Yesterday I had a strange phone call from a county employee who identified themselves as an “ex-birdie.” I almost hung up on them except his voice sounded very familiar to me. Once we got the identity established, the fun began. It seems that loyalty to staff counts a great deal at Complex 1 and at Independent Hill.
There are about 4,000 county staff and about 10,000 school board staff. The caller then asked me (like I would know) why Pete Candland thinks that they would all vote for him rather than Corey Stewart. I just listened, assuming that was a rhetorical question. He went on to say that Candland has subjected their bosses to public embarrassment and humiliated them with supposed gotcha questions. Additionally, there has been a great deal of public criticism over staff work projects over the past two years that we keep hearing about during BOCS meetings. Now that is getting fairly personal. He also told the budget director her numbers were wrong when in fact, they weren’t wrong.
This employee was on a rant. He then told me that Melissa Peacor was far more popular with staff than Candland realizes and that she had been attacked relentlessly (THAT part I know, the popular point I didn’t.) Chris Martino was also called out by Candland’s BFF, the Sheriff, as being a financially illiterate nincompoop. Martino’s sound investment choices kept the county on an even keel for the past 5 years and Fairfax County routinely called him for advice, very often too late. (I knew that Chris Martino was much sought after by other municipalities from some of my chick friends at Complex 1.) (Too bad Fairfax, you snooze you lose, he’s ours!)
