We are going to go ahead and close our latest poll. Now we know none of our answers were right! Poor Billy just wanted to sound off on someone who sounds like they were *GASP* doing their job. We know that is oh, so, hard for poor Billy to grasp. Some people take their responsibilities seriously. Thanks for playing! That was fun.
Don’t worry. The Ouija Board will be back to play again soon.
Council member comments are now up and running as a part of the February 7th meeting. We’ve been speculating wildly as to what the hell Billy did to cause the county AV department to have to go into full editing mode. The mystery has been solved:
Billy claims that we have a rogue inspector roaming through the county randomly inspecting businesses! And this very naughty inspector is costing these businesses, which have been cited for violations, tens of thousands of dollars!!! Billy says that this individual, that he NAMES out LOUD, is “out of control!” He needs to be stopped! Billy is called out by both Bud and the county attorney for disparaging a county employee by name in a public forum, to which Billy screams, “Strike that from the record.” We know someone we would like to strike from our county government.
Billy is also very agitated that while he was out globe trotting, the council would not allow him to conference call in concerning the MTC. To him it is “sad that we have a government that operates this way.” One cannot help but wonder if this call was to take place while he was soaking up the rays with Blaine in Costa Rica. Nevertheless, Billy really hopes that there are some serious repercussions!
Kirby is also worth mentioning if for nothing else, his wild conspiracy theories.
First off, now Kirby’s not accusing anyone mind you, BUT if county employees are aware of the bargain basement price some of the county machines are being auctioned off at..well ya know they could grab them up and then sell them off for a pretty penny!! Let’s be clear though, he is NOT aware of ANYONE doing such a thing. But hey, what if? It’s very interesting to him.
Next on the conspiracy ticker, Jan Gardner. Did you people know that for as little as $50 you could get yourself a seat on the Planning Commission? Everything, and he means EVERYTHING is for sale around here! “Gotta pay to play”! Kirby then starts ticking off some donations that Jan received and guess what? We are looking Kirby’s up as well! If he wants to start the donation listing game we will be more than glad to participate! What set Kirby off on the donation trail? Well, Michael Hough’s last minute ethics bill. You know the one that was submitted on February 1st with a February 3rd turn around date? Not the ethics bill that was properly vetted by the public, just something Hough scratched down last minute. If you are asking how Kirby found out that Jan was so unethical, you need look no further than our frenemy Red Maryland. That’s right a blog just like our own!(Come on Kirby, where’s the love? Don’t we get a mention?) Too bad that we couldn’t see Billy’s face when Kirby brought them up because man oh man they don’t like the Shreve!
As usual, the other council members had positive things to report, along with the unenviable job of telling us why everything that came out of Shrelauter’s collective jaw is so very wrong indeed. And for that, we thank them!
So FredCo’s archives do not yet include lasterday’s meeting, and we can only update you kind folks on the parts we caught. That doesn’t include council member comments, and the regulars will know that’s where things consistently go off the rails.
Now that the custom is to just make up whatheheckever you might want reality to have been anyway, we don’t even know why we should bother looking for the rest later, TBH. We always joke on the sidelines that we could pretty much predict what is going to happen without watching and that we should try it out sometime and see how it compares.
What did happen while we were juggling parenting and citizenshipping? There was a discussion about establishing procedures for rezoning application hearings that sounded like some good stuff for the people. Billy was adversarial. If Billy is reading this, adversarial means acting like a teenage boy does when his parents tell him he can’t drink beer and ride dirt bikes on a school night. What ever in the world would be wrong with just offering constructive criticism?
Tony Chmelik tried to reason through it for him for a second, and Jessica Fitzwater explained that some stuff he didn’t like was exactly as it had been done during his tenure on the BOCC. Pretty regular stuff. We would go back and review it and tell you which part exactly, but maybe later. Or not. We’re unpaid writers. You’re lucky we don’t move to Macedonia and put some teenagers out of work, at this point. Our patience is wearing thin with reality, anyway.
Speaking of which, that’s the other part we caught, after the break. A lot of people came to talk about M.C. Keegan-Ayer’s legislation for permitting solar collection on farmland. Everyone seemed to like the idea in some form, but there were many suggestions about how to improve what was written. None of the public commenters behaved the way some of our council members do on a regular basis. Perhaps one of these kind folks could unseat Billy in the next election.
We thought Billy had a visual aid and we were super looking forward to that. Maybe it happened in the negative space here. Or maybe it was emasculated by M.C.’s two large and colorful ones with easels. Who can say?
The beginning of the meeting was oh so predictable. Shreve abstains on the budget adjustments and then votes no on the minutes. However, we do have one question. Where is this guy?:
It’s the second week in a row that we’ve been left without his council member comments and insights. Hopefully that will rectify itself next week.
There’s a first reading on the solar panel bill, more on that later.
Then it’s off to the Small Business Real Property Credit and whoa man are we soothsayers or something because in our drinking game we predicted that our beloved Party O’Lincolners would cause trouble and disappoint they did not. This bill is being amended to clarify some language and to add the stipulation that if the property is subject to a TIF (Tax Incremental Financing) then the business would not be eligible for this credit. In other words, NO DOUBLE DIPPING in the coffers of the tax payers.
Well, in their best mansplaining tones, Billy and Tony want to know why businesses in TIF zones (that have already received a tax break) are being discriminated against. Isn’t there some magic pot of money where these businesses can be given a second break? Hell, why don’t we get rid of the taxes altogether, Fellas?! Isn’t it just theft? M.C., the county lawyer and a representative from the Economic Opportunity Office (all women holla!) jump in to tell them that not only were the stipulations for this credit set forth in Annapolis but that what they were suggesting was highly unusual. Jerry says that you can’t give away the same dollar twice and we hear Billy mutter: “Yeah ya can”. Since this bill was amended, a 2nd reading will occur on the 7th with a final vote on the 21st.
Once again Billy votes against going into closed session. Someone explain that one to us..please!
Master of Rhetoric Shreve has some really good points to make this evening. SIKE! He’s just as awful and terrible as he always is.You know that solar panel bill that had the first reading tonight? Well, it’s total crap! According to Billy we should just say we don’t want solar panel facilities in this county and just shut the book on it! Did you people know that there hasn’t been a pro-business bill passed in this county for 2 years!!! It’s absolutely 100% true! Billy suggests we go out to all the Frederick County welcome signs and hang “Close for Business” upon them. Bud asks Billy, “Is that all?” Which is a very gentile way of saying STFU.
Jerry is a grown up. Jessica is a grown up. Applauds Billy’s interest in the solar panel issue and looks forward to his “input”. M.C.’s comments show Billy for the anti-farmer candidate that he is. She explains to him that the restrictions in the solar panel bill were crafted based on input from area farmers who very selfishly want to make sure that we have enough land to grow food. You know so we don’t all starve to death! Bud hands out perfect attendance awards for the first two years and we think you can guess which Three Amigos did not get one. Looking forward to the Facebook tirades over that!
Standing Rules for the remainder of 2017:
Take a swig of anything you’ve got for the regular stuff: Billy abstains for no obvious reason, Billy and Kirby eschew yea and nea for yes or no just to behave poorly, Billy votes no on mundane stuff like the minutes, the agenda, going into closed session, or budget adjustments.
***Very, very important 2017 Wild Turkey addendum: if at any point during this year either half of Shrelauter introduces their own legislation, participants must consume an entire bottle of Wild Turkey in one sitting***
If you find yourself with the irresistible urge to repeal and replace one of the council persons serving as bookends on the dias with a more knowledgeable and engaged public commenter, mix a Papa Joe’s Healthcare (this is for everyone’s mental healthcare, in lieu of a better plan).
If any council member ever again mentions Donald Trump as a role model or by way of example, drink a Pink Pussycat. *Cautionary tales do not count.
And today. If our Republicans find a reason to complain about M.C. and Jessica’s solar energy collection bill, have a Midnight Sun.
BUT if the same subset suddenly finds themselves in favor of taxes because the assembled collection of Democrats appear to favor the small business tax credit program, make a Bullshit Sunrise instead. Full disclosure: this contains disgusting Sunny Delight, so maybe drink neither and save your liver function for the other stuff you’re gonna need it for this week.
Namaste and all that jazz, y’all.
As we embarked upon tonight’s workshop we couldn’t help but feel it was going to be an pretty smooth meeting considering the fact that Billy and Kirby (and Tony too…but he doesn’t always make a mess of things) were not in attendance. Alas, it was not to last, Billy and Tony showed up late, but Kirby never found his way.
The focus of tonight’s meeting was to talk about some changes to the Animal Welfare Provisions. Councilman Donald leads the meeting by speaking of the proposed changes:
The head of the animal services division and an animal control officer were present to answer any questions.We think the Yokel ladies are going to offer a workshop for those county employees whom have not had the horror of being grilled by Billy and/or Kirby. Because Dear Yahweh, we hate seeing the deer in the headlights looks on these poor people’s faces when they face the unspeakable.
Without Kirby there Billy felt as though he had to do the work of two. We present to you, dear readers, a bulleted list of this evening’s highlights:
-Billy asks the very nice animal control officer how often the department issues citations to people who do not have their pets licensed. The gentleman responds one every few weeks. Billy then replies, “So over a hundred a year.” No, the kindly man replies, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30. Dear Fredericktonians, do we really have a council member whom is not aware of the fact that there are 52 weeks in a year? It appears that we do!
-Billy wants data and science (we know folks) to back up the claims that dogs should be on leashes or that dogs shouldn’t be tethered for hours. Billy, first of all, go out into the world and observe! Better yet, shadow an animal control officer. Secondly, if you want to become informed through the words, (settle down readers) peruse this article to find out all the negative effects that occur when a dog is chained up. We sure hope The Humane Society of the United States is a good enough authority to convince ya Billy!
-Billy is only going to throw his support behind laws if we follow the new Trump mandate. You know the one that states for every new law passed we must repeal two? What could possibly go wrong?!
-Despite being told over and over and over and over and over again that programs exist for people to get their animals spayed and neutered for free or very little cost, Billy harps on the full price cost of this necessary procedure. Not paying any mind to the fact that spaying and neutering is beneficial to both the animal and community for a variety of reasons.
-Let’s talk about rudeness. At one point during his questioning Jerry very politely asks if he can interject. It was a pertinent point that Jerry wanted to make concerning getting some information out to the public. Any other polite human being with manners and any sense of dignity would have allowed his colleague to talk. But not Billy. He spouts, “It’s my turn!” WAAAHHH!!! Well, Jerry gets out the information and Billy continues to complain. Dude, GROW UP! PLEASE!
There’s more but the cold, or the despair is setting in and we think you get the picture. Billy is not qualified, on any quantifiable scientific measure, to sit up on that dais. Frederick County, we screwed up (well not us, but some of y’all)! Next year we need to rid our government of this pestilence.
The changes to the animal provisions will continue to be discussed and debated. We can expect to see some official legislation some time in the future.
Why? Who cares what improves means? FCPS does! Your yokels received in their hot inboxes today an email to let us know the joyous news that the out of district application process has been improved!! Woohoo! Sounds fantastic.
Current process: submit application for out of district transfer. Once approved, you are done until your child finishes his/her stay at said institution. So if you get an out of district approval for your kindergartner, you are good until your child is ready to go to middle school. If you need to go out of district for middle school, you will have to submit a new application. Pretty simple.
New process: submit an application every year that your child will be out of district. Whoa, as a parent your work just increased! FCPS your workload just increased! By a whole lot. Per the FAQ published by FCPS, there are about 3000 out of district transfers in the system.
The same FAQ says:
FCPS found that the old procedures lacked a way for parents and administrators to regularly track and review how well out-of-district transfers were working for students. This meant that once a student received an out-of-district transfer, they often moved through their school years without a review by parents, teachers, and administrators of how well their transfer was serving them and meeting their changing needs. Accordingly, FCPS is clarifying, modernizing, and streamlining its procedures on out-of-district transfers.
Here’s an idea. How about instead of penalizing the families that were previously told they only had to apply once, making a policy for school administrators to be able to review the children enrolled via exception and make a decision at the school level as to whether their exception will continue to be improved. And how about publishing those criteria? Perhaps include grade requirements or behavior standards that students must meet or jeopardize their exception status? Putting the decision for the annual approval back to the main office seems inefficient and impersonal.
We yokels feel like we know what is really going on here. FCPS is trying to avoid redistricting. So many of our schools across the county have exploding enrollment. Remember whom to thank for that exploding enrollment when you see them around town. Your former BOCC president Blaine “$60” Young, and former commissioners and current council members Billy Shreve and Kirby Delauter. Why is this their fault? They are the ones that lifted the building moratorium previously put in place by Jan Gardener. Thanks to them we have more, more, more houses going up regardless of inadequate roads and schools to support the increase. Go ahead and thank Tony, too. He doesn’t think there are any traffic issues in Urbana.
On the one hand, we are thankful that FCPS is trying to help ease overcrowding without putting everyone through a painful redistricting process. On the other hand, we think this new “improvement” is not ideal.
Please FCPS consider instituting rules for keeping your out of district status. Allow the administration at your out of district school to make the decision about your continued approval. Or make a grandfather clause. FCPS also needs to provide clarification regarding the magnet program. Do families in magnet need to reapply every year as well? What about high school kids in academies? What about IB? Do those 3000 out of district students include elementary magnet, and high school academy attendees including IB?Don’t penalize those who are following the previously established rules.
Happy New Year fans of the Yokel!!! We sincerely hope that you had a wonderful holiday season! This afternoon, we will see the first council meeting of 2017. Will Shrelauter turn over a new leaf? Unlikely things will go well since we ended 2016 with Kirby Facebooking some pretty cray cray allegations concerning M.C. There’s also been some disturbances in the force whispering to us that Kirby may actually write some legislation this year. We suppose that anything is possible! Grab your agenda, warm up that feed to FCGTV and watch your local government in action!! Do remember, these games are only for fun, we need all our Yokels alive and well to vote in the 2018 council election!
We start out with public comment. Predicting that no one will show at this first meeting of the new year, but you never know!!! Then we are out of the usual order of things with a public hearing concerning some amendments to the Spring water and sewage plan. If Kirby takes this time to grandstand about returning people’s money who were forced to purchase environmentally sound septic systems slam back a Creamsicle Fizz , allowing the bubbles to transport you to a land far, far away.
Quite a few budget transfers on the agenda. If these go smoothly, hooray! If not, mix up some Angry by the Fire. Can we take this for another two years?
Second reading of the bill to establish a small business real property tax credit. We’ve spoken before how this should be something right down Shrelauter’s alley. But, oh contrarian gods of yore! Those pesky Democrats and minions of the County Executive are behind this! How will this play out? If with predictable mantantrums, have yourself a Pint of Mad Out of It!
One more shot of public comments until we reach the point where what could go wrong will go wrong: council member comments.
There’s little chance, with such a long break, that there won’t be things to SAY. This is probably a good time to calm down and take a few deep breaths. Maybe grab a nice fruit smoothie, or some calming Ginger Ale or take some Tums or Rolaids. Anything to protect your stomach from what is sure to be some aggravating nonsense.
Howdy Yokels! On this last meeting of the year things were going pretty smoothly. Agenda passed 6-1. Budget transfers 6, with one abstain. Approval to change the name from MedImmune to AstraZeneca, that’s right just a name change, was voted for by all except Billy. We don’t even know how to comment on an action so dumb. There was also a nice presentation on the audit that showed us that our government is doing a great job! You can read more about it here.
Then we get to council member comments. And guess who is going to muck it all up?
What’s got Kirby all hot and bothered? An LTE that ran in the paper this morning that’s what!!!! First of all, FOR SHAME, Frederick News Post for running such a biased Letter to the Editor! This, according to Billy, is why the public no longer has faith in the liberal media. We’ve tried before to explain to Shrelauter what the opinion section of the paper is for and how it’s different from other reporting. However, our patience is about all tapped out, so we’ll just leave it here and hope “someone” learns “something”:
Kirby thinks that it is very “unfortunate” that the letter writer decided to resort to name calling when it is simply a difference of opinion. Kirby then goes on for 10 minutes about this LTE and how very wrong it is. Even though no deer are mentioned in said letter, Kirby tells us they are doing fine because he sees dead ones scattered along Route 15. And there’s no science people, none! And don’t you know that the farmers are all so scared to speak out about this because they fear the wrath of the one called Jan! It’s true! Stop smirking!! And we can’t help but to see the thin skin similiarities between him and the President Elect. All that’s left for Kirby to do is to open @RealKirbyDelauter on Twitter to treat us to his daily outbursts.
The “unfortunate” comment about name calling was something Ye Olde Lady Yokels could not get beyond. You see, dear readers, we three have been paying attention to what goes around these here parts for quite sometime. Our memories are long and detailed. When Kirby said this we couldn’t help but remember all the times he has resorted to name calling. But, most specifically, how he did it in the very LTE section of the paper that he now laments!
Way back in 2014, Kirby had this to say about a middle school teacher who testified before the last BOCC:
“One speaker — Thurmont Middle School language arts teacher Adam Umak — earned my attention with his arrogance, self-serving and inaccurate “testimony,” and borderline circus act. He ended his theatrics by motioning to the BoCC with his hands and announcing “come on,” as if he was asking for a confrontation.”
And he had some nice adjectives to describe former FCTA President Gary Brennan:
“The FCTA (union) is led by the professional whiner and tax revenue gobbler Gary Brennan, who will stop at nothing to bankrupt the taxpaying citizens of Frederick County, even if that means riling up teachers to put on a show or dragging an 8-year-old child to the podium to recite the teachers-need-more-money mantra. It is disgusting for the FCTA to use children like that, but it’s become an annual tradition.”
There’s much more to be seen so please read it here. How “unfortunate” it is indeed when one cannot make their point without name calling.
Billy has some dead horse beating to do about Aurora and sorry we don’t have the energy to transcribe it.
All the other council members had nice comments wishing us all good tidings for the the New Year! We enjoyed hearing about all the meetings that Jessica, Bud and MC attended. It’s so nice how they are engaged in what’s happening around our fair county. So to those who ended tonight on a positive note: Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year!
frederick local yokel 