Charges Heat Up Race for Chairman

By Sandhya Somashekhar (Contact)

Thursday, November 1, 2007

The race for chairman of the Board of Supervisors is pitting a veteran Loudoun supervisor against a political novice who says his outsider status is his greatest asset.

Incumbent Scott K. York (I) is facing an energetic challenge from Michael J. Firetti (R), a Purcellville entrepreneur who has never run for political office. Firetti made headlines in 2004, when he tried unsuccessfully to sell about 20 acres in downtown Leesburg to a developer, saying that his intention was to revitalize the town. Last year, he put his career on hold to run for county office, he said.

Since campaigning began in earnest in September, he has attacked York repeatedly as an entrenched politician who has promoted slow growth on the one hand, but on the other has accepted contributions — and even jobs — from developers.

"People are ready for a change," Firetti said. "He's a bad person, and it's time for him to step aside and do the noble thing."

York has been on the Board of Supervisors since 1996, when he served as the Sterling District representative. He ran successfully for the countywide seat of board chairman in 1999. In both those elections, York ran as a Republican. But his support for limiting growth in the county led to a high-profile split with the party in 2003. He renounced his party affiliation that year and ran as an independent.

Firetti, York said, is a pawn for some of his foes in the local Republican Party who will do anything to unseat him.

"I question who is backing his campaign," York said. "I think it's a campaign more of smoke and mirrors than any kind of substance."

As of Sept. 30, Firetti had spent more than $100,000 in his effort to oust York, planting signs along the roadways and buying weekly ads in local newspapers. He borrowed more than $86,000, including $35,000 from a company owned by his campaign manager, Brian Roherty.

Roherty is the former head of the Right Growth Policy Institute, an organization that lobbied unsuccessfully last year for the Board of Supervisors to approve a proposal to build several large planned communities in a semi-rural area south of Dulles International Airport.

York has received several high-profile endorsements this fall, including the backing of the Loudoun Education Association and the Police Benevolent Association. He also has been endorsed by the political action committee Voters for Loudoun's Future, which in its previous form, Voters to Stop Sprawl, was instrumental in ushering into office candidates favoring strict government controls on growth.

Firetti has accused York of pursuing extreme measures to control the county's rapid growth, calling him "anti-everything."

"There is this impetus to take the property rights and zoning and turn it back to the Dark Ages, when everyone went around in horse and buggy," Firetti said. "That's what Scott York wants."

York was attacked in recent months for the job he held as executive vice president of ServiceStar Development Co. Last year, he sat in on a meeting with county staff members as a representative of the company, which some of his fellow supervisors said was unethical. York resigned recently from the company, citing reasons unrelated to the criticism, and gave up a salary of about $100,000.

As of Sept. 30, York had raised more than $90,000, none of it in loans. He has received more than $20,000 from the development industry but an equal amount from donors who also support the slow-growth Piedmont Environmental Council of Virginia, a Washington Post analysis showed.

He has demonstrated that his focus is less on fighting off the challenge from Firetti and more on ousting a group of GOP supervisors that he has dubbed "the gang of five." In letters sent to more than 9,000 homes in September, he urged voters to vote them out of office Tuesday.

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