Yup. Hang on to your hats, locals, it’s gonna be a crazy ride to follow this one.
Political notes in the FNP today (Sept. 11, 2015) has struck irony gold. Shreve has filed a PIA request to find out what he could simply ask Bud Otis about. The topic is what he believes to be a super secret deal trying to make the Monrovia Town Center development age-restricted. This would spread out the traffic concentration to different times of day maybe, and not stretch the schools any farther than they are now–not a terrible idea, really!
What is just knee-slapping hilarity is that Billy seized on the idea that they could just make MTC age restricted during the council discussion last meeting. That would be the one about what the heck they were going to be able to do to alleviate the FACT letter taint (Mr. Smith and his dumb letter writing: will he learn?). Over and over, to the point of exhaustion. In his ever exasperated tone. Never you mind that it would be impossible take that direction at that point in the process (and you really have to ask yourself how this continues to confuse an experienced elected official).
Is this part of the Fantasy Conspiracy League Draft, hosted on Facebook by the Billy/Kirby/(Chmelik? please definitively distinguish yourself, man) faction of their party? Who can say for sure, but as they say, “It would be irresponsible not to speculate…”
” And you lady bloggers shouldn’t be bothering your little heads with all this man business. Go make my dinner!”
Dear voters,
Paul Smith does not care one bit that you didn’t want him for your state delegate. You big meanies! What? You didn’t want Mr. Smith up in Annapolis tearing apart our social programs and dismantling the state government?! Well, don’t expect Mr. Smith to go hide in the corner. Oh no, he’s going to use the power of his word processor to stay relevant! Remember a few months back when we had so much fun with hisletter to the council about getting reimbursed for his legal fees? Well, as one of our good friends remarked, “What a gift this letter is!” Let us begin (you can click the images to enlarge):
Aren’t there some names missing from this list?
Ah, the title page. Now look! This isn’t from C. Paul Smith private citizen! This is from the law office of C.Paul Smith! But we are really confused. Aren’t there three more people on the county council? Are they so repugnant to him that he can’t even be bothered to address them by name? So what “serious concerns” does Mr. Smith have about 520 N. Market Street? Let’s look at the next page:
That’s a lot of words!
Now, uninformed county council members, let Mr. Smith give you a history of this building. (The capitalization and moniker “Young Board” is all C. Paul Smith, not us).
…this building had been used by the County government by its Citizens Services Division for many years. The division director’s office was there, as was the Child Advocacy Center, the Human Relations Commission and a Head Start classroom. The Young Board of Commissioners was able to reduce the size of County Government by approximately 500 employees. One of the results of this shrinking was to consolidate many county services into fewer buildings, making 520 North Market Street available to be sold.
Ah, isn’t that sweet? We shrunk the budgets and manpower of these agencies so we could shove them all into one building. And it was the Young board that did it! So shouldn’t they get some kind of compensation? Or at least some gratitude you ingrates! Now, from what we can tell, Paul is trying to make two points with this letter. The first is that Jan, is “unilaterally” overstepping her power as County Executive in making land deals. And the second is, he doesn’t think she should be “giving” this building away. Let’s continue with the letter before we pick it apart.
Page 3!And finally, the startling conclusion!
So here are some of the main points from this mess:
With regard to the sale:
It should be observed that in most major corporations, the authority to sell or acquire major assets is routinely reserved for boards of directors, and are not matters of routine management that the chief executive officer has authority to do unilaterally. The same principle should apply in our county government-the Council should be required to confirm any such major disposition, sale or acquisition.
The proposed use of this County asset is clearly the transfer of a County asset that would amount to a give away of that asset. …; in fact it is worse than a sale–it would be giving away a major County asset.
Why do you think no one has made a reasonable offer to purchase the building? That is because there does not appear to be a market for what the building can provide. This building is not compatible for normal housing. It would be difficult for a developer to make this building into a profitable housing project.
With this background, now the County Executive wishes to draw from County resources to help subsidize a housing project that the private sector would not touch.
It would appear that Mr. Smith has some very strong opinions about this property and Jan’s “plans” for it! But nothing, readers, beats this conclusion:
Executive Gardner’s unilateral decision to turn 520 North Market Street into a “mixed income workforce housing” project is a decision that exceeds her executive powers and it is a bad business decision.
Those who don’t understand market and economic forces should avoid involving themselves in economic development projects.
That’s right, County Executive Gardner! The only things you understand are diapers, dinner and keeping my suits clean! Don’t involve your delicate little mind in these man decisions! But wait. Could it be, perhaps, that everything is this letter is untrue? Could that be possible?
Hmm, August 24, 2015. Before Paul wrote his letter. And what’s that check mark? Oh yeah, refer to the county council.
Next page please:
What’s this? Maryland law already states that the county council must approve the sale of surplus property? I thought that this was a unilateral move. And why doesn’t he know the law?
Shall we continue?:
Wait?! $1,600,000? But Paul said it was worth $1,000,000. Return the money immediately! You people don’t understand market and economic forces!
Not done yet:
Ah, an open and transparent process. And a joint venture between whom? I don’t see Frederick County on that list.
And finally:
I don’t understand. Paul said there were no reasonable bids. What’s all this then?!
As far as we can tell, unless our female brains are failing us, every single issue addressed in this letter is wrong. It’s as though he had no knowledge at all as to what was happening with this property. None! And we do remember listening to a very recentcounty council meeting about this very issue. Therefore, Jan did not act unilaterally, numerous people wanted the property, bought it for more than what he claims it was worth, and is there one single valid point in this whole thing?! We can’t figure out why he wrote this letter. If his intent was to embarrass Jan it certainly backfired. The only person that should be embarrassed by this letter is C. Paul Smith, Attorney at Law. Therefore, Mr. Smith, we are going to have to ask that you leave government to those who actually understand what they are doing. Thank you very much.
We are all familiar with last week’s county council meeting’s outcome. The Monrovia Town Center process is starting over from the beginning. We wrote about it, the Frederick News Post wrote about it and today Billy wrote about it:
Great Gods on Mount Olympus hear our cries for mercy!!!! So many things to point out here folks. Let’s do a nice bullet list:
Why is Billy using the Fox News lie “Fair and Balanced”?
Paul Smith very specifically said in hisletter that he WOULD not submit an affidavit. And refused to even talk about it with the Frederick News Post. Why would he come and testify before the county council?
Then there’s Blaine who said it was a “boldface lie” that he was invited. But somehow his fellow BOCC member, David Gray, was able to find out the day of the hearing and had no problem standing in line to testify. Maybe Blaine feels as though he needs a special engraved invitation to speak.
And Kirby…what the hell are you talking about rudderless? Perhaps he needs one of these:
It’s under R.
Finally Billy uses this quote from the judge’s order:
Read the Judges instructions on page 3, the last 3 lines: “Therefore, this Court must remand the matter to the County for further proceedings, including testimony, to resolve the issues raised in this Opinion“http://www.frederickcountymd.gov/DocumentCenter/View/280736
I don’t see how this proves his point. In fact it seems to support starting the process over. This is how the council has chosen to deal with the problems with the record, these two need to get over it and get on board. The vessel isn’t rudderless. Just because you don’t like the course, Kirby and Billy, doesn’t mean it isn’t going anywhere.
Maybe these guys need to stop using social media. Then again, it provides us with an endless source of information.
Some stuff we said to each other yesterday evening during the county sponsored book club meeting and recipe swap.
It was a “true colors reveal” for Tony Chmelik–not that the layers of that onion weren’t already peeling back, but his usual respectful demeanor gave way to patronizing arrogance, and he did not manage to keep his temper from getting the best of him on more than one occasion. A quick glance around the social media tubes indicates a reputation for hypocrisy developing, as his constituents complain that he is not only tardy but unresponsive in communication, and only addresses their concerns when pressed repeatedly and publicly.
Never in our lives could we have imagined Republicans so hostile to a tax incentive for business development. Black is white, up is down, what the what? It took what we had to say about reality in our drinking game for the evening into a whole new dimension. ICYMI: Democrats are nasty tax gobblers = straw man position.
Billy creates his own motif by giving the impression that he has scarcely ever read anything. Garfield allusion? They probably didn’t stock Garfield books at the long defunct Borders store on the grand opening day.
Tony knows that shall and may mean different things. Thanks be to Xenu and his disciples at Narconon, through the counsel of Mr. Chomel.
Does this Dunning-Kruger problem sound like it pertains to anyone?
Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:
fail to recognize their own lack of skill
fail to recognize genuine skill in others
fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy
recognize and acknowledge their own lack of skill, after they are exposed to training for that skill
Great. Now what do we do? We know: lets have a workshop!
Bud has had a rough couple of weeks. TheseProEnglish people unleashed a very unfair and immature attack against him. And despite what Mary, Mary quite contrary may say, we don’t believe that our County Council people need “to get used” to outside groups coming in and harassing them.
We also have our fellow citizens saying terrible things about him on that awful county council watch page. For some reason they love to bring up his genitals. Must not have moved beyond a middle school mind- set. It’s especially stupid to be a lady suggesting man parts are essential to good governance. It’s the smart parts we’re after, not the Anthony Weiner parts.
Last night Bud once again proved to us what a mature, deliberate man he really is. When Billy sarcastically and very rudely asks Bud if he has anything to say about the repeal of the English Only Ordinance, he replies that he does. And how our hearts soar when this man speaks. Despite the distraction of Billy vigorously nodding his head yes when Bud begins with saying that his position many not get him re-elected, we were reminded what a sane, thoughtful man he is. Bud continues on to how this ordinance makes our county look bad and how it’s not who we are in Frederick County. And he’s absolutely right! Even Tony admitted the ordinance was inane. Reasoning that we should keep it because some people think our country is being taken away. A claim that he himself does not believe. Well, at least Bud had the backbone to stand up for what kind of people we are. Not some dystopian vision of becoming a sanctuary county.
We are also dismayed by the people who love to insinuate that Bud is somehow incompetent because he occasionally trips over a word. We do not care for the ageism that is ever so present in these mean, petty observations. Every person up on that dais has tripped over their words every now and again. And believe us, Bud is not nearly the worst offender.
And as for Billy’s claim that Bud won’t get re-elected. I wouldn’t worry about that. Billy doesn’t have the pulse of this county like he thinks he does. Your support, Bud, is far and wide. Keep up the good work and don’t worry about these petty naysayers.
If you followed along with Facebook and Twitter, you already know the outcome of the big stuff. The English-Only ordinance was repealed, and Kirby’s Law passed (he even took ownership of it and claimed it for himself). Now, like all the other counties in Maryland, council persons in Frederick County cannot bid on contracts with the county. There was some kerfuffle–is that an English word??? Who cares! Yay!–wherein some of the usuals tried to explain how unfair this was that Kirby didn’t know when he took the county job that he wasn’t going to be able to profit from the gig. Tony tries to suggest two amendments, but that nonsense was quickly laid to rest. Boo-hoo. Go ahead and resign. Dare ya.
Being in-house this evening was something else. It was simultaneously easy to feel sympathy for teachers and teenagers. Like being transported back to the throes of adolescence, the “Am I hearing this right?” sensation of sitting and struggling (not altogether successfully) to respectfully listen to someone try to stick a square peg of an idea into a round hole of logic has not become easier with maturity. As an example, Billy Shreve was proud of himself for a “gotcha” moment this evening that involved vilifying the county for the expense of pursuing people who steal water from hydrants. This was after it had been pointed out that it has the potential to contaminate the entire water supply and poison us all. Scary. Plus: cost benefits analysis, dude. Water. Ask California to help you understand. If Billy were to have his way, no one would be prosecuted for some spindly fine that he would deem too small to collect. What that number is could be anyone’s guess. I suppose it’s okay to committ misdemeanors here in Frederick.
On the other hand, capable teachers everywhere must cringe to realize that no matter how many times you explain how the budget works with the BOE, at least three grown adult people with allegedly mature brains will never understand it well enough to strike it from their list of “conflict of interest” talking points.
Props to Jerry Donald for pointing out that the English-Only ordinance was a loser from the right hand side, in that it created unnecessary and meaningless legislation to govern a free-market and constantly evolving language environment. Leave it to a teacher to go all debate team on it and show us he can rock it from the other angle.
And finally, at long last. And we mean long. And we mean last. Chmelik has a new game. Move to repeal is a way for an already verbose guy to force us to listen to him carry on ad infinitum.
zzzzzzzzz also, compromise, I do not think it means what you think it means.
The never-ending saga of the Aurora take over of our county nursing home has taken a new turn. In today’s Frederick News Post we are alerted to a new lawsuit filed by the county:
Instead, the county stated in its counterclaim that Aurora broke its contract with the county by failing to pay several employees for unused annual leave, paid time off and sick leave, up to a total of 96 hours, when the employees resigned.
Aurora took ownership of the operations of the centers on May 1, 2014.
The contract stated that Aurora was to allow all county employees to continue working at the center but didn’t guarantee any length of employment.
To recognize the unused leave that the employees had built up over the course of their employment with the county, the county agreed to give Aurora a payment equivalent to what it would cost to pay out the employees for this time.
The county determined this amount was about $367,500 and paid Aurora, the counterclaim stated. The employees were entitled to a cash payment under the contract if they left the company and hadn’t used their time off, the counterclaim stated.
But when Aurora terminated the workers’ employment with the company, the counterclaim stated, Aurora refused to pay the employees for their unused leave.
Gardner said she was displeased when she heard this.
We are displeased as well! We thought a nursing home akin to Disney World would be a little more on the up and up. So what happened to this $367,500? And did anyone do any research, beyond a visit, as to how this company functioned? One click to the website Glassdoor, and we found a ton of people complaining about the low wages. But I guess that really didn’t matter to the last BOCC. Because if it’s in the Yellow Pages, well you know.…
Another part of this story bothered us. The contract that the BOCC signed with Aurora guaranteed county employees a job. And there was a bunch of talk about how this supposed fact made this a good deal for everyone. However, there was no time limit mandated as to how long Aurora had to keep the former county employees. So this brings into question the sincerity of the claims that were made to us when this whole deal was going down. This piece of information also brings back memories of another storyin which we uncovered that the contract stipulated Aurora had to cover the current indigent patients. However, they were under no obligation to do so in the future. Not that this is news or anything, but this contract served no benefit to the residents or employees of Montevue and Citizens. And, if you think for one minute that low wages and high turnover are a good recipe for running a nursing home, then we have some swamp land in Florida we would like to sell you.
Keep up this fight Jan! Who wants to take bets on how quickly Billy will be on WFMD?
We think we may need to update their bios to reflect the fact that if it is a day that ends in Y, Billy and Kirby are crying again. It was merciful of Tony Chmelik to refrain from comment on this story. Either that or sensible. As often as we disagree with him, he doesn’t seem like his primary motivation in holding office is attention seeking behavior.
This time Billy and Kirby are bent out of shape because the procedure with the council government is to consider comments made during public hearings and vote on related actions at a subsequent meeting, in order to think first about what the public has had to say.
Shreve complains:
“You kind of lose the flavor of the discussion,” he said.
The flavor is the same every time there is a discussion. Billy abstains, Billy complains. Billy is actually pretty dang boring. We try to derive some entertainment from all of this, since we will take laughter over tears any day.
’nuff said.
The “shoot-first-ask-questions-later” method that they prefer was used with the commissioner form of government. Readers may recall that at the time there was a common perception that four of the commissioners (R-idiculous) had already decided how to vote before they listened to the public comments. For some reason. Also, David Gray (R-ational) recently told us all in his public comments during the hearing about the Monrovia Town Center approval process that the other commissioners truly did not give a flying pizza crust about what the public had to say. Whaddaya know? The people were right about that all along. Could it possibly be that Bud Otis is sensitive to a need to change this perception?
So now that Bud Otis’s leadership is trying to present a friendlier approach to local governance, predictably the holdovers from the last BOCC are cranky about it.
“When I have an opinion, when I have a point, I’m going to make it,” Delauter said at the meeting.
Yes, we remember that about #Kirbydelauter…it’s kind of his thing.
Otis said he had no plans to push for any changes in the legislative process or schedule regular workshops at this point.
“We have just gotten started,” he said. “You need to see how the process works before you start changing.”
Interestingly, if you have some feedback you’d like to give on how the process works best now that you have this information, using Bud’s type of thinking you would be free to do so. And Bud can keep an open-mind about it until we see how it’s working and if people like it or not. Isn’t that nifty? Somehow, open-mindedness is still a partisan issue where we have the Democrats lining up in favor of it and talking about keeping open lines of communication. With Chmelik sensibly demurring it appears that our favorite band, Bud and the Democrats, are still together for the time being.
Quotes taken from the Frederick News Post “County council members at odds on when to debate, vote” from Tuesday, July 28, 2015.
We’ve already taken a positionabout this language ordinance. To get redundant, the federal government does not have an official language because it is thought to be a violation of free expression. People into civil liberties think that “It’s Unnecessary, Unconstitutional, and Unsafe.”
Communities far more diverse than Frederick function without announcing their intent to discriminate. Montgomery County’s website basically says go use Google translate and they aren’t responsible if you mess it up. See how onerous that is?
Billy, he has reasons, and it’s not really worth thinking too much about them, but here’s one that’s funny because now we are going to think about the U.N. and hold them up as an example of how to conform. It’s the New World Order, folks–let’s do this thing! Welcome, Kofi Annan. Tell us what language to speak.
The United Nations, the largest inclusive governing body in the world, with 193 of the 206 countries in the world represented, has six official languages: Arabic (Literary), Chinese (standard Chinese, simplified Chinese characters), English (British spelling), French, Russian and Spanish. In 2001, the United Nations mostly used English, not all six languages, because of budget constraints and the cost of producing official documents in all six languages. At the time, the U.N. was led by Ghanaian Kofi Annan. I’m sure he would be more than happy to discuss English as the official language. He lived with the costs of translating documents when he was in charge of the U.N. in 2001. Instead of interpreting U.N. documents into six languages, he decided to use mostly English. (per Billy, Frederick News Post July 12, 2015)
We will make space on our calendars to attend the English-only seminar when Kofi Annan visits.
How funny! They have 6 languages, made no official policy changes, but they just mostly used English. What if we just mostly use English? We could be just like that. We already were just like that, as a matter of fact, before small-government-minded people started making unnecessary legislation.
P.S. A whole ‘nuther post could be made wringing him out for insinuating that this type of legislation has something to do with being pawns for Jan Gardner, because that literally makes no sense. Is she going to profit somehow from Spanish. Just…what?
Many times tonight we felt as though we were trapped inside an episode of “The Leftovers”. For the first twenty minutes of the meeting all we saw was this:
Now how are we supposed to know whether or not to drink our Purple Jesus? Or how many shots of Jackass to shoot back?! Oh well, such is life in the technical age. We do finally get to join in the fun at the end of County Executive appointees. Billy is still suffering from his oppositional defiance disorder, that or some kind of speech impediment that prevents him from saying the word aye. We really hope that he addresses this problem sooner rather than later.
Plumbing Code amendment passed 7-0. Amendment to Moderately Priced Dwelling Units-passed 6-1. Can you guess who voted in the negative? It’s not even fun to play this guessing game anymore.
Off to the public hearings we go. It’s all about the sale of 115 and 117 Church Street to Ausherman for $1.45 million. It’s a chance to sell a property that’s just been sitting there for quite a while. Kirby decides to say a few words. He’s for the sale, of course, but is upset that 118 Church Street isn’t up for sale as well. Not that this really has anything to do with the conversation at hand, but hey, anytime is a good time to talk about something bad that Jan is doing. But still he votes for it. So do five others. Therefore Kirby + 5= What the hell Billy? He did not comment, did not ask any questions but is still going to abstain!
Yes Billy they do!
This is money coming into the county not going out! Why is he still abstaining? What is the meaning of all this? And why do we ask, we all know there is no answer.
The next public hearing about amendments to water and sewage goes off without a hitch. Then it’s Public Comment time and where is everyone?! Not one person spoke tonight! Carl? Stan? Patrick? See what we mean about being trapped in an episode of “The Leftovers?” But since you guys weren’t there, Tony’s having a Town Hall Meeting at Urbana Library July 16th from 6-8 p.m. Be there or be square.
Billy has to go out on a sour note. There has to be a vote on whether or not to go into closed session to talk about a recent court filing (Trout Run we suspect) and to interview a County Executive appointee. Billy is the only one to say no. We won’t even ask why this time.
frederick local yokel 