You may recall when The Bull Elephant reported back in May about a bizarre hit piece run by a former reporter for the Virginia Pilot on RPV Executive Director Shaun Kenney. What made the piece odd was that it seemed to have had most of the guts of the article removed, leaving a shell of only hints and innuendos of wrongdoing relating to properties Kenney purchased in his home county of Fluvanna while he was serving on that county’s Board of Supervisors. The facts reported in the article didn’t suggest Kenney had done anything wrong, though the whole tone and style did.
As we wrote at the time:
I don’t claim to have the full story, and perhaps more facts will emerge that actually merit the “controversy†and “scandal†designation Walker has assigned here. But the facts for now suggest there’s nothing to this. I suspect that’s the reason Walker never actually suggests Kenney committed any improper official acts, and instead just implies it vaguely. I suspect it’s the same reason his editors decided to bury his florid, feature-style prose on a Friday afternoon, in the online edition of their newspaper.
As it turns out, we were right. The Special Prosecutor assigned to investigate the case has finally cleared Kenney of all wrongdoing. See below for the official letter from James Fisher, the Fauquier Commonwealth’s Attorney appointed to handle the investigation.
All of this was a politically-motivated hit job on Shaun Kenney, involving Mr. Minor Eager and potentially others. There’s more to come on that; this story isn’t even close to over.
43 comments
So happy for Shaun!
Jeanine, when you wrote:
“So much more to come………so much more evidence why Kenney was a terrible choice for executive director.”
What were you referring to?
Are you kidding me? How about you apologize to him for the nonsense you wrote when this came out?
“What prospect of profit? No one invests in this town! Perhaps Shaun is simply terrible investor, or perhaps he knows something that we don’t know. That would appear to the be point. Only someone very, very, wealthy would invest in this town for ‘altruistic’ reasons. Perhaps the RPV pays the executive director far more than anyone would have thought?”
“Great comment. I would not expect to see Shaun resign or become the person we need at RPV. Sorry. Leopards don’t change their spots that easily.”
“If Shaun Kenney is rich, that’s happened very recently because he has always claimed to br the opposite of rich, a poor gentleman farmer on his very small farm in Jefferson’s backyard. Making the story even more interesting. How did Kenney secure a mortgage in this backwater for largely vacant land and a couple of rundown buildings? The man can spin a tale! Although Columbia Virginia seems to have one point of interest, several interesting truck graveyards in the town where old trucks from the around the state go to rust and rot. I’m thinking Field Trip!”
Oh, how about these two:
“Yes, the RPV hired someone who is not wealthy, or that’s what we’ve always been told about Mr. Kenney. I can’t reconcile your other questions. I have no idea how he got $166,000. I can’t disagree with anything you’re saying. The stink is worse than my neighbor’s cattle.”
“You’re probably right, nothing nefarious here. Shaun’s just really, really, terrible with money and made a stupid investment in a dump of a town. Of course he’s wealthy enough to spend $166,000 for altruistic reasons, (in an LLC no less) to help a dying town. We should all be praising him. His wife and 8 kids could have used that money when instead of being selfish, he put that money into useless property to help the smallest town in Virginia, population 86, mostly drunks and drug addicts. What a guy!
Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
You are pathetic, Jeanine. Absolutely pathetic.
Brian you have made your point not every issue has to be driven by a pile driver don’t undercut your stated attempts at party reconciliation with venting. Mr. Kenney seems to be very capable of defending himself in the public sphere. People will do what is in their nature to do and sincere apologies for actions can’t be coerced, its up to the given individual. Any rush to judgment is ill conceived. Time to move on.
You’re right, Lawrence.
At the risk of sounding coercive, is that a “I apologize for venting?”
I suspect most people felt Jeanine was going too far in her zeal to push that story but given the context of the nativists threads most people also probably understood they were in the middle of a good old bar room brawl.
It’s not an apology, just a recognition that I shouldn’t keep trying to get blood from a stone here and it’s time to move on.
The silence is deafening, Jeanine. A simple apology would be the appropriate, Christian thing to do after smearing a guy unfairly.
Do you even have that much decency left in you?
Maybe they should both sit down and exchange apologies. One concerning nativist trash talk and the other about corrupt real estate deals.
Then Brian you might want to take a moment , step back from that keyboard, or microphone , and give the instigating a rest.
No need for that. I saw Shaun today and we’re fine. I have no clue why Brian is so upset, nor do I care. He seems to be rather fixated on me and Bob FitzSimmons. Weird.
I don’t think he’s “fixated” on you. I think he’s irritated with you because you made baseless smears against a good man and a friend of his, and then when the truth came out you’re acting as if nothing ever happened.You won’t even acknowledge that you were even a little bit in the wrong.
Just pretend I’m a guy. Then reread what I wrote. I never said he did anything illegal.
Brian has a very strange fixation on me, and Bob FitzSimmons. I can’t begin to explain it nor do I care enough to try.
Jeanine, when I start writing piece after piece on you (like you’ve done to both Shaun and I), then you can pretend anybody is fixated in you. I’m not. I’m just disgusted that you can’t even acknowledge you were wrong.
Please look through this thread, among others on The Bull Elephant, you have made it quite clear that you are fixated on me, and Bob FitzSimmons. Please try to get over your obsessions and move on, like the other adults in the room.
Jeanine, I could easily say the same thing about your treatment of Shaun or me. You’ve bounced around the internet criticizing Shaun, and now that you’re getting called out on the manure you’ve spread, you want us all to ignore it and move on.
I wrote one piece about FitzSimmonds (not sure why you can’t bother spelling the man’s name correctly) and asked one question and you’re trying to turn this into an obsession.
Just stop with the nonsense, Jeanine. Own up to your mistake and admit it – like the other adults in the room.
Shaun has no need to apologize. He was making a political argument. Jeanine needs to apologize because she made a lot of very nasty public statements, and simply talking to Shaun isn’t good enough.
She made the statements here, she can apologize in the same format she made them.
But she won’t, because she is everything that is wrong with blogging.
Brian,
He was making a political argument which became a personal attack, especially as it played out in the comment sections across the blogosphere..
I have a high regard for Shaun but he was wrong to lump Jeanine and Greg with one of the truly objectionable camps which raises its ugly head in the debate about the collapse of our immigration system.
As far as I’m aware, Shaun never called Jeanine or Greg nativists. If they were lumped into that objectionable camp, it was due to their own actions and statements, not anything Kenney said.
So you’re argument that both sides were in the wrong, or equally wrong, is without merit.
Stephen,
Maybe I’m wrong, in which case I apologize in advance to Shaun, but I recall that Shaun did insinuate that Jeanine and Greg were part of that camp, thereby lumping them in, and when other participants in his thread did explicitly call them out as Nativists , I don’t recall Shaun stepping in and defending them, which even though he may have significant differences with them, he should have, in order not to give the impression that he did lump them in that camp.
In short, I stand by my argument that both sides were wrong in their ad hominem attacks. Whether one was more wrong than the other is more a subjective judgment, I would think.
Shaun described a nativist element that exists within the GOP that he would like to see go away. Many people offered their comments, and many people proved themselves to be exactly the type of people Shaun described. Exactly who I guess is in the eye of the beholder, but Shaun never called anybody by name.
There’s also no reason why Shaun or anybody else should feel obligated to “defend” Jeanine or Greg. That’s just ridiculous. If Jeanine or Greg don’t want people thinking that they’re nativists… well, that’s another discussion.
Yes, he did. He has most certainly called me names.
This is so silly. Shaun and I have put it behind us, if you choose not to, that’s fine too. Carry on.
He is most certainly obligated to defend them if they are wrongly accused in a discussion which he started. And they were.
How is he “obligated”? I genuinely don’t understand why Kenney would be responsible for the claims of other people.
And whether or not they were wrongly accused depends on the accusation, and on the eye of the beholder.
Same reason a bar or bartender is responsible if they let a patron crawl to his car, get in and drive away.
not in Virginia
perhaps not legally, but morally they are (from a former bartender perspective ) and that is the point of my response.
Yes, I understand. This was my poor attempt at humor.
I thought it was funny.
It was, but not as funny, or sad, as watching you trying to be an advocate and a judge at the same time.
May you never be on the receiving end of one of Jeanine’s false and unfair attacks, Doug.
You specifically were right, Steve. I think it is a stretch to say that “we”, meaning other writers at Bull Elephant, were right.
It’s the royal “we.” 🙂
Everybody who piled on Shaun Kenney over this trumped up crap owes him an apology. From the start it was clearly bogus.
This was never serious, sort of like what is happening in Texas tonight.
While Drunk Driving Democratic District Attorneys are throwing a few back in celebration and drag racing down Austin streets tonight, the indictment of Governor Perry for using his veto has to be considered the point where the Democratic Party in America has finally come unhinged.
Deflection fail.
Gene, your show was cancelled , you’re only a rerun now.
There you go again. You make a totally unrelated posting in this thread then reply with a NothingBurger when called out on it.
You make a lousy Reagan
Where is the apology letter to Shaun?
Yes…where does Shaun go to get his reputation back?
I think he means from the hacks at Bull Elephant who disparaged him.
It can start with Jeanine.