during deliberations on a plan to extend water and sewer lines vital for increased development into a swath of the county west of Dulles Airport. Snow had threatened to have staff responsible for a report critical of the utilities' extension fired. During the meeting, and in heated comments in the lobby afterward, Snow scolded Coyle, who had sought to explain the staff's rationale for not supporting the extension.

Snow said his geographical analysis was not intended to be intimidating.

"It's no witch hunt. . . . It's just the way it is," he said. "Some areas people just gravitate to. People get into government for causes or philosophies. They believe they can help. It doesn't mean anyone's malicious or anything. It just means they think they can do some good."

 

I voted for Snow but find his actions completely unacceptable. Could it be because they cannot afford to live in eastern Loudoun on their county salaries? Just a random thought, and I admit I could be wrong on that.

Regardless, as the article pointed out, if Snow and others feel the staff reports are biased, there are proper ways to root out bias (i.e. contrary factual information) that any local government expert could provide. Don't simply accuse whole groups of professionals with bias based solely on where they live!

 

Anyone know if Steve Snow has been invited or will be attending the annual meeting on May 11? Perhaps he's just getting bad press? (I'm not sure how this could be spinned positively, but Snow has definitely been in the Post frequently, none of it positive.) In any case, it'd be nice to meet the person who represents us, and have him see the issues we are interested in (Clydes, Hospital, YMCA, etc.)


--Joy

 

Should we invite him?

Here is his email address: ssnow@loudoun.gov

 

Please do invite him. He sounds like an absolutely wonderful human being from everything I've read about him in the newspapers.

 

What ??

The guy acts as a small-time McCarthy, and then "he's [a] wonderful human being" !!

I hope that was sarcasm !

Neil Z.
Resident since 1999