Last night, while watching the HBO miniseries “Show Me A Hero”, I was reminded of the Profiles in Courage Award. (Side note: If you haven’t watched this miniseries yet, you should. It makes our County Council seem tame by comparison). In this series, the main character was nominated for this prestigious award because he passed legislation to follow the federal mandate to build more public housing. Many citizens of Yonkers, NY were violently against having any type of public housing in their neighborhood. In this case, the nominee was doing the right thing because he had to. The weight of the U.S. Government was coming down on him.
I decided to go to the website and look up the criteria for this award and here’s what I found:
In Profiles in Courage, President Kennedy told the stories of eight United States senators who risked their careers by standing up for particular ideals or principles, even when constituents or powerful interest groups pressured them to bend.
Today, elected officials are too often captives to opinion polls, reluctant to act in the broader public interest when it means taking unpopular courses of action or offending powerful groups. The Profile in Courage Award honors modern-day elected officials who govern for the greater good, even when it is not in their own interest to do so. The award celebrates individuals who choose the public interest over partisanship – who do what is right, rather than what is expedient.
Award Criteria
Ordinarily, the award will be made to living Americans who are or were elected officials.
Individuals at all levels of government—federal, state and local—are eligible for the award.
Emphasis will be placed on contemporary acts of political courage.
On occasion, in rare and special circumstances, awards have been made to foreign officials.
Who do we know here in Frederick who might fit this bill? Who withstood a vicious attack from an outside lobbying group, and still endures, from what we hear, really ugly email attacks (someone want to submit a PIA on that?), and has remained calm in the face of opposition from his own party? That’s right, this guy:
ProEnglish, The Tea Party, and fellow Republican members of the County Council can’t sway this guy from doing the right thing.
After all Bud went through over the repeal of the English Language ordinance I think he at least deserves a nomination, don’t you? If you agree, please consider following thislink to the online nomination form. It’s short I promise. So short, in fact, that you have to keep your reasons for nominating him down to 512 characters (that’s right characters, not words). You also have to submit publicity about the act of courage. That also must be kept down to 512 characters. Here’s a couple of news stories from the Frederick News Post to help you out:
The results of last week’s poll are in. Any surprises?
This week we thought it would be fun to come up with some remedial courses to help a Council Member be better at his/her job. We’d like you to cast your vote for which course would be most beneficial to #Kirby Delauter in reforming his ways.
Hello Local Yokel fans! We didn’t think this would be a very long meeting, but hey, why do we underestimate people’s ability to waste large amounts of time on personal vendettas? Sometimes I think we should watch our neighboring counties’meetings to see if they are anything like ours. Truly curious to know if we are unique. Anyone with any knowledge of this please comment.
If you were following our drinking gameyou had to take a shot of the usual right out of the gate. And then blah, blah, blah, Billy abstains from the agenda. (Doesn’t that mean he should abstain from having any input on anything on that agenda?) Let’s move on to Budget Transfers:
Listen to the baby possum Kirby!
Everything is going smoothly. Kirby says he has a question on BT-16-051, a project for the Public Works Division. The nice fellas from this division sit at the table expecting an actual question. For those of you who are parents, do you remember when your kids were young (or perhaps they are still at this age) and someone would ask them if they had any questions? Instead of actually having a question, which of course your child insisted that they did, it’s just a story or an observation. Well, that’s what happened here. Instead of asking them anything, Kirby goes on about some previous project (one that it turns out he wanted to bid on), making some point that we really can’t follow about the bids being over the engineer’s estimate and he swears it’s a comparison. The nice fella tells Kirby that he’s only prepared to talk about this project and does he actually have a question. The answer to that is no, just an observation. So why did you make them get up and come to the table Kirby? Billy abstains on all of the budget transfers, we know yawn!
Confirmation of County Executives Appointments. All pass.
Ethics discussion. Read this nice article in the FNP today that breaks down the changes the panel is suggesting the council make. Predictably, Kirby has something to say about it. He wants to know why we have a commission if the County Executive is going to override it. It’s a complete waste of time in his mind. The only difference being that now 71% of the board can now resign in protest. Billy isn’t much better when he tries to make a point about the quorum. Now 3 out of the 5 have to show up. This change will make it so that 4 out of 7 will make a quorum. That’s one more person than before, Billy points out. Mathias tries to explain to him that there will be more people on the board and that this really isn’t a point that he wants to get mired down in. (We hear ya!) After this, some good discussion from just about everyone takes place. What about having the commission members appointed by an independent body? That’s worth discussing. But then Tony takes it in a different direction and tries to reject the entire bill promising that he will sponsor it in the future. That motion is defeated. There will be county workshop on this on October 6th and a future public hearing. If you have any input on this be sure to contact the council before that date.
A break was put on the agenda to reconvene at 7:00. Billy doesn’t like that he has to twiddle his thumbs until then. Which could be a valid point if Bud could reasonably predict how long the first half of the meeting will take. But since he can’t……(Actually Billy’s last parting shot was: “Well let’s not make any decisions like that again.” Nice, huh?)
After Billy sat in his office twiddling his thumbs for an hour and a half, the council reconvened to take up two public hearings.
The first was concerning the bill to amend the Water, Sewers and Sewage Disposal code:
Remember during the first reading of this bill when Billy said the government shouldn’t collect small fines? Well, poor kitty cat took him literally.
This bill is to fine people $250 for taking water from hydrants.Last time Billy said the county shouldn’t take people to court to collect small fines because it wasn’t fiscally sound. And tonight he reiterated that notion by saying $250 is not enough to stop offenders. So is he advocating for making the fine larger? There’s some discussion of the WSSC method of giving contractors a meter, which is not feasible for the way we do things. Especially since our water and sewer department doesn’t have the manpower. Kirby has some reasonable questions here. This is the Kirby we wish we could see all the time. And the fine representative from this department is more than prepared to answer them. We like good questions. Not observations not so subtlety masked as complaints. Bill is moved on.
Next up is discussion of the expansion of the MedImmune facility. We will leave you with this article if you want to read more. Very ably presented by Helen and Company. Passed as well, with only Billy saying no.
Public comment was only two fellas this evening. Steve McKay gave a very informative comment about his take on the ethics law. (Can we see the power point Steve?) And hopefully his comments will be taken seriously.
Another commenter asked the council to look into some building code violations that were going to jeopardize his solar panel business. And we have to say we love how respectfully this man was treated. Let’s keep that level of respect going!
And now…Council Member comments.
So it’s not a surprise to any of us that Kirby and Tony are against the prevailing wage. And that they are encouraging the public to attend Delegate Afzali’s meeting tonight. But we’ve said enough about that so let’s move on.
Billy. If only Thor had sent down a thunderbolt to knock out the power, then we could have been spared this last bit of nonsense. Billy wants it to be known that Paul and Blaine were not issued their proper engraved invitations to sit before the dais of the county council. How could they have known when to come? (David Gray somehow figured it out.) Billy wants to make a change to the record so it’s known to one and all that they were not invited. He gets into a verbal back and forth with Chomel, who tells him that council member comments are not about making motions. But somehow it happens anyway. But not before Jerry Donald gives Billy a good dressing down as to how their presence before the council would not have made a difference. And, Jerry continues, the council didn’t ask for this issue, it was given to them and they need to make the best decision based on the record not what was going on in Paul and Blaine’s heads. Billy’s motion fails. As do we all when our time is wasted so egregiously.
It would appear that over the summer Mr.Delauter tried his hand at a creative writing class. Either that, or he’s been reading our posts and wanted to see if he could pull it off. Usually imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Usually…
If you would trouble yourself, dear readers, to once again drag yourself over to THAT website and read his attempt at humor we would be in your debt. If you can’t stomach it, we more than understand, and will do what we can to sum it up. We would quote, but The Tentacle has some verbiage indicating that it does not allow that nowadays. Can it actually be verboten to quote an elected official who is carrying on at length about his elected role? Seems like probably no.
Apparently Kirby is a Seinfeld fan! Who knew? So are we! Apparently he never watched a single episode because his imagined dialogue between Jerry and George is way off the mark. He opens his piece with a discussion of the episode where Jerry and George pitch the idea to NBC that their show will be about nothing. He then equates himself to the NBC executives as to how it feels to be him up on that dais. Clueless. The only one that knows the council is all about nothing. How lonely it must be for him. Such an existential crisis.
Now, let’s move on to the imagined dialogue between George and Jerry. The first gripe is about having to be civil. Because we all know how hard that it is for him to be civil. Then there’s some really neat discussion about how George lied about being an architect and it’s the same thing that’s going on in Frederick County politics. He being the exception of course.
Then there’s talk of the ethics commission. And Karl Bickel is equated to a criminal and it’s all very nasty really. But what choice does Kirby have with all the lies? He’s not able to be our Vandelay salesman any more. (He knows that was a made up company, right?) The last part is particularly amusing. Kirby is upset that there is a Democratic majority on the council. (There isn’t!) This is so very sad for him, but I don’t remember any sympathy coming David Gray’s way a few years back. He then ends with: Bad FNP! Lies, lies, lies! Or something along those lines. (Please read this for yourself, pretty please!)
You know what? Let Kirby equate the current county council to Seinfeld. It was one of the most successful TV shows in broadcasting history. And here we are, 20 years later, still watching and talking about it. If Kirby is equating himself to the clueless executives, he’s admitting that he doesn’t get it. And speaking of nothing, what has Kirby done? Has he accomplished anything other than becoming Twitter famous? If you want to be part of the solution Kirby, then stop being part of the problem.
Pull in your welcome mats, Urbana! Quickly! (Does anyone else find it curious that the Party of Lincoln!!!! is not the Party of Hoover?Or Davis or Bacon? Please don’t let it just be us who are perplexed…)
So remember last week when we had ournice little BOE meeting? The PTA Presidents exchanged contact information and one of our favorite readers told us that members of both PTAs gathered together at the end in a circle of solidarity. Who would want to ruin that!? That’s right, state delegate Kathy Afzali.
Let’s highlight a section of this letter:
The 2014 changes to Prevailing wage is impacting the entire State and you may have heard an elementary school in Frederick County must be back burnered because of significant costs increases as a result of the changes.
Have you heard?! Back burnered? Anyway, one more section please:
This Wednesday night beginning at 6:45 I will be meeting with the Urbana Elementary School PTA and explaining to them how they have been caught in the crosshairs of the law with regard to the county’s need to choose between them and Hillcrest.
So, let’s see here…a few questions? Is the Hillcrest PTA getting access to this same information? And why the hell is this the approach to solving this problem? We are not really going to advocate for lower wages in order to solve this are we? Because there is a little bit of a problem with low wages and subsequently poverty in this country. Maybe Del. Afzali has heard of it? This post is excellent to read in its entirety. Let us highlight this one section for now:
If the minimum wage had just kept pace with inflation since 1969, it would be around $10.70 today. If it had kept up with productivity growth, it would be $18.72. Meanwhile, if it matched the wage growth of the wealthiest 1 percent, it would be $28.34.
While the value of the minimum wage has fallen — thanks largely to congressional inaction for long stretches of time — the wealthiest 1 percent are doing quite well, thank you. Their real earnings have skyrocketed 275 percent over the past 30 years.
Remember how Henry Ford made a whole business based upon paying workers who could afford his products? It has been described as the mass production of consumers. Wouldn’t we hope to pay people who work for our community enough to be participating in the local economy? Shouldn’t this be especially popular with those people who are in the same party as those who think the local economy should be based on home building?
Realizing that the directive from ALEC compels Del. Afzali to do counterintuitive things, maybe she could focus on how the economy works for working class people instead of trying to divide and conquer the PTAs to her advantage. Maybe just implore our governor to do the honorable thing, and fund the schools.
It is time again for our favorite part of our week. We just love our drinking games, especially when we have fun new concoctions for our readers to try. So grab your agenda and follow along. As always, this game is for giggles, not for becoming intoxicated to the point where you actually need to call Billy for a ride home.
If Billy bows to the flag at the opening of the meeting, make yourself the usual, because the name fits the behavior.
If Billy decides to once again abstain on a budget transfer shoot back the kicker, have two if he does so after a prolonged period of questioning. Because we know we want to kick something.
Time for County Executive appointments. If one of the three amigos asks any unreasonable, illogical question, shoot back an Absolut train wreck.
One of our faves, Roger Wilson, is in the house again! If Billy asks him any irrelevant questions about something he “read about in the Frederick News Post” that morning make yourself a shut the hell up.
Next up is the introduction of a bill to amend the ethics ordinance. No, it’s not just about Kirby, but his law is in there. So if he tries to derail the whole thing to get back at everyone for putting him in the poor house, have any variation of the Four Horsemendrink.
Second reading of the sewage bill. If there’s any more discussion of not going after people who rack up fines because it doesn’t make good business sense slam back a day old bath water punch!
We’ll skip ahead to public comments because we don’t want you to die. Take a sip of a last word concoction every time a good citizen gets up to speak.
Yup. Hang on to your hats, locals, it’s gonna be a crazy ride to follow this one.
Political notes in the FNP today (Sept. 11, 2015) has struck irony gold. Shreve has filed a PIA request to find out what he could simply ask Bud Otis about. The topic is what he believes to be a super secret deal trying to make the Monrovia Town Center development age-restricted. This would spread out the traffic concentration to different times of day maybe, and not stretch the schools any farther than they are now–not a terrible idea, really!
What is just knee-slapping hilarity is that Billy seized on the idea that they could just make MTC age restricted during the council discussion last meeting. That would be the one about what the heck they were going to be able to do to alleviate the FACT letter taint (Mr. Smith and his dumb letter writing: will he learn?). Over and over, to the point of exhaustion. In his ever exasperated tone. Never you mind that it would be impossible take that direction at that point in the process (and you really have to ask yourself how this continues to confuse an experienced elected official).
Is this part of the Fantasy Conspiracy League Draft, hosted on Facebook by the Billy/Kirby/(Chmelik? please definitively distinguish yourself, man) faction of their party? Who can say for sure, but as they say, “It would be irresponsible not to speculate…”
” And you lady bloggers shouldn’t be bothering your little heads with all this man business. Go make my dinner!”
Dear voters,
Paul Smith does not care one bit that you didn’t want him for your state delegate. You big meanies! What? You didn’t want Mr. Smith up in Annapolis tearing apart our social programs and dismantling the state government?! Well, don’t expect Mr. Smith to go hide in the corner. Oh no, he’s going to use the power of his word processor to stay relevant! Remember a few months back when we had so much fun with hisletter to the council about getting reimbursed for his legal fees? Well, as one of our good friends remarked, “What a gift this letter is!” Let us begin (you can click the images to enlarge):
Aren’t there some names missing from this list?
Ah, the title page. Now look! This isn’t from C. Paul Smith private citizen! This is from the law office of C.Paul Smith! But we are really confused. Aren’t there three more people on the county council? Are they so repugnant to him that he can’t even be bothered to address them by name? So what “serious concerns” does Mr. Smith have about 520 N. Market Street? Let’s look at the next page:
That’s a lot of words!
Now, uninformed county council members, let Mr. Smith give you a history of this building. (The capitalization and moniker “Young Board” is all C. Paul Smith, not us).
…this building had been used by the County government by its Citizens Services Division for many years. The division director’s office was there, as was the Child Advocacy Center, the Human Relations Commission and a Head Start classroom. The Young Board of Commissioners was able to reduce the size of County Government by approximately 500 employees. One of the results of this shrinking was to consolidate many county services into fewer buildings, making 520 North Market Street available to be sold.
Ah, isn’t that sweet? We shrunk the budgets and manpower of these agencies so we could shove them all into one building. And it was the Young board that did it! So shouldn’t they get some kind of compensation? Or at least some gratitude you ingrates! Now, from what we can tell, Paul is trying to make two points with this letter. The first is that Jan, is “unilaterally” overstepping her power as County Executive in making land deals. And the second is, he doesn’t think she should be “giving” this building away. Let’s continue with the letter before we pick it apart.
Page 3!And finally, the startling conclusion!
So here are some of the main points from this mess:
With regard to the sale:
It should be observed that in most major corporations, the authority to sell or acquire major assets is routinely reserved for boards of directors, and are not matters of routine management that the chief executive officer has authority to do unilaterally. The same principle should apply in our county government-the Council should be required to confirm any such major disposition, sale or acquisition.
The proposed use of this County asset is clearly the transfer of a County asset that would amount to a give away of that asset. …; in fact it is worse than a sale–it would be giving away a major County asset.
Why do you think no one has made a reasonable offer to purchase the building? That is because there does not appear to be a market for what the building can provide. This building is not compatible for normal housing. It would be difficult for a developer to make this building into a profitable housing project.
With this background, now the County Executive wishes to draw from County resources to help subsidize a housing project that the private sector would not touch.
It would appear that Mr. Smith has some very strong opinions about this property and Jan’s “plans” for it! But nothing, readers, beats this conclusion:
Executive Gardner’s unilateral decision to turn 520 North Market Street into a “mixed income workforce housing” project is a decision that exceeds her executive powers and it is a bad business decision.
Those who don’t understand market and economic forces should avoid involving themselves in economic development projects.
That’s right, County Executive Gardner! The only things you understand are diapers, dinner and keeping my suits clean! Don’t involve your delicate little mind in these man decisions! But wait. Could it be, perhaps, that everything is this letter is untrue? Could that be possible?
Hmm, August 24, 2015. Before Paul wrote his letter. And what’s that check mark? Oh yeah, refer to the county council.
Next page please:
What’s this? Maryland law already states that the county council must approve the sale of surplus property? I thought that this was a unilateral move. And why doesn’t he know the law?
Shall we continue?:
Wait?! $1,600,000? But Paul said it was worth $1,000,000. Return the money immediately! You people don’t understand market and economic forces!
Not done yet:
Ah, an open and transparent process. And a joint venture between whom? I don’t see Frederick County on that list.
And finally:
I don’t understand. Paul said there were no reasonable bids. What’s all this then?!
As far as we can tell, unless our female brains are failing us, every single issue addressed in this letter is wrong. It’s as though he had no knowledge at all as to what was happening with this property. None! And we do remember listening to a very recentcounty council meeting about this very issue. Therefore, Jan did not act unilaterally, numerous people wanted the property, bought it for more than what he claims it was worth, and is there one single valid point in this whole thing?! We can’t figure out why he wrote this letter. If his intent was to embarrass Jan it certainly backfired. The only person that should be embarrassed by this letter is C. Paul Smith, Attorney at Law. Therefore, Mr. Smith, we are going to have to ask that you leave government to those who actually understand what they are doing. Thank you very much.
Oughta be a short post to address, “What could go wrong with an elected sheriff?” And here’s why I should be able to finish this with just one sentence: do you ever wonder if you stick a sign out in your front yard supporting the opposition (or write a position like I’m throwing down here) if you’ll still be okay if you need help? Any possible situation in which that answer could be no should not exist. This should be easy to understand in a county where we talk about conflict of interest on a near daily basis.
The word “sheriff” is a portmanteau of “shire reeve,” which was the tax collector in medieval England. In some states, the sheriff is also the tax collector. (Is this notion maybe a bit antiquated?)
We’ve had some particularly sticky sitchumawaytions in the shire. Makes ya kinda-like wonder if we are definitely getting the best deal out of choosing the law enforcement the same way you choose a high school cheerleading squad. Not a clue in the world what was learned on the crazy Texas field trip: it sure as shoot could not have been that pestering every Latina eating lunch is good policy.
Some pros and cons of elected law enforcement are available here.
Critical points from all that reading material linked in blue include, “Inertia is a powerful inhibitor to reform.” (Indy Star, Dec. 18, 2007). Medieval holdout inertia, no less. Competence counts in law enforcement, and this is not always something best judged at the polls (http://forums.e-democracy.org, Elected vs. Appointed Sheriffs).
For good measure, the police department up in Thurmont received some acknowledgement for thoughtful and proactive efforts. We’d like to pat Chief Greg Eyler on the back, as well. Leaves me dreaming of a cutting edge stance with regard to how we hire law enforcement leadership.
frederick local yokel 