First, throughout this summer please do remember Labor Day as the day before the Board of Supervisors' public hearing on the MS5 site. While it passed the Planning Commission in the affirmative, it isn't home free yet.
As for HS7, it may be a good idea to keep an eye on the joint School Board/Board of Supervisors Committee, where interest by Mr. Ohneiser and Ms. Waters seems to remain high in HS6 as opposed to our delayed HS7.
They Finally Came For Me…
To those of you who have seen the new reports that read like the old reports that the FBI is once again (still) turning their steely gimlet eyes on this county we all call home, I have a report to make.
Yesterday evening, while holding the wrench for my son as he tightened the screws on his skateboard trucks, our trusty cocker spaniel went fully ballistic.
There was a man in a suit at the front door.
Edging past the slavering fluffy guard dog to join this clean-cut gentleman on the porch, I viewed with strong emotion his federal identification card.
He had some questions to ask me, if I didn't mind.
"Is this about the school board?" I asked.
"Ma'am?" he said.
"Aren't you investigating the school Board?" I repeated.
"Ma'am?" he said.
"Well, what can I do for you?"
"Do you have a moment?"
Who doesn't have a moment, or even more, for a real G-Man? I invited him to sit in one of the porch chairs.
He kept asking me questions about one of the neighbors, supposedly to see if I thought they could be trusted with sensitive information, but I think that may have been a ploy, since their child isn't even IN school yet.
No, the neighbors don't appear to live beyond their means.
No, they don't ostentatiously drink, do drugs, or gamble.
No, the police don't come to their house, and neither do lots of suspicious foreign nationals.
I've never seen or heard a one of them try to undermine the security of the United States of America either, and that goes for the baby too.
Same as everybody else in the neighborhood with a clearance, you know?
My teenage daughter joined us on the porch, her eyes suspicious within the rings of black eyeliner.
I introduced her to the agent.
"Oh, is this about the school board?" She took a chair too.
The gentleman rolled his eyes.
I tried to explain to him that we were hearing (again) about the FBI investigating government officials.
His eyes focused somewhere beyond the wind toy dangling from the porch roof. "You mean Fairfax? No, this is Loudoun. South Riding is in Loudoun."
"Yes" I confirmed.
He rolled his eyes again.
He laughed.
Not knowing what this meant, I confirmed that I had heard his agency could neither confirm nor deny any investigation underway.
"That's right", he laughed.
I decided to take the plunge.
"So that's a hell of a good way to get some mileage, isn't it? Since your policy is neither to confirm nor deny?"
He rolled his eyes and laughed again.
"Well, I guess."
Then he doggedly returned to asking me the required questions on my nice neighbor, as our intrepid cocker continued to scratch to get out and check out his cuffs and spitshine.
Maybe the rest of his crew was attaching devices to the Verizon box behind the red-tipped photinia while he had me occupied on the porch, but I'm pretty sure the dog would have been at the dining room window howling if that were the case.
In any event, I hope I was helpful to them.
Some years back, the G-men came to ask about the lady down the other way. Before the reports broke on the last FBI investigation.
When I confirmed for her husband the ex-Marine that they'd been by, he wanted to know if I'd told them about the international drug smuggling ring he ran out of the house.
I apologized and said I only knew about the white slavery.
He was a good egg; He still helped shovel everybody's walk the next big snowfall, even though I'd left that part out about the drug ring.
Come to think of it, who really likes to shovel snow so much that they get up and do it for other people?
Now, where did I put that nice young man's card?
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After we went to press, a new hearing date was set for MS5--it is now to be held on July 28.
More in next week's column.