Now in its fourth year, Leadership Jefferson is a ten-month training program that brings together local professionals, and through a series of one-day workshops and overnight stays, builds awareness of self and society.

The man behind Leadership Jefferson is long-time resident and local attorney Andrew Skinner. He says that he learned much of what he teaches through the Army, where he still provides leadership development classes.  Skinner says that his aim is to help build leadership capacity in the area.

This year’s course, which will come to an end in June, includes a manager from City National Bank, the owner of Eden Design, an administrator from the racetrack, another from American Public University, a fundraiser for local nonprofits, a student, and the head of the county planning department. Many of the participants say that the diversity of the people in the program, and the networking opportunities that this produces, is one of the most exciting element of Leadership Jefferson.

“This has been an excellent way to network,” said Ronald Geigel, accounts manager at Charles Town Races and Slots. “I met interesting folks, we bonded very fast, all-in-all it has been fantastic.”

David Miller, who helps run the program and who also is a veteran in leadership training, says that they are looking to provide more than networking opportunities. Leadership Jefferson is about helping participants “become more thoughtful about leadership,” he said. “We try and help them become more active in the community.”

Each year the program starts with a two-day retreat that includes a hugely popular and highly competitive scavenger hunt that takes the participants across the county chasing clues and amassing somewhat arbitrary, but seriously entertaining, bonus points. The participants attend a series of issue-based monthly “modules” that comprise one-day tours of the county. Each focuses on a specific issue. This year the issues ranged from poverty, to education, arts, and tourism. In the middle of the course there is also an overnight stay in Charleston, where the group meets legislators and gets a tour of government buildings.

“I loved the program,” said Heather Mills of the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce. “It has given me the chance to meet people I wouldn’t normally come in contact with.”

Participants are split into teams of four or five and are asked to organize one of the modules. For example in April 2010, one team, who called themselves “competitive slackers,” organized an educational day with visits to Washington High School, Charles Town Country Day School, Wright Denny, Shepherd University, and the Job Corp campus. For many of the participants this was their first experience with many of these institutions.

“For those people who want to understand what is going on in Jefferson County and who want to meet the people who make the decisions that shape Jefferson County, Leadership Jefferson is a must,” said Skinner. “Leadership Jefferson is creating a corps of extremely well-informed folks who are very motivated to improve Jefferson County, whether by starting or expanding businesses, creating non-profits, running for political office, or by volunteering.  Plus, quite frankly, it is great fun to go through the program.”

Leadership Jefferson plans to organize another program in 2010/2011. To find out more information contact: www.jeffersoncountywvchamber.org/leadership or call the Chamber of Commerce at (304) 725-2055.

  By Leigh Koonce

The breeze of reform is in the air. President Obama has signed healthcare reform. The Congress is preparing to consider a new campaign finance reform measure to combat the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in that realm. Though it took a devastating disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine, it now appears a strong gaze will be directed toward comprehensive mining reform as well. As all of these important movements progress, I am struck by a more modest need for reform: that of the rules which govern West Virginia County Political Executive Committees. While I certainly do not think either party’s Committee is doing anything inappropriate in Jefferson County, I strongly believe the operating guidelines in the State Code need to be revised.

My initial intention in filing for the Middleway seat on the Democratic Executive Committee was to provide representation for younger voters, and to strive to get the committee to advocate a civil discourse in Jefferson County politics. However, two important realizations struck me quite recently in my campaign. First, there are no campaign finance regulations for candidates who run for the Executive Committee. There is no requirement for me to disclose the names of donors, nor the amount they contribute to my campaign. Further, the donations in question can legally be made directly to me, as opposed to a campaign committee. Transparency must be instituted in this arena. Voters should know exactly how much money candidates are spending in their effort to be seated on the Executive Committee. Further, voters should know exactly who is contributing money and in-kind services. Disclosure is a requirement for every other office on the ballot; shouldn’t the Executive Committees be added to the list?

I believe the second important reform needed is the implementation of term limits. I think three consecutive four-year terms provide Executive Committee members plenty of time to make a marked impact upon the party. Additionally, limiting an individual service to a maximum of 12 years permits new opinions and ideas to surface, as different people are elected and take to the panel. West Virginia State Code does enable, by majority vote, the Executive Committee to appoint a Chairperson who is not an elected member of the Committee, as well as the ability to appoint non-voting members from the community. Therefore, a member’s service to their party need not end when their twelfth year closes.  And Jefferson County boasts two other very active Democratic organizations that offer opportunities for participation on party activities: the Jefferson County Democratic Association and the Organization of Democratic Women

I do not believe these reforms would limit, nor detract from the service of any Democrat who wants to be active within the party. Rather, I believe they provide common sense, responsible guidelines by which the face of the party in the county should operate. I strongly urge the State House of Delegates to consider amending the State Code to improve the structure within which the County Executive Committees operate.

Leigh Koonce is a candidate for the Jefferson County Democratic Commitee.

I consider myself an environmentalist with one major exception: brown marmorated stink bugs. I don’t care about the circle of life and ecological balance when it comes to these marauders. I say kill them all.

I am like the Terminator when it comes to brown stink bugs. The difference is I am armed with a vacuum cleaner instead of a machine gun. I am merciless in finding those stink bugs and believe me they are everywhere. Globs of them hide in folds of draperies and under bedding. Wielding my trusty vacuum cleaner hose attachments, I easily send hundreds at a time to their final resting place: a Kenmore 5050 vacuum bag.

The other night I found the first useful side of stink bugs. I was at a fundraiser, sitting with people I did not know and conversation lagged. In a sudden burst of inspiration, I asked, “How about those stink bugs?” Everyone had an opinion and everyone started talking. Stink bugs brought us together.

I hope a much larger, more significant environmental challenge facing Jefferson County will also bring us together. On May 12, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order recognizing the Chesapeake Bay as a national treasure and ordering a renewed effort to protect the Bay. All of Jefferson County lies within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, as do seven other West Virginia counties. In June Governor Manchin signed into law SB 715, the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Initiative. This new law directs the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to begin developing plans for managing West Virginia’s nutrient pollution contribution to the Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay Initiative legislation includes some pretty interesting programs, including a nutrient credit trading program. Nitrogen and phosphorus are considered the leading cause of degradation of streams and rivers in the watershed. The trading program would allow an increase in nutrient loads at one location only if the nutrient loads somewhere else are reduced.

I would like to offer more detailed information about the concept but I am still trying to figure it out myself. I am also trying to figure out the term TMDL, or “total maximum daily load.” TMDL standards will have a huge effect on local planning, land use and economic development. They will control the amount and types of pollutants that can be discharged by watershed. The federal government has established state wide TMDL standards and now the West Virginia EPA must work with local governments to distribute loadings by watershed.

I will have to do a lot of reading to understand nutrient trading programs, TMDL, nutrient balance and reserve ratios. This is a small price to pay if it means protecting the quality of our streams and rivers.

For the sake of our environment, we residents of Jefferson County have to be as interested and conversant about TMDL as we are about stink bugs.

This year’s CATF play “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon inspired a nostalgic glance backwards. The play’s protagonist, 25-year-old Stephen Bellamy, serves as national press secretary to a governor running for president. He becomes snagged in a quagmire that shatters his political idealism and puts his professional survival at risk.

Beginning when I was 18, I cut my teeth on the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of Gary Hart and Tom Daschle’s first Senate race, so I knew a lot of Stephen Bellamys.

So I went to the theater to see how Willimon brought the campaign-culture experience to life. Just about any campaign worker with writing talent (and there are many) wants to be paid some day for the book or the film that captures that essence. Legendary Rolling Stone reporter Hunter Thompson put campaign writing on the map with Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. My own boss Gary Hart wrote Right from the Start, a chronicle of his experience as campaign manager of George McGovern’s 1972 presidential bid. I was eager to see what Willimon would do.

The opening scene takes place in a hotel bar (I have a friend who made an art of comparing the décor of hotel lobbies, and developed a fetish for their smells and an expertise on their architecture). Stephen is seated with his national campaign manager, a New York Times correspondent, and a young intern who is clinging onto his legs with the suckers of a squid. Stephen is unstoppable. He’s driving the conversation, dancing the boundaries of the professional versus personal with charm as he engages the Times reporter. The relationship between reporters and campaign staff is a bit like that of competitive siblings. You are part of the same family, but you know if a sibling catches you out, they are going to blackmail you or go to the folks.

Presidential campaigns meet every face of the American human character. And in so many campaigns, sexual relationships and the exploitation of scandal become the major themes and the weapons for revenge. In this way, Willimon’s play turned out to be a realistic reflection of the campaign coverage that often prevails over the more substantive issues.

Campaigns are notorious for destroying personal relationships at home, and creating revolving bedpartners among co-workers who meet up again several states later. In “Farragut North,” however, it is not the peccadilloes of the candidate at the center of the storm—it’s the campaign staff. When campaign manager Paul Zara ruthlessly knocks press secretary Bellamy off his trajectory to fame, Bellamy leaks Zara’s relationship with Molly, a bright 19-year-old intern who also happens to have shared a bed with Bellamy.

Campaigns are episodic adventures, full of adrenalin and wonderfully bright, ambitious characters. One of my most meaningful memories was travelling with Senator Hart and a press entourage around Northwest Iowa when he was registering zero percent in the national polls. We went to cafes and living room events in a silver van dubbed Van Force I. National campaign reporters were invited to accompany the Senator one at a time as we drove from place to place. The rest of the fleet traveled behind in convoys of rented cars. When money started pouring in, chartered jets replaced Van Force I.

A favorite pastime on these jets was air skiing. When the plane took off, staff members would grab the plastic laminated safety instruction sheets from the seat pockets, and take turns sliding from the top of the aisle to the back of the plane. The name of the game was to see who could get the farthest before grabbing a seat. On these trips, the microphone was used for campaign trivia; alcohol was guzzled by the gallon.

My career with Senator Hart spanned from 1982 to 1984. I worked in 10 states, fielding and coordinating super-delegate phone calls, and serving as national student coordinator at the convention. I then took a year out to work on the campaign of then Rep. Tom Daschle, who was running for Senate. When I returned in 1987 to the presidential race, the campaign had transformed from a family business to a corporation. Gone was the idealism that drove the momentum of our poorly financed 1984 campaign. So I decided to finish the political science degree that I had so heavily invested myself in over the course of six years. That is, until the Donna Rice fiasco.

Senator Hart, the front-runner, dropped out in October. I was devastated—for him and for all the friends that had given up positions with other campaigns.

When I received a call in January 1988 from then 23 year old Martin O’Malley, now Governor of Maryland, asking me to join the family back in Iowa, I dropped the books and went. It was back to the old days. Van Force I reappeared. Single-engine jets returned. But the votes didn’t. The campaign was over by February 20.

I recouped by buying a bicycle and decided to see the country again, one state at a time, from Portland, Oregon to Washington D.C., putting my feet down at every stop sign and traffic light along the way, sleeping in a tent rather than a hotel room, and seeing the country through the idealist eyes that drove my involvement in Senator Hart’s campaign.

It was great to be back on the road, but this time as a bicyclist, meeting the faces and the folks that make up this massive melting pot of a nation, and feeling that romance of idealism again. I never bumped into a failed Stephan Bellamy, but I can’t help but wonder how he might have licked his wounds.

Watching Willomin’s play brought it all back: the highs and lows, the youthful idealism, the excitement. It also recapped for me how far I’d come from being that young naïve 18-year-old in Iowa, before following the bandwagon to Washington D.C., which would change my life forever and, I’m fortunate to say, for the better.

Debora Harding is the General Manager of an independently owned chain of bicycle shops in Washington D.C.

Spurred in part by a wildly popular radio series, there is growing interest in the art of capturing and recording family and community stories in audio. Whether it’s getting all of an elderly grandparent’s childhood stories, capturing tall tales from “old timers” while there is still time, or getting community perspectives from people of all ages at a moment in time, “oral histories” have become kitchen-table pastimes that are no longer relegated to academic researchers.

Michael and Carrie Kline of Elkins, W.Va., are two of the best-known gatherers of community stories and oral histories. The Klines operate Talking Across the Lines, a folklife documentary group. Their workshop at CraftWorks, said Michael Kline, will help participants learn to document life stories and community experience through the art of deep listening and recording. “We’ll explore techniques for seeking out and recording the voices of family and locals,” said Kline. In the informal daylong session, students will develop interviewing skills and learn technical details for producing broadcast-quality field recordings.

The Klines are as well known for musical performances of Appalachian music as they are for their work as folklorists. On Friday evening, August 21, the Klines will perform a special benefit concert at CraftWorks on the lawn at the Old Stone Barn. The Klines perform an array of West Virginia songs, from the ancient ballads of the Hammons Family in the Central Highlands to songs of resistance and music from the coal mines.

It is a family-style picnic event. Concertgoers are invited to bring a picnic supper and a blanket or lawn chairs. Advance tickets required. Kids attend free; adults $10; students $5. Volunteers attend free. The grounds open at 5pm; the concert begins at 6pm.

For tickets and information on all CraftWorks classes and events, visit www.wvCraftWorks.org. Eastern Panhandle residents get a 50 % discount all classes.

Compiled by David Lillard

A story in the July edition of The Observer contained email exchanges between Jefferson County deputy clerks and organizers of the petition drive to force a referendum vote on the new Zoning Ordinance. Over the past few weeks there has been a lively online dialogue on this Observer story and the release of the petition names. Here are excerpts from two of these forums: “Shannondale.org” and “OJ.”

From Shannondale.org

Posted by Willis

. . . I don’t see any context in which the collegian atmosphere between the clerk’s office and the petition gatherers evokes a sense of trust in the process. If all is on the up and up, then make the petitions public to all. Poor George Orwell, I’ll take the liberty to paraphrase his quote: “All citizens are privy to the contents of PUBLIC documents, but some are more privy than others.” I don’t like being an “other.”

AMDumgoole

I dunno guys, this story doesn’t particularly convince me of a conspiracy, it seems that this is a case of an overly helpful public servant to me. I don’t think these people should have their names dragged through the mud for doing what I’m sure in their opinion is helping people. The end result of it doesn’t paint the County office in a particularly flattering light, whatever the intent. There is no such thing as transparency in government, Willis, never has been. It’s dirty pool from every angle.

LazerFlash

Where it seems to have crossed the line is when they misled everyone about the level of things they were doing. I, too, have encountered very helpful county employees since moving here, but I would certainly hope that none of them would ever mislead anyone about how helpful they have been.

AMDrumgoole

It’s almost a relief to see such highly polarized reporting in the county, it suggests to me that the truth is out there, somewhere in between.

Jennifer

The key point is that Rhonda claimed those signees deserved complete confidentiality and compared the confidentiality expectation to voting rights. Now it turns out that she and Ed had lists of signatures sent to them. That’s like the voting booth guy having a list of everyone who voted yes. It seems that what she meant is that she has the right to view who signed but no other citizens have that right.

Leprechaun

There is an appearance of impropriety. And perception is reality! I think the county commissioners should call these clerks before them and ask them under oath what the heckfire was/is going on!!!

LazerFlash

I’m not sure I agree entirely with your analogy, Jenn. I have reread the article and this thread a couple of times, and what I see is that they were given TALLIES of valid (and invalid) signatures and a list of INVALID signatures, including reasons for invalidation (with the actual names having been redacted). I may have missed it, but I don’t see where that it says any list was sent out of the clerk’s office with actual voter names on it. That makes it more like the guy at the voting booth having the list of people who voted illegally and how many registered voters showed up to vote . . . certainly legitimate information. Even so, it sure sounds like they gave out more than they said they did, whether they were just being helpful or were sympathetic to the cause or not.

FWIW, I’m very torn on this latest revelation. My wife and I have been Maghan supporters for as long as we have known her. We have also always had a really good, respectful relationship with the folks who work for her. While I don’t expect the latter to change much, it sure looks like the former may have suffered a major blow.

From OJ

 Joe Thompson

. . . So the obvious questions are: Why was info on specific rejections . . . given to the petition organizers? Why would they need “their own record” of any of that info? The job of verifying the signatures could have been done equally well without giving any info out to anyone during the drive, and if confidentiality was an issue, that’s what should have been done. Providing some info to some people but not to other people raises issues of whether what’s at play is confidentiality or collusion, even if the intent was completely innocent.

 Pete Smith

After reading the July Observer editorial and then slogging through all of the e-mails on which it was based, I’m having a little trouble seeing what all the fuss is about. Can someone suggest a credible scenario in which the information provided to the petition organizers, within the 90-day window, affected the outcome?

 David Hammer

Pete, I’m not legal counsel for either side on this issue. But your question, whether the outcome was affected, is irrelevant for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act. Here’s the public policy underlying WV’s FOIA statute:

§29B-1-1. Declaration of policy. Pursuant to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government which holds to the principle that government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them, it is hereby declared to be the public policy of the state of West Virginia that all persons are, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments of government they have created. To that end, the provisions of this article shall be liberally construed with the view of carrying out the above declaration of public policy.

So if the Observer, you, me or anyone else wants to know how the signature verification process was handled by the County Clerk’s office, that information should be readily made available. Likewise, I fail to see how anyone who signed a public petition that was circulated and left in full public view at various retail locations . . . could have an expectation of privacy in their signature is inexplicable.

 Joe Thompson

My favorite part of the disclosed e-mails is where Ronda writes: “Anyone else [other than her -- ed.] turning in sheets should be considered suspect.”

 Fred Blackmer

Commenting on Dave Hammer’s previous post: I don’t think there is a problem requesting how the signatures were verified. That has been outlined officially by the Clerk’s office. What this really seems to be about is getting the specific names for some reason. I don’t know what that particular aspect has to do with the number, how they were gathered or how they were verified. My question would be why there is such a focus on who the people were? Target mailings and phone calls? What? If the signatures meet the legal standard get on with public education and a vote. That’s the law.

 Joe Thompson

. . . It still raises the question of selective confidentiality and why Ronda is privileged to see all the gathered names when no one else outside the Clerk’s office is. It’s also a marked contrast to her earlier assertions that the petition drive was a grassroots effort of many people working collaboratively with her and Ed Burns. It seems that when it was convenient to count other signature-gatherers as on her side, she did so, whereas in other quarters she openly held them in some degree of suspicion . . .

So far all we have is the assurance of the Clerk’s Office that they did their job fairly, which is fine if no one questions it. When the question arises as to whether that’s true, the Clerk has to be considered a biased party, thus some impartial and complete record has to be available for public inspection to allay such concerns. In this case, the only way for people like Joe Coakley to know that their names were not included erroneously, and to be able to verify for themselves that other names are legitimate if they so choose, is for the names to be available to the public. It’s the same reason sunshine laws exist.

I don’t know where this idea that petition signers will be the subject of endless harassment if their names are known comes from, other than an irrelevant straw-man argument raised by Ronda and Ed. Every public meeting I’ve attended, where I’ve been asked to state my name and/or address for the record, I’ve done so. So far I have yet to get any harassing phone calls or e-mails on any subject.

 Fred Blackmer

If this whole election process hangs on a dozen “what ifs” one way or the other, the whole thing is in trouble

 To see these online forums go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OJ or www.shannondale.org, while the former publishes people’s real names, the latter uses nicknames for contributors. In response to the Observer story, petition organizer Ronda Lehman and deputy county clerk Nikki Painter submitted letters to The Observer, and were invited to re-submit the letters to meet our criteria for length. Each declined to do so.

Petition Organizer Paid By Anti-Zoning Firm

Recently released documents reveal financial dealings between Lee Snyder, the owner of Jefferson Utilities, and Ronda Lehman, who spearheaded a petition drive on the county’s new zoning ordinance. The documents include a detailed itemization of expenses made by Jefferson Utilities since October 2008, including four payments to “Ronda Lehman Consultant” in March 2009.

The revelation has re-fueled speculation that the petition drive was funded by development interests, and that Snyder in particular was affiliated with the petition campaign. At the least, say people involved with Citizens of the Blue Ridge, who obtained these files through a lawsuit, the documents reveal a link between Snyder’s interests and Lehman’s public advocacy of Jefferson Utilities’ interests.

At a meeting of the Public Service District in Charles Town in February 2009, Lehman rose to give her strong support for Jefferson Utilities and their work in the county. She appealed for an end to the “land use wars,” an end to the moratorium on growth, and called for the provision of new water supplies to communities in the Blue Ridge.

Said John Maxey, chairman of the Citizens of the Blue Ridge group, “Ronda Lehman’s attempts to suppress public disclosure of the petition names is similar to her attempt to suppress that she has received payments from a corporation with economic interests in the position she is pursuing. Neither is good for a transparent government process.”

Lehman has repeatedly claimed that in her works as a petition organizer, she represents no special interest. She has stated she is acting merely as a concerned citizen, at first anxious about the impact of the zoning ordinance on the mountain community and, more recently, as a resident committed to making the process more open by triggering a referendum on the ordinance.

When asked what service she provided JUI, Lehman said that the payments were “totally unrelated” to her work on the petition, adding that she “had the point of view well before I met Mr. Snyder.”

Lee Snyder, Chairman of Jefferson Utilities, confirmed that his company had paid Lehman for consulting services. “She is very good at going to county commission meetings and reporting them,” he said. “And she is much cheaper than an attorney!”

Snyder went on to say that he did not support the new zoning ordinance in Jefferson County. “It is an elitist ordinance written by Marxists,” he said. Snyder has filed a lawsuit against the county over the ordinance.

The Observer is involved in a civil suit against Jefferson County in an attempt to obtain the names of the petitioners who signed the referendum petition.  The case is before Judge David Sanders in Circuit Court of Jefferson County.

What’s the best way to categorize this year’s crop of playwrights at the Contemporary American Theater Festival? The five faces are largely new: one returning writer from 1996 and four rookies (including an esteemed 65 year old). Their themes are topical: one brutal dissection of marriage and four dramas that feel torn from the headlines. The demographics are, well, retro: one black woman and four white men.

A simple way to sort this year’s slate, which runs from July 8 through August 2, would be between the bluntly political works in the Frank Center—Beau Willimon’s campaign drama “Farragut North” and Steven Dietz’s 9/11 conspiracy thriller “Yankee Tavern”—and the romantically oriented duo in the Studio, Michael Weller’s marital slugfest “Fifty Words” and Eisa Davis’s era-hopping “The History of Light.” Victor Lodato’s “Dear Sara Jane,” the solo show in the Center for Contemporary Arts, straddles both worlds as a woman contemplates her absent husband’s role in a foreign war—but then love and politics were clearly on of all these playwrights’ minds lately.

* * *

Writer-performer Eisa (sounds like “Lisa”) Davis was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2007 for “Bulrusher,” and just two months ago starred in her own play “Angela’s Mixtape” in New York. That well-received show, the 38-year-old Davis says, was “explicitly memoir – how I remember things.” The play’s promotional tagline was “Just your average black macrobiotic revolutionary dancing family,” and it chronicled Davis’s childhood as the niece of the famous activist Angela Davis.

Naturally, Angela Davis showed up at the Ohio Theater in Manhattan to see herself portrayed. So did Eisa’s mother and nearly three dozen more family members.

“It was a true event,” the playwright says. “It’s one thing to write a play; it’s another to be in a play where you’re depicting your family and doing it to their faces.”

Davis puts “The History of Light,” which investigates the obstacles in two tempestuous interracial relationships across two generations, in the mold of “Bulrusher” and “Angela’s Mixtape.” “They are all very much like family plays that are very explicitly about love,” she says. “All of my work is politically aware, because that is my legacy and also who I am. But ‘Angela’s Mixtape’ is really about how do you place the politics you inherit into a life that doesn’t have the same circumstances?”

“History of Light,” by slight contrast, involves “politics related to the characters, and how they look at things.” Turner, the black father figure in the play, is a radical, which has a profound impact on the romantic decisions he makes, while the white woman he is involved with prioritizes differently. (Davis compares this character favorably to Barack Obama’s mother.) Turner’s daughter is an artist involved with a white man, and Davis says their relationship is “more of a class thing, or something between a business person and someone who’s an artist.”
In addition to writing and performing (she was in the cast of last year’s offbeat Broadway musical, “Passing Strange”), Davis also composes songs, and she has a CD out. She credits her mother and grandmother with encouraging creativity at a young age, and notes that most of her shows – including “History of Light” – are infused with music, a subject that practically makes her sound bubbly.

Politics, on the other hand, just sort of happens in her plays, whether she starts out with that intention or not. And she’s fine with that, reckoning that the question for writers isn’t whether they can make a difference.

“You always are,” Davis says with a matter-of-fact air. “So the question is, What difference do you want to make?”

* * *

Twist of fate: Davis did graduate work at the New School, and one of her brief mentors there was longtime playwriting professor Michael Weller—who knows Davis’s famous aunt Angela.

Weller came to fame with “Moonchildren,” his 1972 Broadway play about student unrest in the mid-1960s, and he has tackled his share of timely topics. The screenwriter for Milos Forman’s film versions of “Ragtime” and “Hair” recently unloaded on the Iraq war in “Beast,” a drama about a wounded war veteran. That’s one of two Weller dramas that premiered in New York last fall; the other is “Fifty Words,” part of a trilogy of plays dissecting an affair and marriage. The play takes its title from one of its two characters’ belief, articulated during a long night when their son has his first sleepover away from the house, that there ought to be that many variations on the word love.

“I actually started to write a continuous action play that would have no breaks, just as a formal exercise,” says Weller. “I found I couldn’t do it. I just got bored, basically.” He ended the scene, then had an inspiration: “What if I start the next scene at a place you’d never have thought the play would reach? I completely startled myself, and I think the audience a little bit, as well. It was a great compositional discipline. And I use it through the whole trilogy.”

Weller was trained as a musician, and eventually studied playwriting with an old-fashioned show doctor, the kind of technician who re-tooled scripts already in the throes of production.

“He was a total craftsman,” Weller recalls, “and he didn’t think about teaching art at all. It was just, ‘Bring them on earlier.’ ‘That phone rang too late.’ That kind of thing.” Naturally, this informs Weller’s classroom philosophy: “Craft is the one thing you can teach,” he declares. “I don’t think you can teach any of the other stuff.”

Though Weller has written consistently both for the stage and for Hollywood, he says he hasn’t strayed from home in Brooklyn much for the past 20 years as he and his wife raised their two sons. “The world’s changed a lot,” he says, adding with a laugh: “Like, they have these machines that dry your swim trunks.”

Show business is different, too, he thinks: “It’s much harder to earn a living. It’s much harder to get a play done. There are many more playwrights around. And there is much less sense of writing for a mainstream audience.”

Which leads Weller—whose current projects include a major musical of “Dr. Zhivago” and another musical about Fleetwood Mac (it will use the band’s songs)—to the matter of how playwrights nowadays handle Hollywood’s call. “If you get that break with a play like ‘Farragut North,’ you ride it quickly,” he says. “Whereas I avoided it. I stayed out of it, and then people came to me and asked me to do stuff.”
* * *
If the festival has a hotshot this year, it is the 31-year-old Willimon, reached in his car in L.A., where “Farragut North” is playing at the Geffen Playhouse. He has already turned his drama (a success in New York last fall) into a screenplay (George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio are reportedly involved), yet he is already leery of being pigeonholed as a political playwright.

That may be tough, because Brooklyn-based Willimon has clear expertise and heady connections to the top echelon of national politics. He has worked on campaigns, beginning with Charles Schumer’s 1998 run in New York and including more than four months on the ground in Iowa for Howard Dean. His link through all of this has been good buddy Jay Carson, who has been at or near the top of communications operations for Dean, Tom Daschle, and both Clintons.

“‘Farragut North’ is not about politics,” Willimon spins. “It’s about power, ambition, and hubris, and that could play out in any number of places.”

Still, the play’s dirty tricks feel awfully specific to the hardball of major campaigns. “I’ve witnessed all that,” Willimon acknowledges of the indiscreet affairs and injudicious betrayals that motor his play.

Like Weller, Willimon came a little late to playwriting, starting as a painter but preferring the full storytelling possibilities of drama. He insists he is a theater guy at heart, and currently has commissions to write for both the Manhattan Theatre Club and London’s National Theatre. But he doesn’t see L.A. as an inevitable sellout for writers, and seems confident that he won’t lose his way.
“It’s tough to get work out here,” he says. “And when you can, it’s hard to pass up.”

* * *

Steven Dietz dabbled in Hollywood once, briefly, and his plays have rarely been seen in New York. Yet he is among the most consistently employed dramatists in America, pumping out new work almost yearly and getting productions and commissions across the country. (He’s now working on new scripts for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and the Guthrie in Minneapolis.)

“I bet there’s 10 of us,” the 51-year-old writer guesses, when asked how many other playwrights are in the same career boat. “I’ve never figured out how to game the system. I’ve just stubbornly stayed at it.”

Like “Farragut North,” “Yankee Tavern” taps into a hot national discussion. The play trots out some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories before ginning up a conspiracy of its own among the characters in a Manhattan watering hole.

“I dove down the internet rabbit hole of all this stuff,” says Dietz, whose “Nina Variations” played the CATF in 2006. “I wholly over-researched the play—research being the thing you do when you’re not getting any writing done.”
The charges Dietz’s characters consider are alarming, and well-vetted. Already picked up by five companies around the country for the 2009–10 theater season, the play premiered recently at Florida Stages, where a young dramaturg fact-checked with a vengeance.
“Every crazy-ass thing I put in there about 9/11, he tracked down,” Dietz says from Seattle (where he and his family return each summer when he finishes teaching at the University of Texas.) “Everything is true.”
For Dietz, who describes himself as “a political animal,” that was critical. He wanted actors facing audiences at post-show discussions to be able to say flatly that the play is accurate. “The minute you can’t say that,” Dietz contends, “the experience of the audience is fundamentally changed.”
He is a little perplexed that the word conspiracy has such a negative spin. Yet he long believed the truth would tumble forth if Watergate’s Deep Throat ever identified himself.
“It didn’t make a bit of difference!” he marvels of Mark Felt’s 2005 disclosure. “The second gunman from the grassy knoll could step forward, and it still would not put an end to the conspiracy theories.”

* * *

Victor Lodato eyes the reporter’s tape recorder suspiciously.

“It always seems so FBI or CIA,” the 40-year-old Arizona resident explains in his gentle way.
That initial wariness leads him right to the notion of “secrets” in “Dear Sara Jane,” and how CATF producing director Ed Herendeen doesn’t want too much revealed.

“Ed is so cute about that,” Lodato smiles. “I told him, ‘What play doesn’t have secrets?’”

The monologue is about a woman unraveling a bit while her husband is away in an unnamed battle (“It feels like Iraq,” Lodato acknowledges). It hearkens back to Lodato’s theatrical beginnings in New York, writing solo shows that he performed himself. He gradually quit the stage and began writing multi-character plays, then moved to Arizona for a quieter writing life.

The topical theme of “Dear Sara Jane” isn’t necessarily typical. Neither “The Bread of Winter” nor “The Woman Who Amuses Herself,” Lodato dramas recently premiered at the Theatre Alliance in Washington, D.C., were issue-driven.

“Like most of my plays,” Lodato says of “Dear Sara Jane,” “it starts with a voice in my head. If I find it compelling I just let it talk until I find the story.” Performed by Joey Parsons, who also has the hefty role of the wife in “Fifty Words,” the play, Lodato says, is about “What it means to be a soldier, that your husband is killing people, and at risk of being killed. Very simple questions.”

Playwriting has been frustrating for Lodato at times. He was prominently featured in a New York Times article several years ago about the hazards of play development. His work was getting notice, grants, awards, workshops—but not many productions.
“I probably went into the novel somewhat because of that,” he says. “Out of frustration.”

The novel is “Matilda Savitch,” due out this September. It may mark a career shift for the longtime playwright, who may even move away from his Tucson base of 18 years. But returning to New York seems out of the question. “Especially if I’m going to write another novel,” he says.
The Big Apple is fun, but distracting. Lodato spent a month in Manhattan before rehearsals started here for “Dear Sara Jane.” He practically sighs as he says, “It was such a great relief to get to Shepherdstown after that.”

New documents released by the Jefferson County Clerk’s office reveal for the first time how close the deputy clerks worked with zoning referendum petition organizers Ed Burns and Ronda Lehman. The documents were released following a Freedom of Information Act request by The Observer, and are part of a wider drive to shed light on the petition drive.
Included in the released documents are over 40 emails between Wendy Evangalisti and Nikki Painter (deputy clerk) and Ed Burns and Ronda Lehman, heads of the petition drive. The earliest released emails date back to October 2008, just a few days after the zoning ordinance was passed by the county commission. The last one is from January 12, 2009, a few days after the petition drive was complete.
The tone of the emails is familiar and friendly, demonstrating an affinity, perhaps even an alliance, between Lehman and Nikki Painter. In one email dated October 6, Lehman tells Painter, “Thank you, Nicki. It’s nice having someone I can trust in the building.”
It appears from many of these emails that the county clerk’s office was working closely with petition-drive organizers, above and beyond what you might expect from a helpful public servant. For example ,one email dated December 10, 2008 went as follows:

From: Nikki Painter
To: Ronda Lehman
Is there any way we can get more than 1 batch? There are tons of signatures left to verify I’m sure and if you can bring them in I can work on them and Wendy can check at the same time. I just don’t want to get down to the last minute with the signatures. By the way still haven’t  received any new signatures yet.

Even more striking is an email from Painter to Lehman toward the end of the petition-drive process that seems to show a political collegiality between the government worker and the activist. In this email, Painter refers to John Maxey, president of the Jefferson County Democrat Association and campaign manager for Commissioner Frances Morgan, who has gone on record as being against the zoning referendum:

December 17 2008
From: Nikki Painter
To: Rhonda Lehman
Hey I’m sure I will be done with the petitions tomorrow so if you are coming to the commission you can drop off 2 more sets or more if you like . Oh by the way John Maxey was here asking how many signatures you had. He actually came in right after you dropped the last set off.

Many of the disclosed emails contain updated tallies of valid and invalid petition names. They also include lists of invalid names which have been redacted with thick black pen. These lists provide the first clear evidence that county clerks were doing more than merely counting and verifying the petition lists—which is what the county clerk had claimed up to this point—by creating their own detailed lists of names that did not qualify for the petition drive.
The emails also disclose that various reasons are given for disqualifying petitioners, including: duplication, unregistered voters, registered voters who did not vote in prior election, invalid signatures (for example, one person wrote four names and signed all their signatures), people living in municipalities, and ineligible signatures.
“The appearance of these emails is that the county clerk’s office was working with the petitions organizers to gather signatures, which is wrong,” said County Commissioner Jim Surkamp.
The fact that the deputy county clerk was emailing lists of invalid signatures during the petition drive raises questions about her impartiality. By providing lists of invalid names along with reasons for the disqualifications, the petition organizers were able to resubmit the petitions—giving them another chance to properly fill out the forms. This kind of assistance is not usually available in elections or petition drives.
The head of the petition drive, Ronda Lehman, clearly thought the deputy clerk’.s lists were useful. In an email dated December 4, 2008, she said as much: “Thanks for all your doing. This reject list is a big help!”
These lists of invalid signatures also fly in the face of arguments made in circuit court by County Attorney Stephanie Grove on behalf of County Clerk Jennifer Maghan, that the county clerks did not prepare any lists of the petition names, and therefore because the lists were not “public documents” they could not be subject to FOIA request under West Virginia law.
Also revealing is an email written by Ronda Lehman to Nikki Painter on October 6, 2008, asking for copies of petition lists handed in by other people (the expectation being that different activists would submit list of petition names). This clearly contradicts Lehmans’ repeated claims that these lists should not be disclosed to anyone who did not submit the lists. In fact, Lehman wanted the list of names that she and Clerk Maghan claimed no one—including Lehman—had the right to see.
“The emails show that the clerk’s office was more open and transparent with the petition organizers than with the county commission or the public,” said Surkamp.
The issue of whether the petition names should be made available to the public is currently before Judge David Sanders in Jefferson County Circuit Court. According to Stephen Skinner, who is representing The Observer in case: “It boggles the mind to think that the argument for not providing petition names is that they are not public documents. It flies in the face of basic logic. It appears that there was a collaborative effort between the clerk’s office and other parties to make sure that there were enough signatures to trigger a zoning referendum.”
Jennifer Maghan, Jefferson County Clerk, declined to comment for this story.