Sunday’s column: Presenting the 2010 Dano Awards
By Grant Jedlinsky
Last year in this space we inaugurated the Dano Awards for Glaring Stupidity.
They’re named after yours truly, who is regularly reminded by many about all the dumb things he says and does.
Fortunately, I’m not the only one. There’s plenty of praise (or its opposite) to pass around, and the categories and subcategories are numerous.
The 2010 Dano for Elected Official Who Claimed Credit for Something He Opposed goes to none other than Roanoke Mayor David Bowers.
He earned it with a bravura performance celebrating the opening of the new William Fleming High School Stadium in August.
Bowers mugged for the cameras and tossed a small rubber football around the field. It was almost as if he’d forgotten that he vehemently fought against building that stadium (and the one at Patrick Henry), starting all the way back in 2006.
But Bowers isn’t the only member of Roanoke City Council who deserves an award.
Roanoke Vice Mayor David Trinkle gets the Dano for Taxpayer of the Year (subcategory: late).
Around the same time the good doctor and restaurateur was voting to increase meals taxes at restaurants in the city, he was months tardy in paying levies he’d collected at his two fine establishments. He ended up paying the city a penalty on the roughly $50,000 in late taxes.
A trio of Roanoke County supervisors – Charlotte Moore, Butch Church and Ed Elswick – take the Dano in a new category, Giving Away the Store (subcategory: Slate Hill/South Peak).
That commercial/residential megaproject’s owner, Jim Smith, persuaded the three supervisors to essentially rebate 70 percent of real estate taxes on Slate Hill for an unheard of 20 years. Every other developer in the Roanoke County will now want a sip at that trough.
Lance Terpenny, the former veteran town manager of Christiansburg, wins the Dano Award for Best Feathered Nest for a Resigning Public Official (subcategory: furloughs).
After Terpenny in July lost a bid by a lame-duck town council for a three-year employment contract, he agreed to resign. In return, town council agreed to pay $141,277 (a year’s salary, plus accrued leave) to ease his transition into future employment.
By that point, Terpenny already had accepted a new $50,000 gig as town manager of Floyd, which is a half-square-mile with a population of 438. (He later cut his pay to $40,000).
Later, a surprised town council in September suddenly found its budget short by the completely coincidental amount of $141,000. To make that up, each employee will be required to take three unpaid days off.
The Dano Award for Bureaucratic Ingenuity (subcategory: Not) belongs to the nameless federal official who paid $7,246 to a consultant for advice on what to do with a statue outside the Poff Federal Building during its upcoming (and screwy) $51 million renovation job.
The advice? “Move it.” Any monkey could have told them that in exchange for a banana.
The Dano for Former Roanoke Valley Businessman of Year goes to Ronnie Bennett, owner of the raided-by-the-cops and now-closed Bennett’s Internet gambling parlor on Brambleton Avenue.
To anyone who would listen, he proclaimed his business was modeled after McDonalds and its Monopoly sweepstakes.
Except he sold no burgers, fries, drinks or any other food in his scummy parlor. The only thing he sold was “Internet time” to dupes trying to win money playing slot-machine-type games on his computers.
Franklin County Sheriff Ewell Hunt missed receiving a Dano in 2009 – they’d already been handed out by the time the news broke about how he allowed his pistol-slinging teenage daughter (a part-time sheriff’s employee) to boss around full-time, sworn personnel in the department.
So this year, we sympathetically award Hunt the Dano for Elected Official with Parenting Issues (subcategory: enfant terrible).
Congressman-elect Morgan Griffith gets the 2010 Dano in the category of Canniest Political Map Reader (subcategory: immune to hypocrisy).
In the fall of 2009, while seeking re-election to his state House of Delegates seat, Griffith criticized Democratic challenger Carter Turner as a newcomer who had lived in the 8th legislative district for a mere two years.
Less than six months later, the Salem Republican announced a run in the 9th Congressional District, in which he did not live and could not vote. Soon, he’ll be representing it in Congress.
Democrat Crystal Ball, the most interestingly named Virginia congressional candidate in November’s elections, gets the Dano in the new category, There is Such a Thing as Bad Publicity (subcategory: risqué photos).
Photos of her published on the Internet during her campaign for the 1st Congressional District aren’t fit to print, or even describe, in a family newspaper.
But suffice it to say they involve a sex toy, and a long-ago party, a camera and the kind of exposure no candidate for public office wishes for in the middle of a campaign. She lost.
We had a few nominees in 2010 for Virginia Concealed Handgun Permit Holder of the Year.
But the hapless winner is Wayne Latham of Forest, for an event that occurred weeks after it became legal for permit holders to carry a concealed handgun into a bar, provided they don’t drink.
In September, Latham was in a Lynchburg restaurant (which was posted “No Firearms”) when he accidentally shot himself in the leg while fumbling in his pocket for money — to pay for his beer.
A judge convicted him of reckless handling of a firearm and fined him $500. Latham also lost his carry permit for a year, and his pistol permanently. No tragedy there.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is our only double award winner this year.
He gets the Dano for Most Litigious Elected Official for his multiple lawsuits against the federal government, plus his fraud investigation of a former UVa climate scientist who concluded that global temperatures have risen steeply in the past century.
Cuccinelli also wins a Dano in the category of Most Ardent Defender of a Fraudster.
No, he wasn’t sticking up for the climate scientist. Instead, it was one of Cuccinelli’s own campaign contributors, who gave $55,500 to the attorney general-to-be’s campaign.
The mysterious man founded the fake U.S. Navy Veterans Association, and called himself Bobby Thompson, but he’s been charged in Ohio with stealing that identity.
Long after most Virginia pols ran away from smaller checks from “Thompson,” Cuccinelli was hanging onto his and sticking up for the scam artist who wrote them.
Around the time the IRS raids began, it dawned on Cuccinelli that he should give the phony Thompson’s real money away.
Which brings us to the Dano of Year, for the most glaringly stupid act of 2010.
There’s really no competition. It belongs to Gov. Bob McDonnell and the entire Virginia General Assembly for doing the bidding of “Thompson” without batting an eyelash.
In 2009, Virginia regulators shut down fundraising in the commonwealth by the U.S. Navy Vets because it was an unregistered charity.
So “Thompson” passed around $67,500 in donations to key state lawmakers (including Cuccinelli).
Then this year he hired a lobbyist who persuaded Sen. Patsy Ticer, D-Alexandria, to introduce a bill exempting veterans organizations — such as the U.S. Navy Veterans — from registering to raise money here.
Not a single member of the Virginia Senate or House of Delegates voted against that bill.
The governor signed it. It became law July 1, and it’s still on the books. Meanwhile, “Thompson” is still on the lam.
To recap: A campaign donor/con artist/alleged identity thief persuaded an entire government to enact a law that would allow his phony charity to resume defrauding Virginia’s citizens.
And the government happily obliged.
Now that’s stupid.
Only in Virginia!
December 19, 2010 - 6:00 AM
The truly sad thing here is that all of these fools and dull tools in the shed will be re-elected by a citizenry that in local government elections rarely votes and when they do vote they vote for the bottom of the barrel. Then they go around for the next 4 years griping and complaining about everything that the fools that now hold elected office say and do, like that can repair the damage already done by giving them elected office and power for 4 years.
I never have understood why the citizens will make it a point to go vote in the Presidential election every 4 years, when it is the electoral votes of the states that really matter at the end of the day, but won’t participate in the state and local elections. Besides federal income and payroll taxes, the Feds have little other influence over most folks daily lives. The state and local elected leaders have influence over pretty much all of a voters life, such as the level of public safety provided, school quality, road and infrastructure quality, everything from state income taxes to real estate taxes to vehicle taxes to meals taxes to utilities taxes to sales taxes, this list could go on until it reaches across the ocean…
HAHAHA!!! Looks to me from Reading the Roanoke Free Press that Dan-o is this years pick for the most deteriorated blog in Roanoke, earning him the annual VAL ER IE – ole. Nice work Ms Garner.
http://www.roanokefreepress.com/?p=11436
Kristen: I know you won’t understand it so just go back in the kitchen and bake some more cookies. I like oat meal (chewy).
Dan-o: About Bowers. I wonder what award you would have given had he attended the WF opening while lamenting the loss of VS with a pout on his mug? His cause was lost years ago. Most normal people would understand this and good mental health mandates that you “move on”, to borrow a phrase used mostly by washed up liberals when talking about washed up topics.
The only reason the Roanoke Free Press is about bashing Dan right now is because he called out their boy Habeeb. Instead of addressing things head on, they use deterrence. They are pathetic.
#2 Wow, Al, that really settles it. Given Valerie’s opinion, I guess Dan should just close up shop.
Is it too late to nominate everyone that voted for Morgan Griffith?
I actually read that the other day, Al, and Valerie gets her ass handed to her.
Emnbarrassing.
So, where’s my cookies?
Hey PaPaw. The wind blew the neighbors trash over in my drive way and I picked up a section of the RT’s with Granger’s
commentary. Pretty profound, I’d say and thus: YES, Dan and the rest of the screwed up libs who run the paper SHOULD close up shop and stay home.
I thought they were trying to sell it a few years back. I know what happened to TWC but apparently no one whats the RT’s. Oh well, if it were not for trash papers like this we would just have a bunch more welfare cases to support…that is those of us who work. Come to think of it now it’s clearer why these media libs ARE liberal in their persuation. It’s just self preservation as they cannot really contribute any other way and they need a safety net. They apparently know that one day they will need 13 more months of unemployment “insurance”.
#7, Al, sounds to me like you have some anger management issues or something. I guess everything that has ever happened to you or against you or whatever in your life is the fault of libs or trash papers or something? Seek some help man.
#7 Well, Al, that was as about incoherent as it comes. Suzie but with worse spelling, punctuation and grammar. Very sad.
AL, Love your comments!
Al, if you knew anything, which you don’t, the unemployment extension does nothing for the “99er’s,” those whose benefits have already expired. If ignorance is bliss, you must be friggin ecstatic.
I just read the story over at the Roanoke Free Press in regards to Dan’s blog post discussing candidate Habeeb. The story at the Roan. Free Press contains a factual lie in regards to the blog post that Dan wrote, and to all of the visible comments underneath of the story.
From the Roanoke Free Press, Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
Story title: When good blogs go bad:
Blog comments using duplicate IP addresses with different names went viral and vicious. They even questioned the candidate’s ethnicity, demanded a birth certificate and called him a Muslim. Casey never should have allowed such vicious comments.
http://www.roanokefreepress.com/?p=11436
In several of my comments, I did in fact ask if Habeeb had produced a birth certificate, what was his middle name, what was his nationality and was he a native of the House District that he seeks to represent, and was he from SWVA. I never, never, asked or stated that he was a Muslim. This was a lie or an inacurate statement for whoever wrote that story to make. I even went back through Dan’s blog story regarding Habeeb and re-read all of the story and all of the comments, and I never, never read anything where anyone called Mr. Habeeb a Muslim.
Below is a link to Dan’s story including all 146 comments as of 11:20pm est, on Dec. 19th.
http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2010/12/13/habeeb-on-abortion-abc-privatization-and-capital-punishment/
Let the Record stand corrected my friends!!!
Cuccinelli must not be that stupid for launching the lawsuit against 0bamacare if a federal judge agreed with him.
A lot of geniuses on the Dano Award panel.
Al doesn’t have anger management issues. He just has faux news issues.
He’s one of those statistics from the UMd. study. Sort of like an eternal Forest Gump.
I almost understood Al that time…keep them comin’ Al! We’ll get there!
“I know what happened to TWC but apparently no one whats the RT’s. Oh well, if it were not for trash papers like this we would just have a bunch more welfare cases to support…that is those of us who work. Come to think of it now it’s clearer why these media libs ARE liberal in their persuation.”:
Dan? I think we have a candidate for McTony’s ghostwriter.
13, Suzie, Here’s a consoling thought: Federal judges, like doctors, lawyers and a bunch of the rest of us, exist in something like a bell curve, with a batch of ‘em below average and some even well below average, before the bottom of the curve, and the barrel are hit.
Some of the critiques I’ve read on this judge’s decision indicate he isn’t on the upper side of the curve.
Suzie,
I guess having one federal judge out of 1774 agree with you is not bad. Ultimately the only opinions that will count in this matter are the nine judges currently sitting in Washington, DC, otherwise known as the Supremes.
Wow, Ron. Did 1774 hear Cuccinelli’s case? You’d make a great Democrat candidate for public office with your intellect. Please run.
Re:
# 18 “Ultimately the only opinions that will count in this matter are the nine judges currently sitting in Washington, DC, otherwise known as the Supremes.”
———
Yup!
For those who might care, I posted links to some good reads (not just one sided) on the cases & SCOTUS back on the thread “Cuccinelli found a judge who would strike down health-care law” @ http://tinyurl.com/237xahw
Handicapping/predicting SCOTUS is a tricky business. IMHO, neither side has a lock-in.
“So this year, we sympathetically award Hunt the Dano for Elected Official with Parenting Issues”
Dan,
Who is/are “we”? What “we” did the selecting?
@#21
“We” are the posters on the blog. Remember this thread?
http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2010/11/28/we-are-taking-nomination-for-the-2010-dano-awards/#comments
I’m sure Dan did the final selections, but the ideas came from his blog readers.
VT,
Those are the nominations. I want to know who the “we” is that made the final decison on who got the Dano.
Suspect it was a self appointed committee of…. one.
If so, why use the word “we”?
#24 It’s a type of n expression used in many places, Bob H, including the medical community, as in “How are we feeling today?” WE’RE not talking about a national crisis here, Bobby.
Wonder why BobH thinks they’re called the “Danos”? Duh!
Gdad,
My doctor only asks me “how are YOU doing today?”
We is usually used when someone is trying to distance themselves from a decison they solely made.
#27 Riiiight, Bob H. Dan is trying to distance himself by writing about it in the paper. That makes lots of sense. That’s what I always do.