For years, many citizens have been very vocal in describing how they see a major conflict between Connolly's employment by SAIC and his participation in decisions that involved the Dulles Rail.  They see a major conflict.  Connolly does not!

While Connolly and the Board state they want transparency (and I believe they even passed a Resolution that includes how important transparency is,) when the Examiner provides a vehicle for transparency, Connolly's PR team requests a written/published retraction. 

The Examiner should be commended in putting this information forward.

Since I accessed Gerry's web site and noticed in his own bio that he is SAIC's Community Relations Director I've been digging into the details, starting with whether that's a paid/unpaid position. I'm also attempting to gain access to the SAIC official description of specific duties (job description in HRO terms) of this Director position, as well as which of SAIC's ethical standards policies (if any) apply to lower-level local Directors as they do for SAIC executive officers and top-tier Directors. The SAIC ethical standards policies aspect that interests me is the requirement for a senior manager to recuse himself/herself in any decision that might create the appearance of impropriety. I'm not suggesting, of course, that there has been any actual impropriety. My only interest at this point is whether there is anything about the SAIC relationship (including stock ownership, if any) that could create the appearance of impropriety.

Just a cautionary point, lest anyone reads more into my interest than I intend, is that so far as I know in Virginia there is nothing illegal (at least for non-Federal elections) about an elected official accepting campaign contributions from a corporation so long as the elected official doesn't convert the campaign contibutions to his/her personal use. Also, I don't know that it's appropriate to say that Gerry voted "without disclosing his ties with SAIC" if his own bio on his own web site discloses that fact.

To use the old principle that "the devil is in the details", all I'm looking for right now is the body of details.

I'd guess that some of you have already drilled down to the level of detail where I'm heading, although we may be pursuing the details via slightly different paths so it should be interesting to compare results.

Isn't that asking a bit too much of the public to go to Gerry's bio to identify any associations? 

What if Connolly owned stock in SAIC...should his bio state that also?  Let's say that he does own stock in SAIC (isn't it an employee owned company to some degree...) would there be a conflict of interest if Connolly voted on a rail project that would benefit the company that he owned stock in?  You raised a very interesting point.  Good thinking Tom Counts!

Given the sweeping nature of the Examiner's original editorial, it is striking that Merni Fitzgerald only commented on one item: Gerry Connolly's specific role at SAIC in this horrendous process.

She does not in any way dispute the Examiner's list of winners (including Bechtel, SAIC, the owner/developer of Tysons 1 shopping center, Tysons landowners in the special tax district), or the Examiner's losers (Route 7 commuters, commuters who don't work at Tysons, Orange/Blue Line riders, South County residents and county taxpayers).

Rather than inviting RK readers to conjecture on all the facts, and try to decide "who is right," why not go straight to the source and turn some questions back to Chairman Connolly and his appointed spokeswoman in this case, Merni Fitzgerald?

I'll start with three questions whose answers would shed some real light, and I urge Chairman Connolly or Ms. Fitzgerald to post their answers here in RaisingKaine.com:

1) Since the 1994 Comprehensive Plan clearly talks about three stations in Tysons, what language would either Connolly or Fitzgerald cite to back their assertion that the "idea" of four stations was in play at the time? If that's the case, why did the plan not actually specify  four stations?

2)  What exact date did Chairman Connolly begin employment with SAIC? Was he in fact an employee of SAIC at the time that the Board voted to add a fourth station to Tysons, as the Examiner now asserts?

3) Is it true, as the Examiner says, that Chairman Connolly hasn't recused himself from votes that would financially benefit SAIC, and if so, why not?

As Ms. Fitzgerald says, no one is entitled to make up their own facts. Many of the Examiner's assertions in the most recent column are straightforward. Are they right or wrong?

Fairfax residents deserve to know clearly that their interests are being represented on major decisions. Many voters feel that clearly hasn't happened on Tysons-Dulles rail.

As I noted in my own recent campaign for Fairfax supervisor, the Fairfax board's agenda has often tilted to the land-owner/development community, even when average citizens are the losers. That is the real thrust of the Examiner's column, and it's something that should be of particular concern to Democrats, who historically have stood up for the average citizen against big economic interests. Is the kind of tilt we routinely see by the Fairfax board truly in keeping iwth long-time Democratic values?

The Examiner's editorial today puts the ball back in Gerry Connolly's and Merni Fitgerald's court? How would they answer the questions I've listed above?

 

A good transit system benefits all. Did you not see An Inconvenient Truth?

Gee Alice, didn't you see the cost of the $5.2 billion dollar rail to Tysons? 

All the funds that can be scraped together are going  toward paying for the Tysons Rail that will serve....let me see....how many passengers....under 20,000 per day. 

That is why the south county residents are the losers.

Where is the equity issue?  Too bad that a social injustice issue has not been raised.

The Springfield Monorail benefits no one. 

Did you not see that episode of The Simpsons, Alice?

Tom,  you raised several interesting points.  Interesting question, what is the SAIC policy?

I bet that SAIC has some strongly worded policy about employees engaging in certain activities that could be perceived as conflict of interest.  Good point!

This story illustrates why  Boss-man has been so interested in closing off public access to the business conducted at His house aka Government Center.  He's trying to play us like a violin.

I'm glad that at least the Examiner, a paper with basically nothing to lose, has been willing to expose Fairfax County's Public Enemy #1.  He is just like a wolf guarding the henhouse or a lobbyist friend of Bush/Cheney running the Department of the Interior and giving our public lands away to huge corporate interests.  He is running a government to serve his own interests.....the company he works for....having done them a favor.  Of course, all that money he's raised is a result of all the decisions in favor of what he and his clique of friends define as "pro-business" is going to be the golden parachute that lands his sorry self in the US Congress.  It is not even pro-business.  It is pro-Connolly's Business Allies.

There really are not words for this guy.

He is out for #1.  It is all about #1.

I am not for Baise, but there seems to be an argument for an ABC candidate.  What about a write-in?  Who wants to clean up the "Gerry" mess? Fairfax County's Public Enemy #1 should be dethroned.

Unfortunately, too many candidates engaging in a feeding frenzy ensures four more years of seeing the red, white, and blue man mu mu paraded on patriotic holidays.  I've avoided this blog for a couple weeks now because that hideous photographic image was burned into my mind's eye. 

Seriously: ABC means ABC to me. 

I do not see stopping Tammany Hall this November but surely we have enough power to keep this money grubbing self-aggrandizer out of the US Congress.  Someone pointed out that if he goes, being someone with no real sense of ethics, he'll probably end up in jail anyway.  For myself, I'll do everything I can to keep him in Fairfax and hopefully let him finish off his career in 2011 or sooner if we get the goods on him.

I respectfully disagree, Lee.  Connolly's political career must end in 2007.  Here.  In Fairfax. 

It is much, much harder for a politician who was voted out of office to find his way to the Congress.  People start to ask questions about why the voters rejected him.  Deprive him of his pulpit and of his influence and watch him shrivel up and blow away.  There are no friends in politics and what few you have abandon you when you no longer pedal influence for them.  By getting rid of him on election day, you turn him into a non-starter for higher office.  Let a better Democrat have a shot at Congress.  Let Connolly go back to whatever it is he does when he's not tormenting the citizens of Fairfax. 

Connolly will get to Congress if we all let him get re/elected this fall.  Of that, I have no doubt.  We have to break this Board and that means Connolly and several of Board incumbents who are his cronies have to be voted out. 

This is all very disturbing.  From the conflict of interest whereby Connolly is hired and quickly makes a vote that benefits his new employer to his use of public money in the form of the Fairfax County Public Affairs office to attack newspapers that expose this behavior.

And none of this discussion included the fact that SAIC created the job just for Connolly.  This was disclosed in a 2003 Washington Post article entitled "A Question of Conflict."

I also take exception to Merni Fitgerald (Fairfax County's Director of Public Affairs) misquoting the County's comprehensive plan and using other techniques of obfuscation in an attempt to defend Connolly.  As a County taxpayer, I object to Connolly using a county department as his personal propaganda machine.

Excuse me, Hiker Joe.  Connolly uses his position to scare off anyone who does not agree with him.  People are afraid to testify against one of Connolly's pet projects because they are afraid of ticking off Gerry. 

Thank heavens the Examiner was committed to setting the record straight.  THANK YOU EDITOR!