The path back to power is long and rambling.

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Man, how bad is it when even Donald Trump doesn't like you?
Man, how bad is it when even Donald Trump wants to distance himself from you?!

Yokels, if you’ve been with us from the beginning you know that  Blaine Young is the reason that we started this little blog.  As we read his letter to the FNP entitled:

Blaine Young: ‘Work together, or nothing will get accomplished’

we knew we had to do something. Our first instinct was to go on an angry, drunken rampage through the streets of Frederick. Cooler heads prevailed and we instead decided to start a blog on the corruption and down right craziness that exists in our local government.  For almost a year, certain characters have kept us very, very busy. Even the one that promised we wouldn’t be hearing from him for 10 years.

In fairness, or because they wanted us to have an endless stream of material, someone at the FNP has given Blaine  a column. It’s always terrible, and today was no exception.  Let’s begin with the title:

What does ‘open for business’ mean anymore?

Sorry Hoots, but if we had to endure it so do you.
Sorry Hoots, but if we had to endure it so do you.

Didn’t he hear that when Jan took down the “open for business” signs all local businesses, especially hot dog stands, were required to shut down? I mean really Blaine, get with it.

The first few paragraphs are dedicated to educating us to how Democrats ruin everything. Of course! Republicans, on the other hand, would like to get rid of ALL regulations, except those that protect the public. To do otherwise would be picking the winners and losers.  Then we are treated to his views on  government services (Keep in mind folks, this guy was in charge of our government for 4 years and wanted to become our County Executive. Man we dodged a nuclear weapon!):

Sometimes the government would even go into business competing against the private sector, such as a golf courses, health and fitness, aquatics, nursing homes, entertainment, hotel and conference centers — just to name some categories close to home.

So is it his contention that the government provides  recreation and medical services just to stick it to local businesses? There couldn’t possibly be other reasons could there? Like cost, accountability and equal access?  Hmm, let’s continue….

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Sorry Sprinkles, we’re almost done.

His enlightened views on the tax code:

The tax code is a mess on all levels, local, state and the federal, but we created this mess. We desperately need tax reform and a simpler, more equitable tax code. I’d propose either a flat tax or fair tax. But this will never happen, because politicians would lose the power to directly benefit those who helped elect them.

Sigh, then he meanders his way back to Maryland.  You know the most business unfriendly entity on the face of the Earth!?  Because folks, no Fortune 500 companies operate out of Baltimore.  Thankfully, though, the Gods of fortune have heard Blaine’s cries for help:

It was a major step to elect a governor who understands how business works. Gov. Larry Hogan actually owned and operated a business that employed people. Now, no disrespect to other small-business owners, but unless you have a business location and employ at least a handful of people, it’s hard to understand the everyday challenges that a business owner encounters. In my opinion, career politicians who have never owned a business are the core of the problem, and this needs to be addressed if we are ever really going to have a government that encourages free enterprise instead of stifling it.

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Hey Guv, Blaine wants to know if there are any open positions on your staff.

We are happy to know that Governor Hogan employed people instead of let’s say baboons. Business people of course have a perspective to bring to the table. But not the only perspective. So is Blaine actually advocating that business people are the only ones qualified for public office? It sure seems so. Things haven’t been working out so well on  that front though:

We have very few business people serving in elected office or who ever aspire to serve. When I look locally, I can only find one, and they are trying to drive him out of business or out of office.

Who, pray tell, is he referring to? A real stumper!

Well, Blaine has a  solution to all of our anti-business woes. There’s only one person brave enough to strip all regulations, ban all governmental functions and get this country back on course again! Are you ready folks?!:

This is why I believe Donald Trump has hit a nerve in this election cycle. Some people say we need a successful business person who tells it like it is to straighten this country out. Now, we always want to start at the top to fix our problems but it’s Congress and the state Legislature that needs to be changed first.

“Some people”:

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Do these mysterious “some people” really think that Trump is qualified to run the free world because he’s run a trazillion businesses into the ground? Is it a fair trade to elect a racist misogynist xenophobe to the highest office because he’s employed people? How can that be a reasonable action to propose? Oh yeah right, it’s Blaine.

If you do get a chance to read the article, MAKE sure you read the comments. They’ll give you a chuckle or two.  In all fairness, not everyone was upset about this column:

Why is everyone always calling Billy? Stop it people!
Why is everyone always calling Billy? Stop it people!

 

Item EFF on the agenda

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The dreaded budget analyst conversation. The sole acceptable, qualified candidate for the job withdrew his name from consideration. One can only speculate why being at Billy (and Kirby)’s beck and call was unappealing. We didn’t apply for the job ourselves, that’s for dang sure.

A brief rundown of the discussion:

Right out of the gate Billy starts the sniping tone. Blah blah blah woof woof woof. Petulant child. You know the drill.

M.C. says they have endeavored to find out what is done elsewhere, looking at similar counties in Maryland. Turns out Wicomico, Cecil and Harford’s county councils don’t have budget analysts because they are legislative bodies. Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard’s have a county auditor, but that doesn’t make sense for Frederick because the council isn’t responsible for that function.

Jerry throws out a novel idea. Specifically ask the departments what they have, what they need, if things have been working out in the past, etc, etc, etc. As for these personal visits with county staff, “A number of us went to a number of things.” Jerry, ever the educator, charmingly refers to this as “the budget education process.” We are left to speculate about who amongst them made up the education seeking numbers. And also, based on the historical record, who probably didn’t.

M.C. reiterates this concept of communicating with the staff. Hiring someone takes time and money, and she points out the irony that she is taking the conservative position here (she didn’t say, “guess who isn’t,” but we’ve pointed that out before). Summing up her position, she (can do math?) doesn’t need someone to say, “Yup, those numbers balance.”

Tony: I agree with that.

M.C.: I have a little wax in my ears…

Local Yokel: hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa

Whut???
Whut???

 

Seems like nobody’s on poor Billy’s side anymore.

Your St. Patrick’s week drinking game!!

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Take heed Billy!
Take heed Billy!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day Yokels!! The luck of the Irish onto all of thee! We’ve gone back to alcohol this week. To not do so would insult the leprechaun. Grab your agenda and make sure you call that designated driver.

Emergency Management and  Utilities are up on the consent agenda. When Billy still refuses to perform the job he was elected to do, slam back an Irish car bomb.

We’ll skip over what will happen during the approval of minutes because we cannot stomach it this week. On to the installment purchase of two tracts of land in order to preserve agricultural land in our community. Oh hell, just start drinking your Green Dragon now. Think of it as a toast to Xenu’s pal, Gumption.

Time to approve some County Executive appointments. This comes and goes as an area of contention. Let’s just think nice thoughts and sip our dainty Misty Mint.

10rs4m

It’s budget talk time. First off, the council will get an update on the budget. Afterwards, Bud is going discuss the controversial budget analyst position.  And for all our thoughts of rainbows and gold, we know this isn’t going to be good. Mix up a pitcher, yes a pitcher, of Angry Balls and hope these guys check themselves before they wreck themselves.

We are going to end it here. The council then goes into a closed session and returns for comment time. We think we’ve done enough damage to your livers for one night.

A true Local Yokel hero!

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A few  friends of the Yokel posted this YouTube video of Frederick High School teacher Matthew Johnston speaking before the Frederick County BOE. Mr.  Johnston is very upset that students  who don’t pass the PARCC exam will have these words emblazoned upon their transcript:

“The student is not college and career ready.”

What the what? So, let’s work this out. Let’s say a student gets good grades, hell even all C’s, but does not pass this exam. Perhaps they don’t test well, or perhaps the test is a piece of crap. Now they are saddled with the modern day equivalent of the Scarlet Letter upon their future prospects. Not to mention what that does to one’s self confidence.

We don’t give out tips of the hat willy nilly around here. For  your years of service to our children and your bravery in bringing this issue to light….

For you, Matthew Johnston, the most deserving honoree to date!
For you, Matthew Johnston, the most deserving honoree to date!

To those who thought this was a good idea, we here at the Yokel want to know what rock you are living under! If you have something to say to the Maryland State Board of Education email them at this address: msde@maryland.gov. This is not a done deal so there’s still time to make your voice heard!

Guess who’s coming to court?

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10puza

Xenu have mercy the Scientologists are back!! And they are suing everyone in this county!!! According to that good old Maryland Case Search site, Social betterment has filed a:

Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief and Request for Expedited Relief with Exhibits

Now our lawyerly friends are going to have to help us with what exactly this is. It is a civil suit so it sounds like they want some moolah. The list of defendants is longer than a life of a Thetan:

  1. Frederick County
  2. Frederick County Department of Development and Review
  3. Frederick County Zoning Administration
  4. Frederick County Planning and Permitting Division

Those well versed in Scientology, as many of us have become over the last year, know this is their M.O. Sue, sue , and sue some more until they get their way. Things haven’t worked out so far for them in our fine county. Let’s hope that trend continues.

Billy and the winds of change.

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There's always some excuse.
There’s always some excuse.

Faithful readers know that Billy loves to taunt his fellow council members with his abstentions, voting against his own motions, and asking inane questions. Now we can add voicing opposition to a project that he voted for while he was a member of the BOCC.

In today’s Political Notes, Danielle Gaines writes of the letter that Bud Otis wrote on behalf of the county council asking that the hotel tax be increased from 3% to 5%. Now Billy and Kirby were not happy about this. They countered with their own letter:

In short, it said, “Please let it be known that Council Members Billy Shreve and Kirby Delauter are not in agreement” with Otis’ letter.

“Kirby and I were like, absolutely not, we don’t support that,” Shreve said later in the week. He said the original letter gave the false impression the entire council agreed with it.

Like no way man! Like we can’t support anything that Bud does. No way no how!

Well folks,  that part was predictable wasn’t it?  What wasn’t was this:

Also this week, Shreve is facing questions about his apparent former support for a downtown hotel and conference center proposal that also contemplated city, county and state tax-increment financing bonds.

The Board of County Commissioners, which included Shreve and Delauter, voted unanimously on Sept. 25, 2014, to support a joint resolution with the city of Frederick in favor of the project.

What’s that now, Billy? So he was for the project knowing that public funding was on the table when he was commissioner, but now he’s against it.

His excuse:

“Blaine said it would be awesome”

Just kidding, kinda. Here’s what he really said:

Shreve said he had an incomplete picture of the project’s budget at the time. “The funding sources were not put together back then,” he said.

10o624

Time to celebrate!!!! Two new elementary schools are coming to Frederick!

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10mrl0

Some good news in the county today. County Executive Jan Gardner  announced that the county has teamed with two developers in a $27 million deal to get Butterfly Ridge and Sugar Loaf Elementary  built. Kirby was not in attendance and for some reason we don’t believe that either one of these developers were the “secret developer” that he had in mind.

In the same news release we learn of the formation of a round table to discuss building schools more cost effectively and a task force that Kirby and Tony wanted to talk about leasing school buildings.  A round table sounds like a reasonable adult discussion may take place. On the other hand, a task force has connotations of a brawl waiting to happen.  See the press release for yourself:

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Local Yokel strays from the local..sorta.

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10lmrj

Our faithful readers know we like to stick to the local. There’s so much going on in these here parts that we don’t usually stray beyond our borders. However, we feel the need to expand our net in order to help explain something that happened in our fine county yesterday.

We’ve heard that a group of fellas took to their truck, finely decorated with that symbol of Southern lost causes, and yelled obscenities at people of color who were walking down Market Street. We are smart enough to know that this could happen for a variety of reasons: drunkenness, stupidity, feeling they are entitled to their hateful opinions because someone running for our highest political office gives them the cover to do so.

It’s the latter we are going to focus on.

When Donald Trump first ran for office, it seemed like a gimmick. Some rich, bored, former reality show star just trying to get attention.  It has evolved, over the last few months, into something decidedly less optimistic. Mr. Trump’s “politically incorrect” campaign has given license to those with awful viewpoints to sing them loud and unashamed.  By saying the truly awful things that he does, Trump is taking us on a backwards train towards bigotry.

I am sure most of us have lamented the term “political correctness” at one time or another. One thing that we seem to forget are the reasons why we changed the way we talk. For one, we cleaned up our act so one group of people would not be made to feel inferior to another. Let’s not kid ourselves. Language matters. A lot. For a moment stop and think of all of the horrible words used to describe and address African Americans, Women, Asians and Latinos over the course of the 20th century.  Pretty terrible aren’t they? There are good reasons as to why its not okay to speak that way anymore. Then along comes Donald Trump who tells people that its okay to express their bigotry.  More than that really, he’s made people feel as though they are the ones who are oppressed when they can’t “tell it like it is.”

Where has this shift led us? Well so far: increased attacks on Muslims, 3rd graders taunting their classmate, high school students chanting, “Build the wall” and a myriad of other unfortunate cultural changes.

We get that people feel insecure when economic and educational opportunities are scarce. It’s scary that we live in a unpredictable world where people can  shoot or blow you up because of their extreme religious viewpoints. And like the old plantation owners of the failed Confederate republic, Trump feeds into those insecurities and prejudices by turning attention and blame away from where it really belongs…people just like him. Trump, and other greedy fear mongers, are responsible for middle class jobs being shipped overseas. They are responsible for driving people of different backgrounds further apart.  All Mr. Trump has offered us is a blame game and false solutions that will only tear this country further apart.

Now back to the local. Frederick, like anywhere else, has always had its racists. And only those people in the truck yesterday can attest to their motivations. One thing is clear though; Trump has paved the way for these kinds of people to feel comfortable in spewing their truly disgusting thoughts. There’s still time to stop this trend. Who is with us?

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Pay attention to who liked this as the person who posted it is no longer relevant in Frederick County politics.

 

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From Billy's page.
From Billy’s page.

Gold Star Commenter: Medical Cannabis

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Screen Shot 2016-03-10 at 10.46.43 AM

So the meat of that meeting on Tuesday was the Medical Cannabis legislation, which would seek to allow special zoning exceptions that would permit medical cannabis to be grown in agricultural zones rather than exclusively in industrial zones. Lots of people said lots of stuff, mostly good points both for and against, with a sprinkling on top of those trembling in fear of the slippery slope that descends into Reefer Madness.

We’d like to extend a shout out to Kevin Kennedy of Kojak Industries in Mt. Airy for really distilling the essence of this legislation. He stood (March 8th, around the 42″ mark) to say that this is purely a zoning issue. Of 23 counties in Maryland, 15 licenses for the cultivation of medical cannabis will be approved. So to begin with there is no certainty that any of the applicants in Frederick County will receive a license. Passing this legislation only means there would be an opportunity for the community to consider a zoning exception within an agricultural area for a specific applicant, so it responsibly retains careful review and community feedback for each individual possible instance.  Allowing the possibility means that should the community choose to grant such an exception, knowing all the details beforehand, there may be  economic opportunity available to a grower’s business and that opportunity would extend other opportunities to any support service businesses in the local area. One reason this may be a better opportunity is the less expensive price of real estate in an agricultural zone as compared to an industrial zone. That is all.

Thanks for summing all that up, good sir. This structure of logical argument was darned refreshing. If only Kirby D. could, like, have a main idea and move in some sort of order when he has something to say. If you all understood what Kirby was rambling about during his Council Member Comments, that would have been a miracle. “Legislation thats getting people in the business of where the sheriff should be driving these negotiations…” Clear as mud. If you would like to look at House Bill 1556 or Senate Bill 1128, which he declined to give any context concerning (other than usurping local authority, which still failed to elucidate anything, because that’s a pure bred talking point), there’s a cool tool for that. Click on those links for a brief summary, or to read the whole bills if you so desire.

Let’s take a break from the hard stuff-Your March 8th drinking game.

fclocalyokel2 Comments

109skl

Whew! With all of  the meetings lately and St. Patrick’s Day coming up,we are going to go with an non-alcoholic version this week. Before you revolt, remember you can always add some Fireball, Vodka or whatever your poison happens to be.  We’re just trying to look out for y’all. Grab your agenda and follow along.

This is soooo boring we know. But if Billy abstains from the consent agenda, again, mix yourself up a Banana Bonkers.

The next item is to just change around some dates for the bargaining for the Fire and Rescue union.  Our First Responders’ unions are rarely met with the same vitriol that other unions face. But if someone uses this as an opportunity to go all anti-union on us slam back The Ghoul’s Green Drink.

Now it’s time for the public hearing on medical cannabis. We here at the yokel are for this. If there’s any talk about everyone turning into pot heads, sip gently on your Lean Green Smoothie.

All that’s left is public and council member comments. It’s the part of the evening where we usually get into trouble. So if you feel the need to pull out the booze we won’t judge.

10ezet