James Monroe District Supervisor John LoBuglio just cannot seem to help himself.  As a candidate for office last year, he railed against “backroom politics where the public is unaware of what is going on until everything has been decided upon.” Yet as supervisor, he revels in the “backroom politics” he campaigned against.
 Is this the same man James Monroe District voters thought they were electing last year?
In this space two weeks ago we made public Mr. LoBuglio’s boasting of “working behind the scenes” and “bringing the votes together” to form a majority for increased school funding in an April 19 e-mail he later claimed he never sent out.  He didn’t deny the substance of the e-mail, he simply denied he sent it out, claiming it was only a “draft.”  Maybe he meant to say the e-mail was a template instead of a draft, because he sent the same e-mail, identical misspellings and all, out to several King George citizens.  

We don’t fault Mr. LoBuglio for his grammar or spelling.  We fault him for his hypocrisy and his gleeful use of “backroom politics” in policy making.  As reported elsewhere in this edition, apparently Mr. LoBuglio’s joy of his backroom leadership bubbled over a few days before April 19, as in an April 15 e-mail he boasted he “did the behind the scenes coordinating of that coup last evening having Mr. Brooks lead the charge as our senior representative” (emphasis added).  
Forgiving Mr. LoBuglio in his choice of the word “coup” with its unsavory connotations, what we find unsettling is that he references a coordinated “behind the scenes” effort where as ringleader he was at least gracious enough to designate Shiloh Supervisor Cedell Brooks as his “senior representative.”  The next sentence of his e-mail is equally revealing, as he wrote that “Only after it was stated that we had 3 votes in favor” to force the issue “did Mr. Sisson relinquish and up his recoomendation to 100K short of ours.” Mr. LoBuglio at least tried to suggest that supervisors Brooks and Mullen were along for the ride. One thing is for certain in these e-mails, and that was Mr. LoBuglio was intent on making sure he got the credit for the funding, and that his other two colleagues were following his lead.
The big issue here is not school funding. School funding just happens to be the issue at hand.  The big issue is process. The big issue is transparency in government, transparency that candidate LoBuglio said was missing in King George County — transparency that he, a candidate, would restore. Now as supervisor he seems to be intent on ignoring the need for open government.
What kind of government do King George County citizens deserve?
While hardly perfect, one complaint that has not surfaced much against the Board of Supervisors over the past dozen odd years has been one of private “behind the scenes” deal-making of the type John LoBuglio seems so comfortable with.  King George County deserves open, honest and transparent government in the sunshine, not the furtive, secretive, “backroom politics where the public is unaware of what is going on until everything has been decided upon” the Mr. LoBuglio decried at the start of his term.
Furthermore, Mr. LoBuglio’s approach disenfranchises whole parts of King George County. What good is it for a supervisor on the outside of backroom politics to vote if he or she has already been shut out of the decision making process?  
On the surface, that is what happened to James Madison and At-Large supervisors Grzeika and Sisson.  Deals seemed to have been closed behind doors or in the hallways without their input, and as a result, without the input of the districts.  Referring to LoBuglio’s maneuvering, Supervisor Grzeika put it this way: “The problem here is that in doing this he has denied the people of my district their elected representation …” Whether you agree with Mr. Grzeika’s final vote is one thing, but we believe he and Mr. Sisson should not have been shut out of the process through the “behind the scenes” politics of Mr. LoBuglio.
Perhaps Mr. LoBuglio has familiarized himself with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.  Sadly, his colleague James Mullen apparently has not.  For now at least, transparency in local government is a thing of the past. No Board of Supervisors is perfect, but at least for the past dozen years there has been no member of local government so happy to work in the shadows as John LoBuglio.  James Monroe District and King George County citizens deserve better. Let’s see if Mr. LoBuglio can do better.