Larvadain

Alexandria City Councilman Edward Larvadain III is paid thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars every year to attend two meetings a month.

Frequently, the man doesn’t adequately prepare for those meetings. He doesn’t read the reports he requests until the day of the meeting. As we now know, he also doesn’t seem to understand the nature and purpose of a financial audit, and he’s willing to publicly disparage a private citizen’s professionalism and expertise without any cause whatsoever. He’s never met with the administration on any issue; he only appears capable of using the media to lodge inconsistent and easily refutable accusations. And shame on the Alexandria media, particularly The Town Talk, for not insisting a more cogent and rational explanation from a Councilman.

Today, Larvadain is claiming that he has no idea how the City of Alexandria could possibly provide its new police chief with a salary in line with his skills.

Until he proves otherwise, I will now operate under the assumption that Edward Larvadain III is a racist who views and determines public fiscal policy, almost exclusively, under a race-based lens. I have no other reason to assume differently. I know, first-hand, the questions that Councilman Larvadain asks before any contract is entered into; he’s race-based. He’s backwards. He lives in the past. And in engaging in such explicitly, stupidly, and obviously race-based behavior, Edward Larvadain III not only hurts and jeopardizes our City; he hurts and jeopardizes the credibility of African-Americans in Alexandria. He gives credence to the notion that African-American businesspeople and entrepreneurs should be evaluated differently. That’s not only racist; it’s insidious, and not surprisingly, it gives credence to former KKK members.

I have said before– and it is worth repeating: Edward Larvadain III is the worst and most divisive person ever elected in Alexandria’s modern history. I’ll stand by that claim. He frequently exhibits discrimination during City Council meetings. He treats Robert’s Rules of Order like a punching bag, not as a guideline. He can easily locate money for his own pet causes, but paying the new police chief, a man who earned a law degree and who has served his community for well over a decade, that’s too much to ask.

Regretfully, unless or until proven otherwise, I must conclude that his dissension has nothing to do with qualifications and everything to do with race. It sucks. It’s awful. Maybe it’s taboo for white people to complain that African-American elected officials are engaging in race-based determinations. I don’t care, really. I know what I’ve heard this man, Councilman Larvadain, say. I know what he said, pejoratively, to a Jewish member of the Alexandria City Council. And I know the ways in which the institution of government has, so far, protected him against his own blatant bigotry; other people– people who have rightfully been offended– have been willing to save him from himself, the meetings that have never been on television. At some point, someone needs to say something, beyond the hackneyed talking points about the Mayor. In my estimation, it’s entirely appropriate to suggest that, for Mr. Larvadain, race seems to matter more than equality or the fair and equitable distribution of justice.

The man says he doesn’t know how he could possibly find an extra $15,000 to pay the most qualified police chief in Alexandria history, yet, somehow, he also is determined to fight to find money to pay people opposed to the City.

Councilman Larvadain, I can immediately solve the budgetary crisis: All you have to do is assign your salary to the new Police Chief.