In case you are new here, every year Kirby comes up with “fat” that we can trim from the budget (also Tony and Billy, but mostly Kirby) in the form of unicorn and rainbows amendments. He proposes a bunch of stuff without knowing really what this money does or what happens when we take it away. Like today when we tried to cut the money for library staff at Walkersville and Myersville. Oopsie-daisy-dummy. (Failed) Sometimes he has to pull his own amendments because he didn’t know what they were. Weird how that happens.
Just as long as you don’t become the County Executive, do whatever.
We breezed onto the scene right about the time Billy tried to suspend the rules and let The Yellow T-Shirt Brigade take over. We expected shenanigans and malarkey, because Billy was involved, but in reality this was the Career Firefighters’ Association, and their presence there and contributions everywhere are very much appreciated by Local Yokels and all of our friends everywhere. We are very pleased that our assumptions are wrong, because they were somewhat dark, based upon Billy’s Twitter feed and the black hole of intellect that can drag a yokel into. On the upside, Billy Shreve’s State Senate page only has 35 likes, so we may be free of his torment soon.
Something like this scene occurred (text transcript)
Kirby just got petulant because they don’t want to cut $$ for MET to go do theater programs at schools with high percent FARM (that’s free and reduced meals, if you don’t know the lingo) lunch kids because they had no problem voting down a quarter mil for Classical Charter.
Man, oh man. Even the broken sidewalk budget cuts are part of the historical record! (Tonight Kirby explained that he had made a handshake deal with the mayor of Emmitsburg and he’s going to split the cost of the sidewalk repairs. M.C. was as uncomfortable as we would have been not knowing whether or not Mr. Mayor had agreed to this, but Jerry counseled that it was Kirby’s D and if he didn’t want to fix the sidewalks one way or the other, that would be his problem in the end. So fine. That all works out spiffy.)
But enough about Kirby, because Tony Chmelik got in a complete snit over $45,000 for an administration position in the Office of Economic Development. Since they’ve been doing a grand old job, even though they haven’t filled a position, but have needed to for four years, it’s obviously fine to continue overworking people there who are covering that shift, so to speak. Surely nobody who is doing extra work all the damn time will find a new job where they don’t have to put up with that. Right, Billy and Kirby? Suggestion: you volunteer your time, just like teachers do when they are grading and planning and documenting after school and on weekends, and sacrifice pay for being useless human bookends to the council since you apparently earn money for other things that you do in life. The pay of two marginally sentient council persons will cover one administrator in the OED. Problem solved! Also, tons of egregious mansplaining from Tony Chmelik here. The Lady Yokels felt that Helen Propheter was a particular heroine tonight, because who wants to be treated like that IN PUBLIC for their job? Nobody. Billy and Kirby also had “contributions” to this discussion in the form of: won’t we need to build all the houses you keep telling us to stop approving? NO. The answer is no. Some people already live here and could work closer to home, and would even like that. Question: what if we just made Jefferson TECH Park make the leap from fiction to nonfiction?
Jessica is a hero tonight, over and over again. Every time Kirby and Tony tried to snip, snap the budget she jumped in, diplomatically, like an excellent teacher, to guide them toward the information showing that they are so very, very wrong. For all her hard work this evening we present her the following award:
We are also happy to report that Bud landed on the side of county employees by helping to defeat Kirby and Tony’s austerity amendments. Nice to see you back on the team, Bud!
Not one but two friends of the Yokel have alerted us to a campaign mailer sent out by our favorite council member who is running for County Executive. If you get what appears to be a tax notice, it might actually be a solicitation for a donation.
Really???
Here is the enclosed letter.
It sounds like he has a plan for Senior Tax Credits. We aren’t going to fixate on that right now. We remember that Kirby and Jerry had dueling bills for senior tax credits and they were supposedly working together to revise their bills into one bill. We aren’t sure what happened with that cooperation. But what about his statement that he will reduce property taxes? The property rate has not been raised! If you saw an increase it was because the value of your home increased. Is he really going to reduce your rate or is he going to ensure that property values all over the county drop if he is elected? So much for straight talk there. He can say he is going to roll back taxes all he wants, but it won’t be to reduce a recent increase.
Next, Kirby is going back to his favorite soapbox of a public-private partnership to build schools. This course of action was not adopted by the current council because in the end it is hugely a more expensive option to build our schools. Remember or remind yourself of the detailshere.
Kirby’s pledge to continue to take a stand against illegal immigrants is just bluster. We are not a sanctuary city or county and he is just fear mongering. What specific harmful and dangerous policies is he talking about? We have tried to figure this out before and we aren’t the onlyones.
We really think Kirby should change his motto. Straight Talk/Straight Answers seems to encompass the opposite of his actions thus far on the council. We have no hope that he will change his ways if elected County Executive.
Loquacious lecturing Tony Chmelik–imagine our surprise when we fret that Shrelauter will muck things up, and then he takes the reins. He got into orator mode again this week, and man we can do without the Tony with a condescending tone schtick. Sighhhh.
There was long discussion of the River Board process, which had Councilman Chmelik frustrated with the time these things take and the lack of television air time, but the bulk of his grievances centered on County Executive Jan Gardner’s public briefing last week regarding the school capacity report and traffic study. And he wrote and delivered an exhausting, pompous speech on the matter, in lieu of discussing like a normal person.
Jessica Fitzwater criticized him for wanting to spend additional taxpayer dollars to find something that reached conclusions he agreed with, and after listening to him complain about money already spent and tiresome, lengthy processes, it was hard not to see her point. He had some great ideas in there, though, such as how it would be inaccurate to assume all the houses would actually be sold (????). We find that kind of funny coming from someone with as large a family as he has. Why didn’t the report assume families of twelve would move into every one of those homes? We can come at this from both sides, dude. It also bugged him out that increasing costs of construction weren’t factored in, and isn’t that shooting yourself in the foot, if you want to say maybe we don’t need to plan for big expenses? We have a confuse.
At any rate, that finally ended (if you’d like to know more, the Frederick News Post has a good run down that won’t make you want to stab yourself in the ears; we cannot recommend actually exposing yourself to the archives of this meeting) and they went into closed session. Chmelik helpfully acknowledged during Council Member Comments that we had probably heard enough from him. Hoo-boy. Truer words never spoken.
And then, apparently national laughingstock Kirby Delauter wanted to take it outside with Jerry Donald over that meme someone made with Jerry spanking Kirby. We’ll put it in here for educational purposes, since he’s opened the door to that (genius!), and ICYMI. It’s in reference to Jerry Donald using his social media account to publicize the inaccuracy of Kirby’s assertions that the Democrats on the Council are planning to make Frederick a sanctuary county. How dare he insist Misleading Push-Poll and Fake News Employer Kirby stick to the facts. This caused Kirby to (allegedly) call him another name for a trendy pink knitted lady hat, approximately one time for each woman who attended that march, it sounds like. He wants Jerry Donald to monitor his Facebooking more closely, which is beyond hilarious, considering the source. Maybe Kirby should worry about the damage he does with his own Facebook account. Or lippy outbursts.
Did we think this was worth using? Not that much, really. Now that the context has changed? Yes, yes it is.
A Miner Detail spoke with Delauter, who claims that M.C. Keegen-Ayer and Jerry Donald just want to make the council look foolish–an assertion that causes us to hoot in side-spitting, knee slapping laughter, given the dedication he has to looking like a fool all by his own self.
Do you know what? Billy Shreve wasn’t even worth mentioning. That’s how bad all this was!
Your Local Yokels are staring in disbelief at our televisions again this morning, for what seems like infinite mornings at this point. Every once in awhile some dolt’s irresponsible shrieking about “Rain Tax” worms it’s way into our consciousness and turns into a rage supernova. Just as it did a moment ago, when CNN showed an arial view from the 1950’s of the Addicks Reservoir west of Houston. This is a picture of the dry reservoir that normally serves as a park, with vast farmland property to the northwest of that. Then they showed a photo of today, where hundereds of thousands of closely packed homes and the network of roads and driveways and patios create an impermeable surface nightmare that overwhelms the flood control system. This is clearly a catastrophe of historic proportions, but the situation is not helped by the lack of policy and regulation, and conditions that coddle developers over residents. Things that Houston and Texas both are famous for. This is what happens when you have irresponsible, unchecked development and ignorance of the mitigating solutions. For now, the solution is to produce controlled flooding of properties downstream (including the downtown area) in the hopes that the levees there and at a second reservoir under similar strain do not catastrophically fail all at once, and create a much more destructive and dangerous condition.
This situation is not nearly over. In our region we typically deal with inconvenient storms that you can plow and shovel and move and sometimes relocate and dump and melt. Here we see a virtually flat city inundated, and people have been lost to both rising and rushing waters that are far more difficult to control. Due to our landscape, flood waters can also come at us rushing downhill. The fact that anyone around here ever behaved as though this is a strain on developers ignores the strain on life and property for potential victims. Let this be an ongoing lesson to those who may want to turn on the television and reexamine their priorities. The average annual rainfall in most of Maryland is only a few inches different from the norm for the Texas Gulf Coast.
In the meantime, do what you can to help Texas and now Louisiana, as Harvey continues to hammer them.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLLLLLLLL look what we found before we published! You fool. It’s used to justify it because the facts check out. Your pal Fred Propheter is correct–proper planning (including funding mitigating drainage systems to handle the water) is necessary. You have to pay for that somehow! Now we get to tag Kirby Delauter and the CE race in this. Well played, social media treasure trove! You be you!
The layers of this onion are as swollen and pregnant as John Donne’s flea.
What meanest thou, dim hashtag? It could be argued that this writer believes in deriding the elites of the tech world, in spite of the irony that those individuals make so many of the dollars that help keep the economy from sucking like a flea. A descendant theory holds that it is mere ambivalence to the U.S. stock market and its investors. Whatever the intent, this collection of loaded imagery calls the reader to remember the author’s relationship to the ironic tension created through his advocacy of the tech free Jefferson Tech Park.
The prevailing scholars at present concur that Delauter is implying #fakenews, and the statement “we don’t need them any longer,” must be interpreted as an insistence that the only news others should read is the propaganda disseminated via Facebook videos Trump’s minions produce, the Increasingly Nuclear Twitter War Tweets of POTUS himself, and retweets from members of his “intellectual” coterie. One notable local member is Councilman Billy Shreve. This is a device one will see frequently employed within the wing nut genre: by employing a heavily loaded allusion, such as the one to Soros, his reader is immediately aware of the team he plays for. It is critical for the writer convey that he is not on the team of reason and science and engineering and physics, dear readers. His allegiance is to #teamcovfefe, also referred to in texts as A Basket of Gullibles.
As to which interpretation is the writer’s intended one, readers may also determine that the answer is most like Sarah Palin’s news sources: all of them, Katie!
You guys. Kirby has a T-shirt ostensibly intended to allow firefighters to show support for his campaign, and we cannot wait for you see it! It says, “Extinguish bad government/Vote Kirby Delauter” and depicts a flame throwing fire extinguisher…um…torching everything in sight. Now, we are not professional fire fighters, but we are pretty sure that isn’t how you put out fires.
Doesn’t it have a blowtorch effect? My oh my, this is too much fun. It gives that flow chart a run for its money on giggle fit potential.
It is poignant, y’all. What a master of symbolism. We had no idea of the fertile artistic mind operating behind that basic dude/common clay image. Accidental brilliance. What could better represent the unintended consequences that would result from voting for this dingdong. Way to fan the flames, man!
Another fun thing we’ve noticed is that he is taking pictures of random individuals. Individuals. Then he tags them with some category. Say Kirby bumps into Joe the Plumber at the carnival, right? And Joe, who you may have heard is a plumber, is apparently feeling kindly toward Kirby, who <<waves wand, a la peanut butter and jelly sandwiches>> becomes a movement like Plumbers for Kirby. So much for his English degree. That’s not how singular and plural work, but better luck next time.
May this campaign never end. It is such a delightful diversion from our national nightmare. However, we do notice that Women for Kirby has 117 likes, and like Hair Furor’s approval rating, that is too many. Don’t get carried away here, people.
Those are the RINOs? Wowza. Kirby’s on well water, right? I hope whatever is poisoning his kooky noggin is not affecting the rest of us. Aside: 52 Followers? Good luck with your campaign #52. And best of all a parody account from back in the “Don’t put my name in the paper without permission” days has 10 times as many. Oh, man.
Apparently Trump is the ne plus ultra. What must it be like to live in this delusional world where the kooky president did nothing to promote his own party’s bill, one time said this was easy and we’d have healthcare for all–obviously before he mused, “Who knew healthcare was so complicated?” Apply the magical thinking sauce, and he’s somehow the only one who isn’t at fault. Trump is the head of a nuttier cult than the Scientologists. Honestly, we still can’t understand how a man who says whatever pops into his brain (ineloquently) and contradicts himself from one day to the next has the respect of anyone. On the other hand, we haven’t been out there entertaining the idea that #kirbydelauter was a misunderstood genius, either.
Obviously, Kirby the wannabe is well positioned to respect someone who is successfully using every opportunity for the government to line his pockets by putting everyone up at a family owned property at the many opportunities afforded to do so by his impressive golfing breaks from his cable news diet. Cue sad trombone for the excavator who wished in vain to get county contracts, but the council said, “No no no,” like good ol Amy Winehouse.
Just yesterday a poll said about a third of the Trumpin’ cohort don’t believe DJT Junior met with the Ruskies, in spite of the fact that we know because he told us he did! How are we supposed to live in a society with these fools? Let’s not see this one elected to County Executive. We’re not too proud to beg.
The Frederick Extra’s gossip column, Extra Buzz, is infused with weapons grade WTF today. Why not just share the link? Well, the Facebook algorithm makes it so that you are more likely to see this post, so we are making a quick shooter. Please visit the Extra page for the real deal.
Afzali is still running her obviously verboten fundraiser for a campaign she apparently may or may not be running.
More ridiculously, there’s a story about Afzali spreading notes around the Delegates building in her quest to best Kirby. Del. Afzali, you are too old for this nonsense. Irrefutable proof: making paper notes to promote an online poll!
Oh, that was funny, Frederick Extra. We ❤ U!
.And there’s a nugget of “whut? whyyyyyyy?” tainting the city with the dumb aroma of Billy Shreve thanks his role in the Republican Central Committee. Our readers will not want to miss it.
Your Lady Yokels have been enthralled by the drama unfolding this evening. It all started when Frederick County Fact Check pointed us in the direction of Kathy Afzali’s post:
We are a little alarmed that we finally agree with Delegate Afzali on something! You see, Kirby did some kind of push poll that got Kathy all in a tizzy. So much so that she had to bring Hillary Clinton into the mix! Former county commissioner and Kirby cheerleader, Blaine Young, was not going to sit by and let Kathy rip Kirby apart like this!
Holy Crap! Did Kathy really go to Kirby’s house and offer him a job?! It’s a little premature for that, isn’t it? We also have to note that Blaine must be some kind of elitist. How else would you explain his praise for Kirby rejecting county health insurance and a pension? For it seems as though he believes that only the wealthy should be allowed to serve in public office.
We thought it was over and then we saw this sponsored post in our feed!
The way these people throw around the word liberal!!! It’s really something! Buckle up folks we are in for a bumpy ride!
We are sure you’ve heard that Kirby wants Jan’s job. He’s oh so sure he could do better than she. However, considering the fact that he’s never submitted legislation during his time on the council, that he was Blaine’s lap dog during his tenure on the BOCC, and that he constructed the most indecipherable flowchart in the history of forever, we are just a tad bit skeptical. It appears that many others are as well. Check out the comment section on the FNP article about his announcement. Where’s the love folks?!
Kirby released this statement to both the paper and the Facebook world:
We’ve been following our dear friend Kirby for a number of years now, and we can tell you with 100% certainty this ain’t his style! Especially the last paragraph in which he sings the praises of the talented and educated people of Frederick County!! And let’s not jump ahead of ourselves with that future County Executive nonsense! There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance.
Need some proof that Kirby, in an attempt to turn a kinder, gentler leaf, now has a ghost writer? Scroll away!
Oh you complete bumbling fool. This was not your shining moment, just like your idiot president.
Who is acting like the Pharaoh of Frederick County now?
BFFs raring to go for the Trump rally! Ain’t they cute?
Now that is the # we all know and…well…tolerate!!! Please, don’t try and repackage yourself Kirby, we all have your number already!
frederick local yokel 