No to Dick Junior!
Sorry, we don't want this version either.
There is no indication that Mick differs even a hair from Dick on any issue that can be found on this website. Plus, he's a callow 35 year old with no business in the Senate.
Mick doesn't even pretend to support public education
On his campaign website, Mick doesn't even bother to mention any plans for supporting and improving public education - the issue that constituents said mattered most to them in the 2005 election. Why? He is playing to an extremely narrow base that doesn't care about it either.
Mick votes in lockstep with Eugene Delgaudio, a known supporter of movements intent on abolishing public education entirely, to deny as much funding to our schools as they can get away with. In 2004, Mick voted against a motion that cut a total of $27 million from the budget proposed by the Superintendent - because the additional cut by the BoS wasn't deep enough.
Also in 2004, Senator Mims and Delegates Rust and May were able to gain General Assembly approval of an additional $6.8 million in funding for Loudoun County, specifically designated for public education. Mick, working with Eugene, tried to prevent Loudoun County Public Schools from receiving this money. (Not coincidentally, Dick Black had opposed the budget that provided this additional education money to Loudoun.)
According to meeting minutes of the Board of Supervisors, Mick and Eugene attempted to amend the chairman's motion to increase the school operating budget by the amount of the additional funding. They tried to reduce the expenditure on education by $3 million and transfer it to the general fund; when this failed on a 6-3 vote, Mick and Eugene refused to vote for the increase in the school operating budget at all.
In July of 2005, after initially supporting it as part of the CIP, Mick flip-flopped and tried to prevent a badly needed new high school from appearing on the November 2005 ballot. He also supported efforts to encourage division between east and west by voting to split the school questions on the ballot. If voters across the county had not rejected this stunt, funding could have been denied to build and renovate schools in the east, including in his own Sugarland Run district.
In this editorial, the Loudoun Times-Mirror asks "Would you pay 33 cents a day to keep teachers' salaries a little ahead of the competition? Maybe even pay them enough to be able to live in the county where they choose to work? Supervisor Mick Staton (R-Sugarland Run) won't. And he won't let you."
Ineffectiveness? Or something worse?
So you want to know what it is that Mick Staton does for a living? Mick is "Vice President and Director of Research" with Capitol Link, a DC-based lobbying firm. Capitol Link is owned and operated by Mick's dad, Mick Staton, Sr., a former West Virginia congressman. According to their website, the firm specializes in "dealing with municipal and county government". Mick Senior sells his services by claiming that his two years in office (1981-1983) have resulted in "strong ties to the current membership and structure of the House and Senate on both sides of the political aisle." Mick Senior was defeated after his single term by Democrat Robert E. Wise, who served in Congress from 1983-2001 and was eventually elected Governor.
The going rate for Staton's services is $4,000-5,000/month. What do local governments get for this fee? Staton appeared before the Kannapolis, NC council in March, telling them that he would write grant proposals and "make sure your voice is heard" in the nation's capital. He also cautioned the council that no lobbyist is a miracle worker and that the best representation comes through the city's own legislators. "If you have to have a lobbyist to lobby your own senators and your own representatives, you have a serious problem and one that I can't fix," he said.
Another NC county that has retained Staton's firm won't be providing any references. Yadkin County officials say that Capitol Link has produced rather slim results. "For $4,000 a month, I think we are paying greens fees to the best golf courses in Washington, D.C.," County Commissioner Kim Phillips told the Winston-Salem Journal. Staton, she continued, has done nothing that county officials can't do on their own. While Staton asserted that his firm helped the County gain a $940,000 federal grant, Phillips countered that the County Manager did most of the work on that grant application, and that the few grant opportunities that Staton does make the county aware of are often outdated.
We can only surmise that Mick/Dick Junior is only too happy to rant from the dais against "waste" and "unneccessary spending" when it comes to providing a little help to those in need (like minimal dental care), all the while making his living from the unneccessary spending he and his daddy hawk to other local governments.
- extreme. unqualified. dick junior.