Thank Billy It’s Friday!

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We here at Frederick Local Yokel cannot get one day off from Billy’s antics! Not one! Soon we are going to have to submit an overtime notice to his office, because really it is becoming all too much. What did he do now? Well just look:

lawyerletter blur

We will blur out these documents since the county says they are confidential.
We will blur out these documents since the county says they are confidential.

 

On his public Councilman Billy Shreve Facebook page he decided to publish both the invoice and letter that the county received from Aurora. Even though we don’t agree with Billy’s opinion on this matter we don’t see anything wrong with him hashing out his opinion on the radio or in the newspaper or even on television. But we have to think that some line has been crossed when he posts documents addressed to the county on his Facebook page. Documents that could eventually be a part of a lawsuit, documents that are not even addressed to him, documents that the county says are confidential. According to the Code of Ethics he is supposed to abide by, we see many possible violations. For example: Avoid activities, which would compromise or give the perception of compromising the best interest of the employer. Or perhaps this one: Avoid the appearance of unethical or compromising practices in relationships, actions and communications. There are many more so please look at the code for yourself. Whether Billy likes it or not he represents Frederick County and no matter his feelings on this particular issue, he should really take more care as to what he posts on his Facebook page.

This week in radio appearances…

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First we must start with a complaint! We have had to listen to WFMD three times this week! We were subjected to propaganda such as: ” Fox News, we report you decide” and some odd PSA about how you are the worst parent in the world if you allow your graduating senior to go to beach week. We want you to know what we go through for you, our gentle readers.

Let us begin with yesterday’s phone in appearance by Blaine Young on the Bob Miller show. Martyr Blaine is very, very upset about some things. First of all, he begins with, “Every deal that has my name on it is a bad deal for the citizens of Frederick County.” Well, duh. And then after repeating this platitude goes on to say, “Plain and simple, in this day and age the last thing the county needs to be in is the nursing home business.” He then repeats this for all you idiots who didn’t understand him the first time. Bob Miller, helpfully points out that technically we are still in the nursing home business if we are paying for the 58 indigent residents that were there at the time of this deal. To which Blaine said that it’s only for a little while and the government doesn’t know what it’s doing and it’s a horrible center and money, money, money. But here’s the kicker. Jan you need to get over Blaine! Stop texting, calling and blaming everything on him! He’s moved on gosh darn it! Why can’t you let him be!? We must give a shout out to Bob Miller. At the end of the interview Blaine told Bob that he is soliciting funds for his new Presidential Library. Bob responds, ” What’s it going to have in it? Two comic books? I didn’t even know you could read!” We were shocked as well. And it’s really funny to make fun of people who actually like to read. Hilarious!

I never learned to read

So, last night we were helpfully alerted to the fact that Billy was going to make yet another appearance on Bob’s morning show. First, it’s at 7:20, then no it’s 8:20 but he didn’t actually make it on until 8:36. So there’s 16 minutes of our life lost forever! All kidding aside we do appreciate some of the push back that Bob has given Billy over this whole Aurora scandal. He once again asked Billy why he never contacted Jan directly. Billy says he didn’t need to, he contacted the lawyers. Bob points out that she may have been able to explain to him her reasoning for withholding the next payment to which Billy replied, ” I don’t think if she explained it the results would be any different. The process is the process.” We feel the same way. There are no words that Jan could have used that would have gotten through to him. NONE. So it was much of the same re-hashing of his appearance earlier in the week. But at the end Billy tells us the real reason he came on the radio. He claims the residents were calling Aurora concerned they were going to be kicked out. Even though both Aurora and Jan have publicly announced this would not be the case. He doesn’t care about Aurora, no siree Bob, only our poor residents.

Well, well, well, that is certainly news to us. But we have a very specific question. Billy and Blaine both claim that the poor residents of Frederick County will still be allowed to use the nursing home, with county funds, if need be. However, this clause in the Continued Care agreement :

IV. FUTURE INDIGENT CARE. In addition to Aurora’s continuing care obligation for the subsidized MALF residents required, above, after leasing CCRC’s Facility Business Assets and Real Property as defined in the Asset Purchase Agreement Aurora shall accept new assisted living residents requiring financial assistance, to the extent MALF beds are available, provided County agrees to pay, and continue to pay, Aurora’s full private pay amount in place at the time of each admission. The County’s commitment to fund these additional MALF residents must be reflected in a separate written agreement between Aurora and the County shall not be required or inferred by any provision of this Agreement.

leaves us with this question: If Aurora fills up all the beds, can they turn the indigent away? No where in this clause, or in the agreement itself, is there any requirement that a certain number of beds be set aside for this purpose. So it seems as though the county has left a nice loophole for Aurora to get out of providing care if they should happen to fill all their beds up. If that is the case, I believe we will have to side with Jan that it’s a bad deal for Frederick County.

What in the Sam Hill is Shreve doing?

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We’re hardly the first ones out in cyberspace taking note that Little Billy was in an “I’m not gonna” (hurumph) mood at the council meeting yesterday evening. The pressing question is why he wants to pee in Chmelik and Delauter’s tea like that? With 3 Democrats and 4 Republicans on the council, it’s a close race. One of those Republicans, Bud Otis, has shown that he is willing to work together as a team on behalf of the county (is it that he aspires to be reelected; what a weird thing for an At-Large representative to think on…but we digress). That leaves the tea block at 3, since as we heard (oh how we heard) Otis is a turn-coat. With Billy abstaining on his votes, that’s just 2 left. Goodness, if his grasp of first grade word problems is this bad, you think he’d be a more enthusiastic supporter of the local school system (no fair claiming he was the BOE liaison, we know he didn’t really participate in that either).

We hope this keeps up. Boy howdy. If the locals can’t have a sensible council member, we will take the next best thing: a nutty one who takes careful aim to shoot himself in the foot.

Benedict Arnold in our midst

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To hell with all traitors!
To hell with all traitors!

Who thought a local government meeting could be so informative? We have learned from some very brave citizens that we have a Benedict Arnold posing as the President of the Frederick County Council! We were not aware that a county council election was akin to an actual war, let alone a revolution. But apparently we were just being ignorant.

One very brave woman brought actual evidence to show us the error of our ways. Armed with an article from the Frederick News Post concerning the Grover Norquist tax pledge and campaign materials we were treated to quite the presentation. Apparently Bud Otis is a dishonest turncoat who doesn’t care about his legacy…and at his age?! Oh the outrage!

Apparently about five people are very upset that Bud Otis is not living up to his campaign promises. We are very confused because at the beginning of this very same meeting Shreve told us that Jan needed to stop campaigning and start governing. Maybe the rules only apply sometimes? Makes sense.

Anyway, we must put in our two cents here. We have been very pleasantly surprised at the leadership of Bud Otis. He has actually sat down with and listened to county employees and the county executive (the horror!).  He has been very polite and as far as we can tell has followed proper protocol at meetings. We must vehemently object to Bud being labeled a turncoat. A turncoat is someone who betrays their nation. Not someone who carefully considers the information before him and makes the most intelligent decisions based on that information. We are particularly amused at those who claim that Bud is rubber stamping all of Jan’s decisions. Agreement does not mean passive acceptance. And from what I could tell from the speakers last night they were mad because Bud was not a rubber stamp to Kirby, Billy and Tony’s motions. But maybe this is just another example of the rules only applying sometimes.

Sour grapes?

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This is how not to be civil.

The County Council voted to adopt a Code of Civility. This code, introduced by Jessica Fitzwater, will set a historical precedence for the expected conduct of council members and citizens coming before the council.

Respect is important and should define political actions. There should be no name calling and everyone should remember that body language counts as communication. Listen to all comments. Hearing all sides of an issue could change your opinion. Make sure if you state something as fact, that it is actually a verifiable fact and not opinion.

This sounds like common sense to us. Six council members voted Aye to adopt this. Councilman Shreve could only wonder why he wasn’t allowed to get time with staff to discuss the budget, yet Ms. Fitzwater (“I’m sure you didn’t draft this yourself”) could introduce this new legislation. He abstained from voting and asked how the code would be enforced and what penalties would there be for not complying. We can only surmise that he does not plan to play nicely in the sandbox. Gosh darn it. The budget is still an important issue and why can’t I just continue to have a tantrum since I didn’t follow proper procedure? It surely is someone else’s fault, and I’m not going to be civil about it.

Cinco de Loco

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So the beginning of the May 5th County Council meeting is off to a roaring start. Two local hero citizens addressed the board and told them (Kirby, Tony and Billy) to stop acting like babies, follow Robert’s rules of order and for the love of all that is good:COMPROMISE!

Well, Kirby “The Great Compromiser” Delauter was having none of that! He took Hero #1 to task and asked, “Did you not read my budget?” (See our coverage of that debacle)  All he does is try to compromise, why can’t you people see that?

That brings us to Billy. Billy was not pleased with Hero #2’s LTE in this past weekend’s newspaper and invited said misinformed citizen to meet with him privately. (Don’t do it Carl! It’s a trap!) He then went on to try to justify his vote to take money from the snow budget which took a terrible turn when the County Manager said, “I don’t see your point.” To which Billy replied, “I’ve made my point.” BAM! Take that all those who dare to conspire against Billy.

So then Billy refused to vote on ANYTHING. Not last meeting’s minutes and certainly none of Czar Jan’s appointments. We are really confused right now and hope to get to the rest of the meeting tomorrow to keep our dear readers informed.

He who must not be named…..

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Our resident Frederick County king of high drama is at it again! It all started last night with this post:

Side note: Why is he tagging Blaine Young? Does he still require his permission before acting?
Side note: Why is he tagging Blaine Young? Does he still require his permission before acting?

We here at Local Yokel could barely sleep last night wondering what on God’s green Earth could have Billy in such a state. Why the vaguebook post? And oh no, are we actually going to have to listen to WFMD?!

Well yes, we did. And it was horrid, but that’s  another tale for another time.  And here’s Billy’s let’s get this out on the wire news: Jan didn’t pay Aurora and a bunch of poor elderly patients are going to end up on the street. And how can Jan be such a big meanie and not care about these poor elderly patients who have no where else to go? I was lucky that I had just swallowed my coffee or I would have been out shopping for a new Ipad this afternoon. When morning host, Bob Miller, asks if he has talked to Jan, while flipping through his own Rolodex for her number that he knows he has somewhere, Billy says no but he tried to call the attorney and that jerk didn’t return his phone call.

So that appearance led to this press release:

Looks official!
Looks official!

At this point we are hazarding to guess that he still has not talked to Jan.  So, in order to answer these accusations, Jan holds a 3 p.m. press conference, where her anger towards he who must not be named is only nominally concealed.

During this press conference Jan informs the public that no one is in danger of being kicked out of Montevue or Citizens. In fact, their bill has been more than paid for until the end of the year.The money that Billy (and apparently the CEO of Aurora calls him whenever he has an issue) questioned is currently in escrow. Why? Because the county, the group of concerned citizens that sued the county, and Aurora are in private mediation over this matter. They sit down next month and at that time they will decide what their next step should be. The CEO was made aware of this, so it’s curious as to why he would call Billy, and no one was in danger of being out on the street. In fact, Jan says that the county has more than paid the bills of the indigent patients since Aurora over estimated the number of people in their care.

Throughout the conference, Jan refused to address Billy by name, instead referring to him as “a certain irresponsible council member”. She used the terms irresponsible and fear mongering to describe this whole charade.  We are left with a couple of questions about this whole situation. Why does the CEO of Aurora call Shreve when he has a question? And why the hell does Shreve care so much about them getting paid on time? We certainly know from his past record that it is NOT because he cares about what happens to the elderly people in our community.

Frederick & Blight: Oh, the drama

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Your local yokel bloggers take a particularly dismal view toward representatives addressing citizens as though they are interlopers squeaking an un-greased wheel. The whole reason we’re banging on keyboards is to make sure local issues get attention–blight in the city is a doozy–so we’ll accept a certain amount of responsibility for loudly barking into cyberspace. To the same tune, we have come to expect a certain degree of dismissive attitude from our county. We’ve typically seen better from The City of Frederick. City officials and Mayor McClement should avoid doing anything that appears like those guys (you know the ones we mean). It’s just unbearable, and it really gets us riled up. Do we need some letterhead for city residents to use as well? Just to be sure no one forgets this is all about working together for our community.

It sounds as though it is assumed that too few people care about blight in the city for it to be a major concern. I would have expected the city to notice that people interacting with the City of Frederick’s Blight Problem Facebook Page are concerned, even when they have not heard from them directly. If you had lived/worked/passed by the Asiana Property since 2001 when it closed (14 YEARS FOLKS) you would be beyond fed up, too.  Perhaps that subtlety has been lost. Although the Asiana property is most often highlighted, other specifics to chew on include :

“The Old Carmack Jay’s” is a meaningless descriptor to anyone who has lived here less than a decade or so.

Whatever that crumbling facade is next to Downtown Piano Works, it is a mess that is preventing the core of Frederick from truly taking off, considering its proximity to the “Square Corner.” With that amazing location, it is a real shame. Given the expense that has gone into creating the lovely Carroll Creek Linear Park, it is sad to see that bringing everything down. Worse, the sidewalk is never cleared after snow. At times it is extremely dangerous.

It is absolutely true that we should endeavor to be respectful in our interactions with our representatives. This is plain good sense, and it improves the probability that we will see our desired outcomes. But, we do know that old saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. A fourteen year old wheel needs lots and lots of grease. Keep it civil, locals. It is true that frustration gets people’s tempers going. City slickers, bear in mind that is a two way street.

Grease the wheel via Mayor McClement’s email address nbamonti@cityoffrederick.com

PSA: Look Y’all, Talk to Your Kids About Online Safety (Again)

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Today your Local Yokels are pleading with parents to talk to their young ‘uns about online safety. The news that a student at Windsor Knolls Middle School was caught distributing explicit material of herself and her high school friend is–well, really, it is hard to find succinct words for distressing news with so many facets to it. Far be it for a team of bloggers to come across as Luddites, but at times we all pine for the days when young people could not so easily make and distribute pornography in their free time. Not to mention look at it. Also, feeling nostalgia for the bygone days when doing something rebellious wasn’t necessarily so darn permanent or public…

There are many resources available for addressing this subject. If you need a shorter version: don’t take images of yourself that you wouldn’t show Mom and Dad. It may also be useful to discuss the news and say, “That must be humiliating to discuss with your teachers and principal and police officers. Best avoid that.” If anything positive can come of this, may it provide a good cautionary tale to start a conversation, whether for the first time, or to revisit.

And a quick note emphasizing how to empower kids against on-line bullying. Have them take the bull by the horns and shut down the account.

 

Let’s talk about realistic drug solutions…not fairy tales.

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We here at the Local Yokel have previously written our concerns regarding the Trout Run property being transformed into a drug treatment center by the deranged followers of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. Our friends over at “No Narconon at Trout Run” on Facebook supply a wealth of information about the dangers of Narconon and what Frederick County will inevitably be in for if they are allowed to set up shop here. However, unlike some of our county council members, we don’t want to just say no, no, no without talking about some real solutions.

So being a thinking sort of people, we would like to discuss the positive efforts that have been put forth to combat the very real drug problem that we have here in Frederick County. In yesterday’s Frederick News Post we were delighted to learn of a partnership between the Frederick Police  and the Frederick County Health Department. In a pilot program scheduled to begin June 1st, the two departments will work together to pair a recovery coach with an addict. Most of these recovery coaches have overcome a similar addiction and will be made available to help an addict regain control of their lives. We enthusiastically applaud any and all efforts by our governmental agencies when working together to make our community a better place to live.

We would also like to see recovery and treatment programs based on scientifically proven methods open their doors in our fair county. The work of Dr. Lance Dodes is a great place to start. The treatment of drug addiction is as individual as the addict. We need to have a wide variety of PROVEN treatments available to our neighbors who suffer from addiction, not ones that are preying on our most vulnerable citizens in an effort to make them a part of their alien fairy tale.

In closing, we would like to make our readers aware of the Town Hall Meeting scheduled to take place on Thursday, May 28th at 6:00:

It's curious that we don't see Narconon or Scientology anywhere on this list.
It’s curious that we don’t see Narconon or Scientology anywhere on this list.

Yes, let’s talk about solutions. Real ones.