January 2008 Archives
January 29, 2008
Finally An Event Jane Seeman is Capable of Leading: A Tea Party Comments (3)
Jane Seeman's qualifications for serving as Mayor of Vienna:
1. Handing out library cards at the Vienna library.
2. Extreme right wing political bent.
3. Running tea parties.
Tea Party in Occoquan; Vienna Parks and Recreation recently sponsored a trip to Occoquan for lunch at the Pink Bicycle Tea Room and a short walking tour. Participants included (seated l-r) Barbara Klick, Emmy Mcarver, Dadia Stern, Harriet Miller (standing l-r) Freida Giroir,Catherine Cissel, Patricia Fuksa, Louise Hoh, Mayor Jane Seeman, and Recreation Program Coordinator Cheryl Harlan. Upcoming trips include the Philadelphia Flower Show on March 6 and the Atlantic City overnighter March 20 and 21. Large Picture.
Howard Springsteen Named Maudite of the Year Comments (0)
February Town Newsletter:
Howard Springsteen has been named Vienna's Citizen of the Year by the Times Community Newspapers. As president of the Vienna Volunteer Fire Department, he oversaw a major renovation of the fire station and helps organize the annual Turkey Trot and other fundraisers for VVFD. He also serves on the Town's Transportation Safety Commission and is active in other community organizations.
What special services did Howard perform to win Maudasaurus' good graces?
Beulah Road Disaster Coming to an End Comments (2)
It appears that the Beulah Road disaster project is coming to an end (we could be wrong). Time for Seeman and crew to put their Town Council pajamas on and head on over to the ribbon cutting ceremony!
January 24, 2008
Police Crack Down on Crime at Cedar Lane Shopping Center Comments (4)
From the Sun Gazette:
Vienna police in recent months temporarily assigned three officers to fight recurring crime problems in the vicinity of Cedar Lane Shopping Center in southeast Vienna.Master Police Officers Art Sylmar and Tom Taylor and Officer Matthew Maiorana were assigned to gather intelligence, identify criminal suspects and make arrests, police said.
The officers donned plain clothes for this assignment, which lasted from November 2007 until early this year.
During that time, the special patrol broke up a drug deal involving marijuana and cocaine and made several other arrests in cases involving assault, destruction of property, shoplifting and public drunkenness.
Go Maud!
Vienna Man Found Guilty of Recruiting Gang Member Comments (4)
From the Sun Gazette:
A 20-year-old Vienna man on Dec. 30 was found guilty in Fairfax County Circuit Court of trying to recruit a juvenile to a new gang forming in town, Vienna police said.The Vienna Police Department was advised in January 2006 that a 14-year-old had been “blessed in,” or initiated, into a local group of the Gangster Disciples criminal street gang.
Vienna police began identifying the gang's leaders and disrupting the group's activities. Police determined that the gang's leader, Vienna resident Kenneth Maurice Wilson, had joined the gang in Trenton, N.J., and began forming the local group in the summer of 2005.
Police identified 10 members and associates of the local gang set, who ranged in age from 13 to about 20 years old, authorities said.
Police identified one gang member who had been initiated while still a juvenile. Authorities then successfully pressed felony charges against Wilson for recruiting a juvenile into a street gang. Wilson will be sentenced on Feb. 8.
Gangster Disciples, which began in Chicago and has spread nationwide, has been linked to mob assault, aggravated assault, robbery and graffiti offenses in Northern Virginia, authorities said.
Vienna police thanked the Northern Virginia Gang Task Force, and especially gang units from the Arlington and Fairfax county police departments, for their assistance in this case.
Go Maud!
January 19, 2008
Jane Seeman on Reston Cable TV: Hypocrite Extraordinaire Comments (6)
While Jane Seeman has made sure Vienna does not have its meetings on cable TV, she has no problem appearing on a Reston cable TV show. Hypocrite is an understatement:
That was the "controlled" Seeman saying nothing flapping her lips (if you can stomach her whole interview you deserve a prize!). Here is some of the "real" Seeman:
Seeman pretending to be a cop.
Seeman attending parade.
Seeman confused...again. Note: red lips violation.
Seeman with Anti-Communist Son Tommy.
Anti-Communist Son Tommy At Hate Gathering.
Seeman caught lying.
January 18, 2008
The Reality of Press Behavior In Keeping Maud in Power Comments (4)
Some time ago a reporter named Jerry Schanke had a little run in here at HistoricVienna.com. No big deal you say? Yes, no big deal relatively speaking at the time Schanke submitted his one and only post. Now of course when he submitted his post he did so with a certain IP address, his internet phone number if you will.
And that story would have ended there if not for this post today from "Dogfacepotatobrain". You probably already guessed? Yup, same IP address as good ole Jerry Schanke of the Times Newspapers. Dogfacepotatobrain has also posted here, here, here, here, here, and here. Notice how the posts always occur around a Times Newspaper story?
We guess occasionally the casual and ill-informed reader of this blog will think that we stretch the connection between the Maud Machine and local papers. It's not a connection ladies and gentleman it's an incestuous union! End result of a paper on Maud's machine calling list? She wins cause nothing changes. At least it is a little clearer now as to who helps the old bag hold onto power.
Arthur W. Arundel (Age: 78; The Plains; Net Worth: 100 million) is the founder, chairman and publisher of Times Community Newspapers, a Virginia-based newspaper and digital media group that through acquisitions has grown to become one of the largest in the state. Group publishes 20 newspapers with a combined circulation of 271,000. Recent acquisitions include The Fauquier Citizen and The Culpeper Citizen. Arundel’s son, Peter Arundel, succeeded his father as CEO and heads company operations. Peter has led group’s expansion and started company’s online editions.
Is the behavior (read: manipulation by the press under fake names) uncovered the basis of how that Arundel family fortune was made?
The Good News and Bad News Comments (4)
Good news? Maud is not going to run again in 09. Bad news? She will resign right before she has to declare her intentions and will then appoint a loyal machine member (read: loser) to do her bidding for her. What a system Vienna!
While most Vienna citizens look to past leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and John Kennedy for inspiration, Maud has always had a penchant for the "dictator for life" politics of African strongmen.
January 15, 2008
Jane, Maud and Beulah Road Comments (3)
Doesn't just the thought of the Beulah Road project bring anger? This snail-paced disaster sits squarely with the two old ladies running Vienna. We are sure when it is done they will trot out and cut a ribbon proclaiming all is well. Pathetic and sad.
January 12, 2008
Too Many Signals? Comments (0)
Is there inspiration for Vienna here? Is our only answer terribly timed signals, speed humps and stop signs everywhere?
January 11, 2008
Maud, You and the DC Government are Kissing Cousins Comments (2)
While it might not be perfectly analogous, the article below is exactly how jack*** Maud (yes, she deserves to be called that) behaves with her Vienna Historic District:
Human Dignity Also Needs to Be PreservedBy Marc Fisher
Thursday, January 10, 2008; B01For more than a year, Richard Lucas has been trying to win permission to cut through his elderly, infirm parents' front porch so they can get from their living quarters onto the street without climbing stairs. And for more than a year, the D.C. historic preservation authorities have found reasons to say no to a ramp.
After all, as the city's architectural historian put it, "repeating porches of similar height and depth create a notable pattern and rhythm" along the Lucas family's Mount Pleasant street, and the District wouldn't want to let that rhythm be broken just to accommodate a couple of old folks who have lived in their house for 47 years.
Again and again, Lucas tried to satisfy the city's preservation police, paying his architect to rework plans for a ramp to minimize its impact on the supposedly pristine look of the 1930s rowhouses on Walbridge Place NW. But each time Lucas tried, the city came up with more objections. And so, at ages 90 and 87, Cornelius and Merry Lucas remain stuck in their basement rooms, able to come and go only through a back door that opens onto an alleyway.
"Again and again, we've tried to please them, but they're intransigent," says Richard Lucas, who has had to take a large chunk of the money he'd set aside for the ramp and waste it on architects and lawyers. "Instead of a ramp, they wanted us to put in a lift, and we rewrote the plans to do that, and then they weren't satisfied with the angle of the lift. So we changed that, and then that wasn't good enough. Suddenly, it was about wheelchair maneuverability."
Now, on the eve of a hearing before an administrative law judge who handles appeals from the historic preservation board, the District is suddenly interested in settling the Lucas case. Why? Well, let's visit with Kim Kendrick, the nation's top fair-housing official, who read my column about the Lucases a year ago and could hardly believe what she was reading.
"I read your column and said, 'Something is wrong here, and we've got to do something,' " says Kendrick, the assistant secretary for fair housing in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. So she wrote to the District's preservation officials. "Generally in matters like this, people respond with answers promptly. Not the District. In this case, we had to issue subpoenas."
What Kendrick eventually learned disturbed her even more. "I was real concerned when I heard one of the District officials say that they don't have to follow the Fair Housing Act," she says. "One in five persons in this country are disabled, and in a case like this, federal law protecting the disabled applies."
Kendrick visited the Lucas house to see for herself and concluded that "it's just not a good situation for them. For this couple to have to go to the back to get out of their house and to have to live in the bottom level like that is just not the proper accommodation."
A few weeks ago, HUD filed a complaint against the D.C. government, alleging that by denying the Lucases permission to install a ramp, the city is violating anti-discrimination laws. "I hope they would get off the position that historic preservation trumps fair housing or any law that protects the disabled," Kendrick says.
D.C. preservation chief David Maloney said he was prohibited from speaking about the case because of ongoing negotiations. He referred me to city spokesman Sean Madigan, who also declined to comment. Previously, city officials have argued that the Lucases have sufficient access to their house through the alley and that Mount Pleasant, which the city has declared a historic district, needs to preserve the elegant look of the granite retaining wall along the fronts of Walbridge Place rowhouses.
If the city doesn't back down, Kendrick says, the feds will refer the case to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. That, and a year of pressure from a team of lawyers who took on the Lucas case without charge after my column appeared last year, seems to be having an effect. Last week, the D.C. attorney general's office reached out to the Lucases' lawyers seeking settlement talks, which are now underway.
"We've been trying for a year to compromise with them," says Dominic Perella, a lawyer at Hogan and Hartson who has been working on behalf of the Lucases. "We were prepared to sue the city" before the latest negotiations began.
"The whole point of this was so that my parents could enjoy the neighbors and the front of their house and get a little light," Richard Lucas says. "Now they're in declining health and the months just keep going by as the city delays and delays."
"This is not right," Kendrick says. "Preservation does not trump fair housing. The city must follow federal law."
January 10, 2008
Is There Any Plan for Anything in Vienna in 2008? Comments (17)
Question: is there any plan to substantially improve or create anything in Vienna by our government in 2008?
January 09, 2008
What's Next Maud, Prohibition? Comments (1)
From the Sun Gazette comes a story titled "Vienna's Oktoberfest May Make Comeback" by Maud's boy Brian Trompeter:
After a 19-year break, Oktoberfest may be returning to Vienna. The Town of Vienna and the Vienna-Tysons Regional Chamber of Commerce have tentatively agreed to sponsor an Oktoberfest/Taste of the Town event on Oct. 4. The event would be a fitting finale for summer activities at the Town Green, said Tom Hanton, the chamber's vice president for membership.
Finale for Town Green summer activities? There is NOTHING going on at the Town Green, but now we have public officials outside of Town Council pretending that this boondoggle waste of money is accepted and useful? The Trompeter/Maud propaganda continues:
There would be live entertainment and activities, both designed for a younger audience, on the Town Green. A separate stage on Church Street would cater to an older crowd. Beer would be served from a closed-in area on nearby private property, as alcohol is verboten on the Town Green.
"Verboten"? It's almost as if Maud now writes the articles for Trompeter! And alcohol at the Town Green is verboten why? The article makes it sound like we citizens all know that alcohol is banned there for special events and that we all know why and agree with it. What's really odd about the no alcohol at special events bit? We have seen Town Green and historic nutbag Laine Hyde's crew have fun with alcohol, so why is it banned at the Town Green?
But it gets better. Here are some of the concerns of Council members about having Oktoberfest:
Council member Laurie Cole said chamber officials need to make sure their event does not interfere with the Vienna Optimist Club's Walk for Growing Hope, which likely will take place on the same day near that location.
Does anyone know what the "Walk for Growing Hope" is? Better yet, Maud foot soldier George Lovelace outlines his concerns:
Council member George Lovelace said organizers should be prepared for the onslaught of out-of-town visitors that Oktoberfest events often bring.
Good point George! Any economic development, any outside money coming into Vienna would be really dumb. Is this all a dream? Or do these nitwits actually run a government?
January 03, 2008
Vienna Town Council Inbreeding Comments (2)
Feedback in:
Can anyone out there name a Council member or Mayor who was not appointed or anointed by his or her fellow Council members?
Everyone intuitively knows what happens if a population only breeds with itself.
