It’s time for everyone’s favorite event! The Frederick County Council drinking game. You know the rules! Have fun, but no drinking and driving. Participate at your own risk.
Everybody with a drama hangover from the final Burn It All Down Blaine BOCC is steeling again to confront one of the biggest issues facing the current County Executive and Council. On tonight’s agenda is the Citizens Nursing Home and Montevue Assisted Living Facility debacle. Let’s rebuild this county, folks.
Thank you to Carl Thomas for the image share.
Tomorrow afternoon’s agenda looks like it will be contentious, both before and after the intermezzo. Beginning with workshops on 2016 proposed legislative issues and council rules and procedures in the first two acts. Take a swig from whatever flask of hard spirits you keep up your sleeve for:
instances of behavior from Billy that make both the need for the workshop and the futility of it crystal clear
Eat a lot of bread and pasta during the break, because the Citizens/Montevue hearing could produce a long haul in the form of public comments. Hopefully. We like to think people care. When eminent domain is bashed, make yourself a Communist. You should just keep a case of your favorite beer or a bottle of your favorite wine handy. This could get messy and you’ll want to have something to help you make it through until the end.
Sorry dear readers! We hope you didn’t choke on anything or pass out from fright after reading our title. But we don’t know what else to believe after seeing this:
From the Republican tent at the fair.
First of all, believeinshreve.com?! That’s hilarious. Secondly, what the hell? What does he think he’s running for and when? We’ve heard some very disturbing rumors that he is considering a run for State office. Even with that horrifying knowledge this sticker still makes no sense! Let’s see if we can guess who Billy wants to be President next year :
Folks, we love you, we really do. But we may have to start a Go Fund Me for the amount of wine it’s going to take to calm us down from what we just listened to on WFMD. Listenif you dare, but it just may spoil your weekend.
Bob Miller is a congenial fella. He starts his conversation with Billy with the usual pleasantries. Billy claims that he’s doing great! Bob says that he may not feel the same way at the end of the radio segment. To which Billy replies that is impossible. I mean really Bob, how can someone who has little to no idea of what’s going on be affected in any way?
Billy starts out by saying that Jan’s move to take back the nursing homes through the use of eminent domain is a bad idea for her and a bad idea for the county. That not only is she being aggressive towards a small Frederick County business, she’s hired thugs to intimidate them.
We would like to school you on the use of eminent domain!
That’s right! Lawyers that the county has hired, that Jan later points out were also used by the Young Board, are thugs. And they are being such meanies to Aurora who is just a small, down on it’s luck company trying to make it’s way in the world. Billy then goes on to complain that the nursing homes have caused a gazillion lawsuits and since it’s government run there’s no incentive for them to do better. NONE! Bob asks him some questions as to how much the lease was compared to how much it would cost to buy the facility outright and now we have to go to commercial because Billy can’t (is totally unable?) to find out the answer to any of these questions. And then Billy wants Jan to come out of her ivory tower to speak to little peasant Billy.
And Good Zeus the condescension this man possesses. Jan calls in, (Happy Birthday!) and we can hear the annoyance in her voice. Billy starts right in on her, making sure everyone knows this is the first time that big meanie Jan has talked to him and whine, whine, blah. The truth is folks, you cannot talk to this man. What he calls talking is yelling and talking over whatever you are saying the ENTIRE time. He doesn’t know how to take turns, he doesn’t know how to listen and we can certainly see why nobody down at Winchester Hall wants to deal with him!
Bob Miller says he’s going to turn off Billy’s mic, but he continues to talk over Jan. Until Jan pointingly asks, “Am I going to be allowed to talk?” Billy goes quiet so we can only assume that Bob had to flip the switch. Jan tells us she had to call up because of the entirely false and erroneous statements made by Shreve. She talks about the terrible financial deal made with Aurora. She acknowledges the difference of opinion regarding whether or not the county should operate a nursing home. She happens to think we should, since assisted living is not covered for many people and one of the functions of government is to provide for the common good.
Bob ends the discussion by saying one of you is right and one of you is wrong and only the facts will tell. He asks Billy one final question. Why are you supporting Aurora so much? His reply? “I lived through what Jan Gardner did!” Billy decides to leave us with one parting bit of wisdom:
Barack Obama took your doctor away and now Jan Gardner is taking your health care facility away.
In this morning’sFrederick News Post we have more evidence of just how important the teaching of history is in our schools. Here’s what County Council member Tony Chmelik has to say about Maryland’s prevailing wage:
Councilman Tony Chmelik said he wants to reverse that change altogether. He said the change was a “political boondoggle” meant to please labor unions.
Deep breaths! Count to 10! Repeat! Seriously folks, if one is not able to see how the labor movement has benefited this country we really, really question that person’s ability to govern our fair county. This whole Republican attack against the labor movement and fair wages is so reminiscent of how rich plantation owners manipulated the poor whites of the South into supporting a system that was against their own economic interests. I think it’s time for a nice Upton Sinclair quote from his book, “The Jungle” about conditions in the meat packing plants in Chicago:
Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immorality was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system of chattel slavery. Things that were quite unspeakable went on there in the packing houses all the time, and were taken for granted by everybody; only they did not show, as in the old slavery times, because there was no difference in color between master and slave.
Sound even a little bit familiar to some issues we may be having today? So please Mr. Chmelik do go on about how giving people a living wage is a boondoggle. Please feed us more rhetoric about how labor unions are ruining this country and how rolling back the prevailing wage will solve all our school construction woes.
There couldn’t be any reason to set wages could there? Won’t corporations just do the right thing on their own?
We like our readers to be informed so we want to talk a little about the prevailing wage here in Maryland. It was first enacted in 1945. Yes, that’s right 1945. It’s not a new thing at all. What does change is the numbers. The State now requires that if a public project costs more than $500,000 and they contribute more than 25% of the costs, the county must pay the prevailing wage. In 1999, Prince Georges County asked Mark J. Prus, Associate Professor of Economics at SUNY Cortland to do a cost analysis of the prevailing wage and school construction costs. Read the whole study here, and let us highlight some main points. First of all, why historically do states (Maryland is not the only one) enact prevailing wage laws?:
Prevailing wage laws emerged from a concern that cutthroat competition over wages in construction would lead the industry down a low-wage, low-skill development path. This was said to put the quality of construction at risk and lead to an itinerant, footloose, low-wage construction labor force. Poor construction workers would make poor neighbors and potential burdens on the community. Reasonably paid construction workers, on the other hand, held out the possibility of being solid neighbors, good citizens and productive members of the community. Government, by the operation of prevailing wage laws, was supposed to get out of the business of cutting government costs by cutting the wages of its citizens. Whatever labor standards had been established, whatever wages prevailed in a local community; that is what the law said government should pay on public works.
Hmm, so the goal is to make sure that good work is done, people are skilled and are paid enough to become economic participants in the community in which they live. The horror! So what was the conclusion of this analysis? (We know it’s an older study, but it’s still relevant):
A “here-and-there” linear regression model was developed to estimate the effect of prevailing wage regulations on total construction costs for schools, controlling for other factors. This model controlled for the type of school, the size of the project, and building characteristics. It also controlled for general differences in construction costs between states with and without prevailing wage laws and general differences between the cost of public and private construction (whether or not done under prevailing wage regulations). Controlling for these factors, this model could find no statistically significant impact on total construction costs due to prevailing wage requirements.
In comparison with states that did not have these laws, there was no statistical difference. Now, in the study, it did show that there was an increase for high schools as compared to elementary and middle, mostly because they are bigger and more complicated structures and therefore take longer to build.
We are quite aware that Frederick High’s construction costs are well over the estimate. And yes, some of that cost is due to the fact that in the original estimate this wage increase was not factored in. But that is not a reason to fight the prevailing wage law. We need to have the governorrelease our funds. And perhaps we need more help from the State in general when it comes to school construction. The answer does not lie in a cheap labor force. It never does.
We will leave you with this nice poster that we got from our Republican Rebel friends:
Good Monday to you, Yokels! In the Frederick News Post this morning we have a nice report on the panel that met yesterday. The League of Women Voters had County Council President Bud Otis, Chair of the Ethics Task Force Linda Norris-Waldt and Ethics Commission Chair Brian Duncan come together. The topic? The new ethics recommendations.
We need to pause here because we are so happy we could cry. Here we have an elected official, a member of a task force, and the head of a government commission all in one place to discuss and answer questions about the new ethics recommendations with the public. It makes us want to run through a meadow of daisies to know that the dark days of the previous BOCC are over. No longer will our concerns be ignored or our emails answered with a snarky reply. (Why didn’t we save those?!)
Hold on there kitty cat! The new recommendations still have to pass!
Anyway, back to the panel. Bud had this to say:
“We have nothing to hide,” Otis said. “We’re going to have an ethics ordinance. I’m going to fight for it and I believe there’s enough members of the council who feel the same way.”
We hope so, Bud! The council needs to come together to write a good, solid ethics ordinance so we don’t have the problems of the past. Those who are still upset about Kirby not getting his contracts should ask themselves this: why didn’t Kirby wait until the new recommendations came out to ask for an opinion? Why did he feel the need to get his opinion so quickly? After all, he had not been able to bid on contracts for the last four years (does anyone remember any uproar then?), so why the rush? We would like to see the County Council take one of Kirby’s suggestions under consideration. The appointment of this board needs to be as independent as it can be. If not, we are in for years and years of partisan accusations.
Now, these recommendations are not a done deal just yet.
Otis said during the panel Sunday that he takes ethics very seriously. It’s likely that not everyone on the council is in support of the bill giving the ethics commission more powers, he said, so he stressed that people in the community need to come out to the public hearing to voice their support for the changes.
Click here to send an email to the County Council. Or better yet show up at the hearing. We know we are in danger of really getting sappy with this post today; however, we have a thank you we must make. To those of you who “accidentially” voted for Mr. Otis because you thought he was going to continue the status quo, a heartfelt thank you. We will fully admit that we couldn’t see through our partisan haze to give him a shot. Live and learn!
Folks, we linked to a story that may not have been entirely true (and if that is the case, that’s good news for Walkersville). We of the Local Yokel are not reporters, not staffed to do all our own fact checking, and quite honestly do not wish to be in the reporting business ourselves.
One of our main objectives is to call attention to things, sometimes a bit obnoxiously, in order to drive traffic to local news sources so that our readers will be better informed. In order for this to work in our favor, we have to be able to rely on our news sources. We would not intentionally misrepresent anyone’s character or community, and do not wish to propagate inaccurate information. Ever.
To get Rev. Philip Curran’s perspective on the matter at hand, please see the Frederick News Post’s article. Our post linking to the story has been removed from the fredericklocalyokel blog site and our social media pages.
Reading Political Notes yesterday (September 18, 2015) in the Frederick News Post, there was a part that caught my attention.
Chmelik, who has been vocal at council meetings about his frustration in not being able to get information or meet with staff, gave one specific example. He wanted to meet with Dr. Barbara Brookmyer, the county’s health officer, to talk about Planned Parenthood, according to emails he shared with The Frederick News-Post. That meeting was denied.
First of all–I know I was wondering so much after I saw this that I contacted the Health Department–Frederick County does not provide funding to Planned Parenthood. It may come as a surprise as well, particularly since there were a bunch of people out in front of the local office showing everybody and their dog (and children) grotesque posters the other weekend, that the Planned Parenthood in Frederick does not perform abortions, either. Attention people with gruesome posters: my elder child would be terrorized by a photo of a paper cut, which is still upsetting and has nothing to do with anyone’s moral opinions. Please take that mess somewhere else. Thanks.
And this leads me to a very personal tale, and one that I don’t generally go around telling. I think it is important to share, though, because we hear endlessly about the evils of Planned Parenthood (3% of their services include providing abortions). Family planning is a very private matter, and we don’t always want to come out and explain our private choices in public. Our private sexual history is also usually in the TMI category, and not always easy to reveal for the sake of rational discourse. But, here goes nothing. When I was 19 years old, back when birth control was not covered by anyone’s insurance (no matter where they worked) I went into a Planned Parenthood and got a year’s worth of birth control pills for $17. I have never had an unintended pregnancy. I owe this in part to the assistance Planned Parenthood provided me.
I realize that this confessional is coming from the perspective of my days as a young fornicator, so some will find it appropriate to judge me. Consider this, though. The young gentleman who drove me to that appointment, where I also received my first pelvic exam and a bag of condoms, is on this very day my spouse of 17 years (there’s a joke in here somewhere about $17/years of marriage…but I’m too serious today to flesh that out). I want to interrupt this testimonial to say happy anniversary to my best friend, because I think that’s relevant. I love him. We have two beautiful children and a wonderful life. We have packed 17 years full of adventures together, and I look forward to many more of those. I do thank Planned Parenthood for their hand in this, on a regular basis, and with a check in the mail. If we had been unable to plan our families and our lives just so, the stress of being parents when we were psychologically or financially ill-prepared may have jeopardized our marriage. We may not even have the beautiful children and amazing family that we have today. Although we were young and not yet married at the time, many married women have also been able to plan families and have a healthy sexual relationship with their spouse without fear of having a baby they were unready to welcome.
Not really…I was never *that* easy. I actually told everyone I was going to marry him from the moment I met him. It was maybe a little pathetic. But I won, didn’t I!?
Plus, since I like to be silly more than serious here, did y’all see that the whiz-banging engineers at NASA had some significant troubles calculating how many tampons Sally Ride might need to have available? Maybe the men-folk should stay out of the lady parts regulation.
Whew. I am relieved we haven’t decided to put by-lines on this thing yet.
Last night, while watching the HBO miniseries “Show Me A Hero”, I was reminded of the Profiles in Courage Award. (Side note: If you haven’t watched this miniseries yet, you should. It makes our County Council seem tame by comparison). In this series, the main character was nominated for this prestigious award because he passed legislation to follow the federal mandate to build more public housing. Many citizens of Yonkers, NY were violently against having any type of public housing in their neighborhood. In this case, the nominee was doing the right thing because he had to. The weight of the U.S. Government was coming down on him.
I decided to go to the website and look up the criteria for this award and here’s what I found:
In Profiles in Courage, President Kennedy told the stories of eight United States senators who risked their careers by standing up for particular ideals or principles, even when constituents or powerful interest groups pressured them to bend.
Today, elected officials are too often captives to opinion polls, reluctant to act in the broader public interest when it means taking unpopular courses of action or offending powerful groups. The Profile in Courage Award honors modern-day elected officials who govern for the greater good, even when it is not in their own interest to do so. The award celebrates individuals who choose the public interest over partisanship – who do what is right, rather than what is expedient.
Award Criteria
Ordinarily, the award will be made to living Americans who are or were elected officials.
Individuals at all levels of government—federal, state and local—are eligible for the award.
Emphasis will be placed on contemporary acts of political courage.
On occasion, in rare and special circumstances, awards have been made to foreign officials.
Who do we know here in Frederick who might fit this bill? Who withstood a vicious attack from an outside lobbying group, and still endures, from what we hear, really ugly email attacks (someone want to submit a PIA on that?), and has remained calm in the face of opposition from his own party? That’s right, this guy:
ProEnglish, The Tea Party, and fellow Republican members of the County Council can’t sway this guy from doing the right thing.
After all Bud went through over the repeal of the English Language ordinance I think he at least deserves a nomination, don’t you? If you agree, please consider following thislink to the online nomination form. It’s short I promise. So short, in fact, that you have to keep your reasons for nominating him down to 512 characters (that’s right characters, not words). You also have to submit publicity about the act of courage. That also must be kept down to 512 characters. Here’s a couple of news stories from the Frederick News Post to help you out:
The results of last week’s poll are in. Any surprises?
This week we thought it would be fun to come up with some remedial courses to help a Council Member be better at his/her job. We’d like you to cast your vote for which course would be most beneficial to #Kirby Delauter in reforming his ways.
Hello Local Yokel fans! We didn’t think this would be a very long meeting, but hey, why do we underestimate people’s ability to waste large amounts of time on personal vendettas? Sometimes I think we should watch our neighboring counties’meetings to see if they are anything like ours. Truly curious to know if we are unique. Anyone with any knowledge of this please comment.
If you were following our drinking gameyou had to take a shot of the usual right out of the gate. And then blah, blah, blah, Billy abstains from the agenda. (Doesn’t that mean he should abstain from having any input on anything on that agenda?) Let’s move on to Budget Transfers:
Listen to the baby possum Kirby!
Everything is going smoothly. Kirby says he has a question on BT-16-051, a project for the Public Works Division. The nice fellas from this division sit at the table expecting an actual question. For those of you who are parents, do you remember when your kids were young (or perhaps they are still at this age) and someone would ask them if they had any questions? Instead of actually having a question, which of course your child insisted that they did, it’s just a story or an observation. Well, that’s what happened here. Instead of asking them anything, Kirby goes on about some previous project (one that it turns out he wanted to bid on), making some point that we really can’t follow about the bids being over the engineer’s estimate and he swears it’s a comparison. The nice fella tells Kirby that he’s only prepared to talk about this project and does he actually have a question. The answer to that is no, just an observation. So why did you make them get up and come to the table Kirby? Billy abstains on all of the budget transfers, we know yawn!
Confirmation of County Executives Appointments. All pass.
Ethics discussion. Read this nice article in the FNP today that breaks down the changes the panel is suggesting the council make. Predictably, Kirby has something to say about it. He wants to know why we have a commission if the County Executive is going to override it. It’s a complete waste of time in his mind. The only difference being that now 71% of the board can now resign in protest. Billy isn’t much better when he tries to make a point about the quorum. Now 3 out of the 5 have to show up. This change will make it so that 4 out of 7 will make a quorum. That’s one more person than before, Billy points out. Mathias tries to explain to him that there will be more people on the board and that this really isn’t a point that he wants to get mired down in. (We hear ya!) After this, some good discussion from just about everyone takes place. What about having the commission members appointed by an independent body? That’s worth discussing. But then Tony takes it in a different direction and tries to reject the entire bill promising that he will sponsor it in the future. That motion is defeated. There will be county workshop on this on October 6th and a future public hearing. If you have any input on this be sure to contact the council before that date.
A break was put on the agenda to reconvene at 7:00. Billy doesn’t like that he has to twiddle his thumbs until then. Which could be a valid point if Bud could reasonably predict how long the first half of the meeting will take. But since he can’t……(Actually Billy’s last parting shot was: “Well let’s not make any decisions like that again.” Nice, huh?)
After Billy sat in his office twiddling his thumbs for an hour and a half, the council reconvened to take up two public hearings.
The first was concerning the bill to amend the Water, Sewers and Sewage Disposal code:
Remember during the first reading of this bill when Billy said the government shouldn’t collect small fines? Well, poor kitty cat took him literally.
This bill is to fine people $250 for taking water from hydrants.Last time Billy said the county shouldn’t take people to court to collect small fines because it wasn’t fiscally sound. And tonight he reiterated that notion by saying $250 is not enough to stop offenders. So is he advocating for making the fine larger? There’s some discussion of the WSSC method of giving contractors a meter, which is not feasible for the way we do things. Especially since our water and sewer department doesn’t have the manpower. Kirby has some reasonable questions here. This is the Kirby we wish we could see all the time. And the fine representative from this department is more than prepared to answer them. We like good questions. Not observations not so subtlety masked as complaints. Bill is moved on.
Next up is discussion of the expansion of the MedImmune facility. We will leave you with this article if you want to read more. Very ably presented by Helen and Company. Passed as well, with only Billy saying no.
Public comment was only two fellas this evening. Steve McKay gave a very informative comment about his take on the ethics law. (Can we see the power point Steve?) And hopefully his comments will be taken seriously.
Another commenter asked the council to look into some building code violations that were going to jeopardize his solar panel business. And we have to say we love how respectfully this man was treated. Let’s keep that level of respect going!
And now…Council Member comments.
So it’s not a surprise to any of us that Kirby and Tony are against the prevailing wage. And that they are encouraging the public to attend Delegate Afzali’s meeting tonight. But we’ve said enough about that so let’s move on.
Billy. If only Thor had sent down a thunderbolt to knock out the power, then we could have been spared this last bit of nonsense. Billy wants it to be known that Paul and Blaine were not issued their proper engraved invitations to sit before the dais of the county council. How could they have known when to come? (David Gray somehow figured it out.) Billy wants to make a change to the record so it’s known to one and all that they were not invited. He gets into a verbal back and forth with Chomel, who tells him that council member comments are not about making motions. But somehow it happens anyway. But not before Jerry Donald gives Billy a good dressing down as to how their presence before the council would not have made a difference. And, Jerry continues, the council didn’t ask for this issue, it was given to them and they need to make the best decision based on the record not what was going on in Paul and Blaine’s heads. Billy’s motion fails. As do we all when our time is wasted so egregiously.
frederick local yokel 