We here at the Yokel couldn’t make it to the hearing over the future of Trout Run today. According to Tony Ortega’sblog, things did not go well for disciples of L. Ron Hubbard. Here’s the account:
We just had a telephone conversation with Mary McConnell, who gave us some basics on how the hearing went today.
First, the news. Judge Nicklas did hear oral arguments from the two sides today, and gave himself 30 days to render a decision. Mary said she found the hearing to be a lot of fun as Judge Nicklas proved to be knowledgeable about the subject areas in general (including drug rehab) and in the case facts in particular.
Mary said that SBPI’s attorneys (SBPI is a subsidiary of the Church of Scientology) tried to convince the judge that this was really a zoning case, but he wasn’t having it.
“They kept trying to make this a zoning case, but he was on their game and said he knew it wasn’t a zoning matter,” Mary says.
The dispute is really about whether the Frederick County Council acted properly when it voted not to put Trout Run on its list of historic places, even after its own Historic Preservation Commission recommended that it be added.
SBPI tried to convince Judge Nicklas that the council had always, in the past, simply accepted the recommendation of the commission. This was the first time it did not put a place on the historic list after the Commission recommended it. SBPI seemed to imply that the council had an obligation to follow the commission’s suggestion.
But Mary says Judge Nicklas resisted that argument. “He’s not falling for that,” she told us. “He pointed out that they may follow the recommendation. They argued over the word ‘may’.”
The other side, meanwhile, tried to keep things focused and simple. “The county’s attorney was clear: This is a legislative issue, not a zoning one,” Mary said.
We asked Mary how the judge reacted when SBPI’s attorney brought up the notion that the Church of Scientology had been discriminated against.
“He totally ignored it,” she said. And perhaps also telling, when SBPI brought up what had been said in public meetings to the council about Scientology invading the county and being a ‘cult,’ the judge pointed out more than once that the people who had made those statements were respected members of the community. Oops.
Anyway, it sounds like Judge Nicklas is very clear on what’s at stake in this case, and that Scientology’s usual tricks didn’t confuse matters. But we always hate to guess how a judge is going to decide. We’ll just have to find out in the next month.
So it looks as though the judge isn’t buying these arguments. Seems like February 4th is the next magical day. We’ll let you know when we know.
First Blaine didn’t get the County Executive spot, and then Jan became the Queen and she took away the free parking, and then I lost my keys. I could tell. It was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.
The charter government was hard, and we couldn’t figure out Robert’s Rules and who even knows what to do with the budget without Blaine there to say what is happening. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.
Bud Otis became the Council President, and he keeps voting with the Democrats, and they overturned the English Only Ordinance. They looked at Paul Smith’s letter and decided to start over with the Monrovia Town Center. I think I am going to move to Costa Rica.
The Scientologists could not win a historical designation and everyone keeps calling me about the overdoses and Xenu is mad about No Narconon at Trout Run.
Jerry Donald was mean to me. He said is a burrito English? He said sharing a microphone with me is like sharing a steak with a pit bull. He said I was the expert about everything, but I know he didn’t mean it. I told Blaine I am moving to Costa Rica.
I keep abstaining, the locals keep complaining, we aren’t even going to get a new canyon, and they won’t make Blaine’s girlfriend part of our staff.
Blaine says some years are like that. Even in Costa Rica.
But, neener neener, I am the new chair of the Republican Central Committee. 2016 is probably gonna be my year. heh heh heh
As you wake up on this fine New Years’ morning with your eyes still unable to focus from the spirits you consumed last night, you may first think that this piece of news is your brain playing tricks on you. We know that we did, but no. According to the Political Notes section of today’s FNP, Billy Shreve has been elected as chairman of the local Republican Central Committee. And it seems things are not so hunky dory:
Former Chairwoman JoeyLynn Hough was replaced by new Chairman Billy Shreve in a 5-4 vote.
“Every year, there’s an election. There’s winners and losers. And, unfortunately, this time, I was the loser,” Hough said. “He won, and I lost.”
Shreve did not return calls about the new position, but Hough spoke briefly of her tenure as chairwoman.
“I believe that I’ve done an excellent job as the chair for the central committee for the year I was there,” she said, citing her fundraising efforts.
In our conversation, Hough made reference to her friendship with Shreve. I asked whether that friendship was in the past or present tense.
“We’re on the committee together, so I’m going to continue to do the best I can to make Frederick County successful, and to make it red,” Hough responded.
She will continue to serve on the committee through 2018, the next time all of the committee seats are up for election.
Watch out Frederick the Red Scare is coming! And from the beginning of this article it looks as though we are going to have to start paying some attention to Vogt. Does it ever end?
As we close out 2015, it is a time for list making. We are not talking about a list of resolutions for 2016 (although, we could suggest some resolutions for a few Council Members, another post, perhaps?). We are talking about the In’s and Out’s for our own Fred Co. And hang in there, because we have some coveted year end awards to hand out too!
2016 is the Year of the Monkey. Don’t be a monkey this year.
This year has flown by and we wanted to recap some of our own LY posts. In case you missed one. Because by Athena’s ghost, this stuff should not have been missed! Think of this as our very own Top 5 posts of the year! But, oops, we are including 7. We’re counting like a Council Member y’all. Hiccup. We may have been reliving a drinking game while we typed this. Burp.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. You may recall that a certain # decided to not so subtlety NOT contribute to CHS athletics. The whole community rallied to help. Then some cranky-pants complained. Boo hiss. This is surely #7 because we don’t have the patience for all these antics. Take note of this issue. You’ll see more of it on the list.
Billy is more of an idea man rather than an actual do stuff kinda guy. Too bad he can’t get anyone to actually implement his ideas,because he certainly isn’t going to. I mean doesn’t Jan know that’s part of her job? Jeeze….
Oh the outrage over the cutting of Freshman sports. Blaine is still bitching about it. But not a word over teachers losing their jobs or no new textbooks. That’s all secondary to some.
Ah, this was a good one. We got to give out an award! And fisticuffs were narrowly avoided at that Council Meeting. Glad everyone made it out physically unscathed. Too bad our minds weren’t so fortunate.
#Kirbydelauter was by far our most popular post. And, it actually warms our heart because it was all for the kids (you know we mean our hearts are warm from all you readers reading – not from #’s nasty note). As noted in #7, our wonderful Kirby was not going to give any of his company hard earned cold cash to those kids over at CHS, who just want to play football.
Here’s hoping that next year won’t be as cray cray, then again we just saw this:
Our invitation to the caucus must have gotten lost in the mail!
We here at the Yokel were expecting this to be a slow time of year for us! Seriously, we expected most people to be so involved in their holiday preparations that we wouldn’t need to post anything until the Trout Run hearing in January! But oh how so wrong we were, because dear Athena up on Mount Olympus this LTE*:
As someone who is not an enlightened urbanite — I tend to caucus with the Frednecks in our county — it has been my perception that County Council President Bud Otis has rejected the values under which he ran. In short, Otis has decided the alterations recently forwarded throughout our new county government by County Executive Jan Gardner are not only correct, but the direction we should pursue.
What values pray tell is he speaking of? Because of course none are spelled out in said letter. And is aligning one’s self with Kirby and Billy really a value? Or a lack of one? And why all this hostility for the educated people of our community? Ever since Linda Norris’ much maligned LTE to the Washington Post, urbanite has been thrown around as though it’s some kind of cuss word. Here’s the definition of urbanite we found on the old internets:
A person who inhabits one of the major cities in the world, aged between 17 and 44. An urbanite is an affluent consumer with an optimistic outlook on life that is very different from those who live in “small town” or rural areas.
Urbanites are both a subculture and a contemporary lifestyle. They have 6 key characteristics: Time-poor, city-proud, media-literate, brand-centric, trend-sensitive and culturally-aware.
The British newspaper Metro has listed the 10 “Great expectations” that above all else motivate and drive Urbanites:
01. Expecting to live a meaningful and experience-rich urban life.
02. Expecting to succeed in multiple areas of life (not just career).
03. Expecting to get substantial fulfilment from work (not just cash).
04. Expecting to be at the hub of a large friendship network.
05. Expecting the traditional ideal of “true love” in the modern world.
06. Expecting to have to “make time” in order to have and enjoy time.
07. Expecting to use debt to have what they want, and have it now.
08. Expecting to have a progressive government that delivers results.
09. Expecting to live in a pleasant “urban village” area of their city.
10. Expecting to live a responsible life as an urban consumer.
Oohhh scary! How can we eliminate this pestilence from our county? Because only the true Fredneck possesses the ability to truly see what’s in a man’s heart. Our local soothsayer continues:
Bless his heart — he has no actual understanding of local leadership or standing behind the values he espoused during the election season.
I am sure the wise urbanites will disagree — but we ignorant Frednecks are seeing this man for who he really is.
Is that what a lack of education buys you? Common sense and the ability to see right into a man’s true intentions? How truly stupid we must have been to spend all those years finishing our fancy book learning. That means people like this letter writer aren’t going to send their kids into the evil clutches of that mind destroying institution otherwise known as the college university. Right? How lucky we are to have these untarnished people right in our own backyard.
* Please, please if you read the LTE click on the comments. It’s a thing of beauty today.
Fellow Yokels we can sum up tonight’s meeting with this:
Thanks Billy and Kirby!
Everything started out per usual. Billy voted no on the agenda, abstained from some consent items and, for some reason, voted against the appointment of the Chief Information Officer. Kirby started to act up a little bit when the talk turned to developers. He wants to make sure that all you people know that his precious little BOCC did not “give away the farm” to developers. We know Kirby! It was farms with a capital S on the end. Thanks for clearing that up!
Things got about as testy as we’ve seen them during council member comments. It was bad folks, like Civil War bad:
We wonder if Bud thought of doing something like this with his gavel.
First we will start with Kirby. Because, believe it or not, he was the tamer of the two tonight. Right out of the gate, he suggested that we Jiffy Lube the FCPS custodians. Why you may ask? Because the private sector is always better! How many times does Kirby need to tell you idiots that before it sinks in? Then he starts in on Doug. It’s so mysterious that the FNP is only accurate when it prints stories that suit Kirby and Billy’s purposes. Every other time it’s an extension of the left wing media machine.
Next it’s this one’s turn:
Oh, isn’t that cute? Billy has learned how to use visual aids.
Billy goes full force into Doug’s character. Now Billy has been waiting a long, long time for this opportunity. Doug has had to put Billy in his place many times over this last year. And old Billy is not above slandering Doug’s character and making accusations based on a case that he will never, ever know the details of. We all know that one of Billy’s strong suits is rambling on about things he knows nothing about. He makes us aware of the fact that since the insurance company “convicted” Doug the council should right now this very second go on a witch hunt to remove him from his position. That’s right, there should be a full investigation into whether or not the County Executive is harboring known insurance company convicts in Winchester Hall. And it’s at this point that we wish we had a mad cat at our disposal.
Here kitty, kitty. Wanna snuggle Uncle Billy?
Isn’t it interesting, folks, how Billy and Kirby are always complaining about how things are politically motivated when the former BOCC’s legislation is overturned? How many times have they moaned and groaned about that? Yet, here we are. One accusation in the newspaper and they are ready to blow up the taxpayers money to open up some kind of investigation so they can get rid of one of Jan’s appointees. Well, Doug is not going to take this lying down.
You tell them Doug!
Doug informs the two gentlemen on the dais that they do not know what they are talking about. (Durh!) Doug goes on to say that these two do not seem to be confined by anything, let alone the truth. (Sing it!) He then goes on to say that he is going to sue them for defamation of character. Now that is a trial that we here at The Yokel would want a front seat to. Bud ends this exchange, because it’s going no where and a county council meeting really isn’t the appropriate venue for this discussion. While the grown up side of us agrees, we would have really liked to see how the rest of this discussion played out.
With Doug out of the line of fire, Billy turns his ire on Bud.
What have we told you about treating Bud this way?
Billy has lots to say. And instead of ending this talk about Doug, he tries to act as though he’s not really talking about him by bringing up the FCC case. Bud throws down his gavel and calls Billy out of order. Billy waahhs, “Isn’t [he] allowed to talk about whatever he wants to during comments?” Is that a real question? The answer to that has to be a resounding: NO. Then the fight begins. In the left corner we have the embarrassment of Frederick County, and in the right, the voice of sanity.
Poor M.C. and Jessica. Caught in the crossfire of this hot mess.
Billy questions why the council can’t have their own budget officer. Bud tells them they will. “When”? Billy demands. It will be on the January agenda. And does this guy read anything that is given to him? It gets worse folks. Billy and Kirby put forth a name for the council’s budget director. And we here at The Yokel knew exactly who it was before her name was even mentioned. And we bet you do as well. So these two lap dogs of Blaine decided to name his girlfriend. The same girlfriend with whom Blaine was having an affair while she was his subordinate. But to Kirby this is no big deal at all. He tells Bud that he’s going to have to fire a whole bunch of people in the county because this is going on everywhere. That’s right people it’s all kinds of sexytime in the Frederick County government. Who knew!?
Thankfully Billy’s time is up, but he tries to interrupt Jerry, who in turn yells at him,”I’ve tried sharing a microphone with you before and it’s like sharing a steak with a pitbull!” Bam! Jerry then goes on to thank anyone who will be willing to work with a group as dysfunctional as this council. Everyone else was a grown up this evening. And it’s sad that they don’t often get the recognition they deserve. So we here at the Yokel would like to issue this award:
This evening’s honorable mention must go to Jerry Donald for his “Best and Most Truthful Zinger” in snapping that sharing the microphone with Billy is like sharing a steak with a pit bull.
Well done, Jessica. Folks, the only way this is going to get better is if Billy and Kirby are off that dais. There’s no fixing this. There’s just no way.
After tonight we won’t be letting our kitties watch anymore council meetings.
If anyone frowns during the fire hat distribution photo op slam back a 911.
Any non sequiturs or questions which are really complaints on the budget transfers kindly sip a What the hell? Because we don’t really know what to say about this behavior anymore.
When Billy abstains from approving the minutes, yell at your TV or computer loudly : Lie down and shut up!
Here comes the fun part. After watching Billy antagonize Doug on numerous occasions, and having recently written a “letter” in which Billy refers to Doug as “Disco Doug,” we feel like there will be some inevitable Billy manufactured drama when Doug comes to present the County Executive’s appointment. Just line up a row of your favorite shots and drink at will!
If anyone has trouble understanding the summary presented by the audit company, make yourself a good old Exit the brain!
And now one last pic for our faithful readers to laugh their asses off over :
Uh, Billy needs to know that he’s not the lion in this scenario…
Not satisfied to wait for theirJanuary 4thhearing date, the faithful lawyers for Social Betterment (a.k.a. we all know who!) has filed a new petition. In this petition they have named and quoted many concerned members of our community that decided, either through email or by public comment, to speak out against the historical designation. That’s right yokels, it seems now if you decide to write to your local council member concerning your opinionabout any matter whatsoever, that email is now considered testimonyand can be used in a court petition. How can an email be the same as sworn testimony, any lawyers out there? We have to wonder why they singled out those that they chose to, since we are sure there were hundreds (if not thousands) of people who contacted the council on this issue. We have heard somewhere before that harassment and intimidation is the name of the game for this organization. Any hoo, we will be waiting to see how January 4th works out since it seems to be all in the hands of the judge at this point.
So the council had a workshop last night on the impact fees associated with new school construction costs. We let that get a little ahead of us, what with all this falalalala to do. Tonight we watched with half an eyeball while wrapping gifts. That was not so fun. Happy freaking holidays. We hope you got in the egg nog we suggested earlier.
They say nature abhors a vacuum, and tonight we were missing Kirby, which really upset the ecosystem. Unfortunately, Tony got sucked right into Delauterburst mode. So the CE wants to raise these impact fees. Clearly there’s no greater pleasure in life than levying fees; she and her people must be ecstatic. Democrats just live for that, so the straw man sayeth. Actually, this is suggested in solution to the problem that Urbana and Hillcrest are overcrowded and new elementary schools are needed, not just for the decadent joy of big government.
Where are Kirby and Jessica? We miss you Jessica. (I read once that writing is as much about what you leave out…)
Tony would like to solve this problem by redistricting, apparently. A thing almost no one else could possibly want. That always goes badly, but what would he know about that? At Chmelik Academy, redistricting might mean moving from the kitchen to the dining room. Also, Tony says if Frederick High (which isn’t very relevant to the discussion, since the high school impact is not being looked at for a change at this time) looks like the Taj Mahal, people are going to be upset. I don’t know about you all, but back where I come from when community high schools look like…palatial mausoleums…people are majorly proud of their fancy-schmancy school. And I have to point out that would be a super-duper RED state, not some tax and spend paradise.
Most of the hour and a half meeting was Chmelik being rude. At one point he claimed to have still been in his line of questioning, but in point of fact the question was being answered and he was still talking like Donald Trump speaking over Joe Scarborough. He did apologize later, saying that he was railing against policy and not meaning personal offense, but whoa Nellie. It was one of those moments where even when he may have had a point, he lost it, because his behavior was so terrible. How the mighty do fall. We were just complimenting him last week.
Look how awesome Frederick High is going to be!
Good news, though. Billy will save the day. He thinks it’s not a big deal because the schools have 10% absenteeism (where? this seems unsupported by facts) so the 500 kids who do not have a permanent seat in the system…can just go to school when the flu is going around? I don’t really know what he meant. And neither do you, do you? WTH? Jerry Donald helpfully pointed out that they cannot just be beamed elsewhere. har har. How was it necessary to point that out? And yet…Plus, Billy has trotted out another idea, and that is to send elementary kids to middle school. Remember middle school? Would you go there for your even more vulnerable years? No thanks. GREAT GRAVY. Go away, Billy Shreve.
