This evening, the county council will embark upon a workshop to consider legislative ideas to send to Annapolis. Don’t forget that you can email either the County Executive or your council member with any ideas you may have.
Some of our representatives shriek loudly about how everything is horrible in our fine county. Will they have any ideas to submit this evening? Late last evening we were lucky enough to receive Kirby’s legislative priorities. Read all about them here. Your Lady Yokels are on the case.
This evening brought into the Yokel inbox a press release from none other than # himself! Stop snickering people, it’s true! He’s got some legislative initiatives he wants to jet on over to Annapolis. We can’t see one of these actually going forward, but at least he put some effort into it, right? Well….
The first item we are going to dissect has to do with concealed weapons. Here’s what Kirbo wants to happen here in Maryland:
Maryland to be a “Shall” Carry State for Concealed Carry Weapons Permit
To allow all law-abiding citizens the right to carry a concealed weapon; and to the education of the community to the awareness that ‘shall issue’ laws have, in all cases, resulted in decreased rates of violent crime.
All cases?! Politifact rated that statement 1/2 true. Everyone knows that when you want to find out if someone is a plagarizing, you can do a Google search. Since we are a suspicious lot when it comes to Kirby, we did just that. Our investigating led us to a charming page called ammoland.com. His initiative is the same wording of a mission statement from some group called Maryland Shall Issue. So at least we know ole # can cut and paste!
Of course we need some good old union bashing laws!! Here’s what Kirby has in mind:
Prohibiting an employer from requiring, as a condition of employment or continued employment, an employee or a prospective employee to join or remain a member of a labor organization, pay charges to a labor organization, or pay a specified amount to a third party under specified circumstances; prohibiting an employer from threatening an employee or a prospective employee with specified action.
Again Googled, This is already a bill introduced in the General Assembly, so we are not really sure why he’s touting it. Except he doesn’t like to miss a chance to tell us how evil and mean the teacher’s union is. Good luck with that one Exalted District 5 Commander!
We also have some legislation about school vouchers, education spending accounts and the ability to shift money around local construction projects. We’ll leave you with the bottom of his press release:
Before we attend to what our favorite lackluster legislators will likely attempt to send over to Annapolis, bless our colorful county for enveloping Galahad Sweetbottom of the Cotswolds in such a warm and loving embrace.
We’ve been told by Blaine, Kirby and Billy that Frederick County is CLOSED for business. We’ve been told that our county is the most business unfriendly entity on the face of our entire planet. We’ve been told that our County Executive is a big vindictive meanie that targets businesses who flagrantly rip up our county’s regulations and set them on fire. So how can this story in the FNP be true? You can read it for yourselves, but we’ve pulled out the nice little chart for you:
Since the council returned from their break, we’ve heard some pretty dumb things. We are still trying to recover from Billy telling us that we can safely drink from any stream in the county, when we clearly CANNOT. What misinformation is in store for our tender little ears this week? Grab a copy of your trusty agenda, pull up next to your favorite reality channel and batten down the hatches! And as always, this game is just for fun! No passing out in the alleys!
The very beginning of our evening begins behind closed doors. The council will interview a County Executive appointee. In honor of the torture this poor soul is about to embark on, who will have to endure some “interesting” questions from the entity we call Shrelauter, warm yourself up with a Secret Garden Cocktail.
Not sure why they bother calling the meeting to order since a few will never abide. We begin with public comment, some idiot either abstaining or refusing to vote on the consent agenda and then the approval of three budget transfers. No school transfers this week so Kirby won’t have the opportunity to throw out his dead horse speech about the teachers on the council lining their pockets. Oh what a shame!
Dr. Monica Grant is up for approval for the Director of the Citizens Service Director. Read more about her here.
We have one first reading on a program Regarding Establishment of a Clean Energy Loan Program for Commercial Properties. Then the council has to make some decisions.
First up is the Adequate Facilities Code. When Kirby laments the fact that his super expensive plan to fund four schools was killed, shoot back some Tough to Hear shots. It’s really becoming tiresome isn’t it?
Next up, Jerry has a plan to make zoning changes more public, so people have a chance to actually know what’s going on in their neighborhoods. “Shouldn’t” be any problems with this, but if there is, mix yourself up a B-52.
Time to decide on the marijuana pilot program. We heard some rumor that the High Sheriff was on the radio saying that prostitution should be legal, however, pot is a danger this county should never know. When we get confirmation on whether or not our top law enforcement officer really thinks a plant is more dangerous than the abuse and degradation of poor, disadvantaged people we’ll certainly let you know. For now just have your self a Elixir Bloody Mary, because we all need our vitamins.
If you have seen any of these Facebook hotel accounts, you know that the proposed downtown hotel is a touchy subject for some. However, many people came out in support of raising this tax, so we are fairly certain it’s a done deal. If the talk gets a little dicey, slam back a Stinger.
If this doesn’t get us to 7:00, Billy will complain and moan about how Bud can’t foresee the exact time a meeting will take and we’ll want to slam every clock over that head of his! Yes, Billy we all know how busy you are, and none of us gives a rat’s ass.
Billy, ranting about nothing just makes you look stoooopid.
Two public hearings on the agenda. Zoning, Adequate Facilities and Developer Rights are wrapped up all in one. The second deals with Solar Panel Installation. We’ll let your livers rest during this section of the evening. We do predict, however, that the second hearing will go smoother than the first.
Public comment and then what seems to do us in, Council Member comment. Before the C.M comment section of the evening commences fortify yourself with a Snickertini. For the only way to get through this mess anymore is to laugh.
Well, well, well…it seems that our last poll about Blaine got a lot of people’s attention. For we had never had so many people participate before. Here’s your results:
Cinnamon, we really don’t know where you come up with these crazy ideas!!! Nobody could possibly believe that!!!
Tuesday will bring us dueling human trafficking events. In one corner we have this:
That’s right! It’s finally time for Blaine to face a judge over his prostitution arrest. Some may say that he’s irrelevant here in the county, seeing as how Jan trounced him in the last election. However, many birdies have told us that he wishes to become the shiny brand new District 5 Council representative once Kirby gets his butt whooped in the County Executive contest. So as long as he keeps trying to creep back into elected office, we will be here to remind you what a catastrophic mistake that would be.
Keep District 5 Blaine free!
The second event is an attempt to deal with the very real problem of human trafficking here in Frederick County:
We highly recommend that you read through these pages and become educated on the problem. For this is a subject that is very dear to your Lady Yokel’s hearts. We firmly believe that no person such be forced into any kind of slavery, sexual or otherwise.
Our faithful readers will remember back when a vote was taken on having this workshop. Billy voted against it because, and we quote, “There are groups both for and against this.” Jerry and Jessica were both incredulous as were we! (Of course we kinda suspect this was all a cover to protect Blaine and his transgressions). There couldn’t possibly be people in favor of human trafficking, could there? We are very sad to report that Billy may just be right. For those of you who are not yet acquainted with the watchdog group Frederick County Council Watch Watchyou need to click on over and take a look. This page watches the Frederick County Council Watch page, and believe it or not they have found people who think this whole human trafficking workshop is a huge conspiracy. Including a few people who are running for public office in these here parts.
Look what you did to Spongebob and Patrick! Aren’t you ashamed people!
As always, we’ll let you know the outcome of both the trial and the workshop. There is never a dull moment in Frederick politics.
This meeting started with all the regular malarkey. There was a grand opening event in the first public comment section. Thanks be to Yokel reader and frequent public commenter Patrick Schempp. He came with audio effects so that we could all hear Blaine Young at the last BOCC meeting brag about how he screwed us all for generations to come. That’s may be a slight paraphrase, but not at all a mischaracterization of the attitude. The AV Club presentation ran a little long, so by the fourth minute of the meeting Billy had already started his insolent griping at Bud about controlling the meeting. I think Mr. Schempp must’ve hurt Billy’s feelings…
Sorry to have to keep using this one folks. But it’s kinda not our fault.
And then came the consent items, and Kirby took the opportunity to wail on the most brittle skeletal remains of his favorite dead horse. One of the consent items involved BOE money and that was going to affect Jerry and Jessica’s salaries. Oh. Mon. Dieu. How many times are we going to go over this? But he knows. He just wants the public to know that if they vote on the whole consent agenda one of the line items will give money to the BOE to decide what to do with it, and years down the road the teachers on the Council may benefit from it. Probably maybe eventually they will see seventeen cents more than they had yesterday. Shut up, Kirby. Shut. Up. We are bored of your stupidity. Jerry and Jessica both responded, kind of the same way they always do when Kirby pulls this crap (oh, consent items passed, in spite of time wasted).
Other Shrelauter horse carcass flogging included the continued denial of the science of water. Why should we comply with the Clean Water Act? Again (and this is a review for Kirby, too–goodness no wonder they have no respect for education issues, look how it helped them comprehend nothing at all). To ignore the problems with erosion and pollution that Shrelauter disbelieves, there are significant fines and prison time at stake. Why be bothered with reality, though. Also Billy says it is good thing that they have learned some of our local streams are polluted by animals. Tony jovially concluded that they need to shoot more deer. The thing is, we are pretty that you are NOT just allowed to go shoot the domesticated bovines standing in area streams, and their pies are so much more copious than the fewmets left by deer. But harharhar. Thriving animal populations or whatever. This is a positive spin a la “the Grand Canyon is beautiful and caused by erosion.” Psst Billy: our troubles here are generally caused by sediment deposition. Also, according to Billy our water is obviously fine. “No one has died.” (true story) O.K. Please explain how we are to listen to your possibly lead poisoned brain thoughts and reach the same “it’s all good” conclusion. We’ll be waiting…
A new and head-scratching thing occurred during the discussion concerning the payment in lieu of tax agreement to establish workforce housing on North Market Street. Billy seemed at a loss when he was told about fair housing laws. This means incentives can’t be given to certain classes of people. He was hoping it would be guaranteed somehow that the available units would be filled by teachers, nurses and first responders of the highest workforce caliber and obviously not some ambiguous lesser riffraff. Indignantly, he demanded to know what laws. This ignorance was shocking to your yokels, only because we have bought houses and dealt with realtors. Then we remembered: Billy is a realtor. We don’t know if our jaws will ever come off the floor.
A quick and dirty guide to the hot topics:
Everybody likes the hotel tax. Except Randy Cohen of the Holiday Inn (can’t really blame him for that, but try as he might that Holiday Inn is not going to move itself downtown, so…). He did bring a couple of friends. One of them was so angry about Redheaded Eskimos.
Nobody likes the medical marijuana pilot program. They all came out of the woodwork to say so.
Council member comments at the end of the evening had us laughing so hard we were unable to breathe and nearly passed out from lack of oxygen. Kirby is still complaining about his lease back option getting nixed. And just because it was obviously a terrible idea from the first day! Billy had a lot to say, and this post would be twice as long if we just focused on that (see yourself at 5 hours 43 minutes, no, that is not a typo). Jessica ducked out because of new motherhood, and she honestly must have been miserable by that point and probably wouldn’t have even been able to laugh at her neighbor on the dias. We highly recommend that she does as promised and goes back to watch them. Of course she will. She is a responsible council person.
There is another phrase kind of like beating a dead horse, but it is much cruder and involves a chicken. If this redundant stuff continues, we may be forced to drag that ghastly thing out. We can’t keep being forced to say the same things over and over again just because Shrelauter hasn’t had a fresh thought in over a year.
You’ll remember a few weeks back when Kirby threw a fit about his leaseback idea not getting any traction. Somehow he thought it was within his authority to disband the entire task force. Well, Jan said no way Kirbo! Just because you didn’t get your way Mr. #, doesn’t mean the investigation process is over. So who is going to take up the torch that Kirby tried to extinguish? Today’s Political Notes answers that nicely:
Frederick County employees met with Councilman Tony Chmelik (R) this week, as plans are underway to revive a county task force that was examining options for leasing schools.
The meeting between Chmelik, Council Chief of Staff Ragen Cherney, and county finance and budget officers took place on Tuesday — when the School Build Lease Buy-Back Task Force was scheduled to meet.
Chmelik is taking the helm of the task force, which Councilman Kirby Delauter (R) said last month he was dissolving. Maybe.
Despite sending a confusing press release that he was disbanding a task force created by the county executive and notifying at least some of the members ahead of time via email, Delauter said he was not. Instead, he was no longer pursuing a specific leasing plan after the proposal was panned by County Executive Jan Gardner (D) as being too costly.
Gardner, at the time, said she intended for the task force to continue its work — with or without Delauter on board.
What do you mean? Work is going to continue with or without our precious # at the helm? So just because his one idea didn’t pan out that means the task force should continue investigating other ways of bringing down school construction costs?
We don’t understand this world of logic and problem solving y’all are throwing our way. Perhaps we’ve been stuck inside the Shrelauter echo chamber a little too long ourselves.
frederick local yokel 