US

County Supervisor Defends Cushy Taxpayer-Funded Vacation As School District Fights Over Trans Locker Room Policy

NickMinock/Twitter/Screenshot

Sarah Wilder Social Issues Reporter
Font Size:

Loudoun County Chair Phyllis Randall and supervisor Juli Briskman are being pressed on a beach vacation they took on taxpayer dime in July.

7News submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request for pictures and receipts from a “business” trip taken by county officials to their sister city of Uruguay. While Randall did sign a sister city partnership and visit some businesses on her $100,000 trip, but also stayed at five-star resorts during the whole two days of free time on the trip. Randall has vehemently denied going to the beach during the taxpayer-funded trip, but photos show her and Briskman swimming at the beach, visiting an equestrian center, and going out for sunset cocktails.

“I think that it is horrible the way that this issue has been raised by certain media outlets,” Briskman said during a during a Board of Supervisors committee meeting Tuesday. “Actually, with the help with one member of this board of supervisors.” (RELATED: Anti-Critical Race Theory Organization Launches $500,000 Ad Campaign Criticizing Loudoun County School Board)

“I think the way this travel was leveraged in the campaigns was heinous and actually put some of us in danger because of the misinformation and the actual lies that were told about the members sitting on the dais now. It’s disgusting.”

The board of supervisors approved a policy to require supervisors, but not board chair Phyllis Randall, to get approval from the full board before going on taxpayer-funded trips.

High school students in Loudoun County, protested a school policy in November that allows biological males into girl’s locker rooms and restrooms. Policy 8040, which affirms the district’s commitment to “providing an equitable, safe and inclusive learning environment for all students regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender identity or gender expression.” The policy vows to keep a child’s gender identity secret from his or her parents if the child wishes, allows boys to compete in female sports and biological male students into girl’s locker rooms and restrooms.