If you haven’t paid attention to all the budget troubles going on around here..welcome to the terrible party. In the next few weeks the budget for FCPS is going to be voted on, and we need to make sure that our schools get what they need to educate our children. We’ll let a good friend of the Yokel explain it to y’all:

The most important duty of local government is to educate the children living within their borders. If we fail at this it really doesn’t matter how nice our parks, roads or other public services are. At the bottom of this post we are going to list the email addresses for county council members and County Executive Fitzwater so you can email them with your concerns.

Speaking of the important duty of education, one of the most important duties we have as citizens is to vote for competent school board members. That is where a fair number of us failed this time around. We tried to sound the warning about there being too many candidates on our side, but that warning did not reach enough ears and we are now left to deal with the consequences of it all.

Colt Black has decided to use his short time on the board to harass and demean LGBTQ+ students at school board meetings. From the Frederick News Post:

Referring to the part of a districtwide gender identity policy, Policy 443, that instructs teachers and staff members to use a student’s preferred name and pronouns, Black said at a Jan. 8 school board meeting: “Just as much as you have your right to be you, we have our right to be free from you.”

Lots of local folks filed complaints about this outrageous comment from a sitting school board member. Well, today an independent investigator determined that Black did not violate Title IX:

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/education/schools/public_k-12/investigation-finds-school-board-members-comments-didnt-violate-federal-law/article_2242bd78-0413-5402-a476-ea6b9bddc8a8.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawJP7-tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTHsWze5wnM0FF0CfAHFShoMiFnr0KpqqyZsBrtDN_DGWvhhaE8i89afYg_aem_muXKc9ju-tcCUZ_Ax74Plw

But that doesn’t mean that he’s not an unqualified bigot that shouldn’t be on the board. We’ll tell you right now that the 5 member panel of judges here at the LY have already tried and convicted him in our court of public opinion, and so has a majority of the school board:

We’ll remind y’all again in a couple of years, but we do need to remember how the math works when it comes to school board elections. We cannot pay this high price again.

And now for the emails:

Jessica Fitzwater

County Executive

Kathan McCarthy
Manager, Constituent Services
Email 
Ph: 301-600-6083 
Fx: 301-600-1050 

County Council

Winchester Hall
12 East Church Street
Frederick, MD  21701
Email

Ph:  301-600-1135
Fx:  301-600-1849