There are strange thing done…

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By men who moil for gold

So begins a poem by one of my favorite poets, Robert Service, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”. If Service were alive today and lived in Leesburg, his poem might have read something like this:

There are strange things done in the midday sun
By a Council that that covets gold;
Leesburg’s trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
Loudoun’s folks have seen queer sites,
But the queerest they ever did see
Were the Council forums on the banks of the Goose
That out numbered the residents ten to three.

The strangest sight I ever did see was at the recent Town Forum at the Senior Center in Leesburg. Picture four members of the Town Council (Umstattd, Burke, Martinez, and Reid), eight Town staff members, and one County staffer (a total of 12) making a thirty minute pitch to four seniors who had just finished a bridge game. Twenty other seniors folded up their tables and chairs, and left before the Town group uttered a word.

After much whining about the unfairness of having no vote in the Crosstrail land planning process, not withstanding the fact that Mayor Umstattd has always opposed annexing any land into the Town, I asked if I might say a few words. “No you may not,” exclaimed Council member Burke. “You were not invited.”

Four seniors pitched, one senior muzzled. Indeed, a strange thing at a public meeting in a public building.