Last night’s meeting was uneventfulish.

Bud hopes it will be a productive year. We feel pessimistic. Because of the bookends on the dias (who were oddly quiet, until uncorked at the end).

Normal things happened like Billy voted against the agenda and budget transfers. Aren’t tools supposed to be useful?

Friend of Local Yokel, Patrick Schempp, spoke on several issues and seems to be far more consequential to the proper running of the county than Billy Shreve. Just sayin’.

There was a riveting water and sewer hearing and W4S4 changing to W3S3, or some such.

A proposed small business development real estate tax credit sounded intriguing. This would be for businesses with between 5 and 50 employees on purchase of or expansion of at least 2500 square feet. The tax credit would start at 40% and decrease according to a schedule over time. And they would have to pay 150% of federal minimum wage to their employees, which sounds nice, but still wouldn’t really get you much in the way of livability in urbane Fredneck. However, we are not those sort of philosophers who think, “If you cannot fix everything, why bother doing anything.” (cough…climate change illogic…cough). The program would expire in 2026, although Tony Chmelik seemed inclined to have it continue in perpetuity, because who needs taxes anyway, right?

For the second edition of public commenting a young man (we love to see our youngsters at county meetings) wants to have recycling bins available at summer lunch program centers. Tony suggests they go to another meeting, in a strange attempt to pass the buck. Thankfully  M.C. steps in taking their names and promising to put them in touch with the appropriate person. Thank you M.C.!

Kirby talked for half the meeting it seemed like and to start there was a part where he seemed gracious and as though he spoke with staff he may have a good rapport with, and then spoke knowledgeably about septic system science. In the light of day it seems less mysterious that a person owning and operating a digging business hemmed and hawed about septic tanks and doesn’t just stomp his foot about <<gasp>> regulations. Not to say he made no sense, but still. It’s difficult for us to say he made sense, if you know what we mean.

Oh and who could forget the spin machine we were stuck in that has this story in the newspaper, produced by a newspaper reporter, who reported on the relative salaries of county officials here and elsewhere. This has now become some new government boondoggle talking point, even though it has zilch to do with anyone in the government having said or done anything, and was apparently produced for informational purposes such as local news. It never has to make sense to become a crisis. Special teaflakes strike again.

Many assumptions today re: salary survey story. The impetus for article is simple: It’s a new report and I pulled out interesting details.

— Danielle E. Gaines (@DanielleEGaines) January 3, 2017

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Kirby has thankfully found an editorial section that is not biased! And he’s going to take up everyone’s time reading this editor’s accusations.  Kirby is “not sure what’s going on here” and “hope(s) these accusations are unfounded”. However, he’s not going to let whether or not any of this is true stand in his way! No siree bob! What’s all the hullabaloo? Well, remember when M.C. said that she and Bud talked to the County Executive before legislation is introduced? Yeah that.  Must be some sneakiness going on. Thank goodness we have some local heroes with no agenda against Jan, Bud or M.C. on it! We took a peaky poo at the Open Meetings Act and didn’t see anything that would warrant these allegations. However, tis very long and written in legalese so we will have to see what the attorney says. Sounds like the County Council has a few time sucking, tax wasting PIAers on their hands as well.

There was more, but I give up, which is awful, because some smart people got shortchanged. If Billy said anything exciting, nobody even knows. You will have to wait for another Local Yokel to let you know.

Oh, but wait! Almost forgot! Jerry Donald likes meeting constituents and is going on a tour, like the rock star that he is.

M.C. apologizes for not answering Kirby’s hero editor and promises to do so. Also vows to continue talking to people in the county government in  order to do her job. The county attorney will be issuing an opinion soon on whether or not anything was untoward. We can already predict the answer.