Well folks, if you haven’t had a chance to take a gander at today’s Political Notes , it is a must see. First off, we have a summary of the cell phone discussion  that we touched on from the last meeting. When Jerry suggested that the council hand over their phones during council meetings, Billy yells:

“Why don’t we just use rice paper?”

His reaction was as though Jerry suggested we do away with technology altogether. What is wrong with putting the phones away during council meetings? On the other hand, if one is  waiting for instructions from the puppet master it may be a little hard to know what to do.

Next, Kirby so wants there to be a scandal. So he provided the reporter at the News Post with this:

To show his frustration, Delauter forwarded me an email last week in which a staff member at the county’s Office of Economic Development redirected his questions, on behalf of FSK Holiday Inn owner Randy Cohen, to Browning.

Delauter responded angrily.

“That’s total Bullshit………….but then again,” Delauter wrote back. “I’ll have Randy contact you directly since as an elected official we get treated like third graders from the worthless CE,” referring to the county executive.

He then suggested that Cohen contact the employee — who was copied on the email — directly.

“I don’t have the time to spend to go thru the layers of bureaucratic bullshit that CE Gardner has put in place,” Delauter wrote.

Nice, huh? He’s starting to sound all county executivey isn’t he? And what’s Kirby’s problem with third graders? Well, if Kirby isn’t able to have his issue addressed this very second isn’t the whole system just for shit? Here’s what Jan had to say about this:

Gardner said the process for handling constituent service emails was set up between her staff members and the council’s staff members.

Gardner said the executive and legislative branch staffs worked together to create the system, so staff members wouldn’t be overwhelmed by seven separate requests from each council member on one constituent issue.

“It’s absolutely not impossible for them to talk to county staff. This whole focus is about constituent service,” Gardner said, adding that a high percentage of questions get a response within a day. “… I think the system is working for the majority of council members.”

If Kirby can’t circumvent the procedures that were made by both his and the county executive’s staff, aren’t we already at tyranny’s doorstep?

The last section is our favorite. In an attempt to imitate House of Cards, Delauter, Shreve and Jenkins have created something closer to a Shack of Sharts. Just look at this description of an email exchange that someone forwarded to the FNP:

In an unrelated chain of emails forwarded to The Frederick News-Post this week, Shreve and Delauter expressed disappointment not only with county government policies, but also the form of county government entirely.

Republican Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, who was copied on the multiple email messages, suggested that the councilmen and others “push a movement to go back to the County Commissioner form of government. It worked!”

When another person on the email list suggested that a lot of Republicans who supported charter government before Gardner, a Democrat, took office would have to “eat crow” to support a reversal, Jenkins responded.

“I have no crow to eat because I predicted it would be [a] total disaster as it is turning out to be,” he wrote. “But wouldn’t everyone choke down a little crow if things could be fixed? Just take a big bite and swallow hard.”

Shreve also wrote that he would favor a repeal.

Delauter said he didn’t vote for charter government and is frequently reminded why, though he’s still considering a run for county executive in 2018.

“If I was county executive, [charter government] would be great …,” Delauter said, before adding that he was joking. “I’m kidding. That’s the form of government we have, so I have to live with it.”

Well, well, well, we wonder who forwarded this along! Could it be that someone on that exchange doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid? Or was it one of them thinking this would be a great way to get all this recall charter government nonsense in the news? This isn’t new talk folks, we reported almost a year ago of Blaine’s winds of change. These guys lived in some warped bubble in which they thought Blaine was going to win it all and they would be the Boss Hoggs of the county. So, when that didn’t happen they immediately went into boo hoo, everything’s horrible mode.

Well, we happen to like that an discriminatory language ordinance was repealed. We like that our county has a strong ethics law. We also like that our schools and other services are finally being funded at somewhat reasonable levels. And we are oh so very pleased that the nursing homes are back in the county’s hands. We would also be remiss to not mention that we really like that we have a County Executive who isn’t getting arrested for solicitation of prostitutes. (Thanks Jan!)  So we’ll stick with the Charter government thank you very much. For we remember what it was like during the last BOCC. Shiver.