Having watched (and participated in) this frenzy of local democracy for the past 6 election cycles, this one is shaping up to be epic. We have a mayoral race pitting an entrenched (impacted even) incumbent with 2 or 3 interested parties lining up in the wings. Council seats so far only have a couple of people nibbling at running. As things start to shape up, we’ll have a lot more news and opinion here.

In the meantime, if you have any inside scoop, rumors, or interesting news, please don’t hesitate to pass it along!

I think one of the more relevant points in this comment is the discussion about why the emergency alert service failed to offer up any sort of warning for over 3 hours. I find it, quite frankly, unbelievable that not one person in all of Loudoun Co. and Leesburg could take the 20 seconds it would take to activate this system with a message saying “stay inside, gunman on the loose”. I managed to get a blog post on the air from my iPhone while running down Edwards Ferry Rd. 60 secs after the guy fired a shot in the street. Surely someone in the sheriff’s department in a nice air conditioned office with a full keyboard and a cup of coffee could do at least as well.

As a side note, I want to make it clear that I completely support the Leesburg police department. I got to see them up close, in action, on Friday and they were as professional and effective as you could have hoped. The issue lurking behind all of this is one of support (or lack of support) for the police department by certain members of the town council. It’s a long story for another post, but please don’t confuse my rants on this issue as being anything but supportive of the town police given the situation they are placed in by their “bosses.”

To paraphrase, it’s a letter on faux town stationery made by xeroxing a business card taped to a sheet of paper, paid for and distributed by Kristen, yet purporting to speak for the council as a whole. She proceeds to laud the neighbors, police, and anyone else who was remotely involved as though her imprimatur is somehow on their actions. Then in a complete non sequitur, she proceeds to pander to a very divisive neighborhood issue about temporary barricades on their street, urging people to come speak on the issue on Tuesday night (knowing full well that the petitioner’s agenda is going to be jammed with people wanting to speak on her inadequate support for town police and what she and the council intend to do to address the issue.)

I, for one, have no time for politicians who try to use this drama for their own gains.