Tag: Bob Miller

Billy Blue Light Special

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The FDR of Frederick County, Billy Shreve (hahahahahaha, poor FDR, rolling in his grave…) was having a regular Fireside Chat on WFMD again this morning. At first we thought we might not listen and just make up what he said, since it was likely to be so predictable. And, yes, we could have nailed it to the wall without the 20 minutes wasted. Jan’s a dictator without a plan who lost money and yaddayaddayadda. We’ve already been through all those counterpoints.

Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.--Franklin D. Roosevelt
Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.–Franklin D. Roosevelt (Did FDR read The Tentacle?!)

The true surprise is that Bob Miller pushes back about Jan’s dictatorship. He also calls copious attention to the fact that the people who wanted a charter government were insistent upon a County Executive who had the power to make decisions and act on them, and that “those people” got what they wanted. Wonder which people Mr. Miller is referring to…Does anyone recall Billy expressing any concern about how easily a C.E. might become a “dictator” before it was Jan Gardner’s job?

There was a clip with Jan Gardner from MidMaryland Live saying that she couldn’t understand how a fiscal conservative would have supported the deal made by the BOCC that got us into all this mess, and it’s a question many, many other people wonder about as well, but Bob went to a commercial break and we then came back to some surrealist nonsense about how if you take your car to the government to fix instead of Jiffy Lube then you have to live at the government’s auto repair shop now. This may be a slight paraphrasing, but it did not make a lot more sense. And remember we talked about this back in April.

To make bad worse, Kirby called in from the netherworld and said the worst thing about private enterprise is that you have to go to work every dang day, and insinuated that other people don’t, as though you can’t be fired for doing a bad job if you work at a county run nursing home. He also fails miserably at making the point he wants to make, since if you go out of business as a private facility, you cease to exist. In the case of indigent elderly patients that would necessarily be a worse outcome than the county accepting a loss during that fiscal year.

Numerous people on numerous issues need to recognize that doing the cheapest thing is not always the best (even if and when the premise of said argument isn’t necessarily cheaper anyway). I don’t shop at Kmart. I don’t want anyone receiving Kmart quality healthcare, and I don’t want any kids in this county at Kmart quality schools. As a private business, in the immortal words of Dustin Hoffman, “Kmart sucks.” They aren’t even particularly successful at selling low quality junk. Let’s stop trying to make everything Kmart.

Also, BS looked into his BS crystal ball and decided that in 2 years the whole thing will be run into the ground and losing money. We may need a hashtag to keep updated on the doomsday scenario. #brokein2years ? Open to suggestions, locals!

This week in radio appearances…

fclocalyokel1 Comment

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.