Allegedly. Just throw allegedly and rumored into this like donut sprinkles, because we don’t do straight journalism, but if this is true…and we are reasonably certain that it is…it is CRAZINESS.
The rumors are that Billy and Kirby are all in a snit, because a business could fail. The reason? Failing to have any building (electrical, plumbing) or health department (food safety) permits. And something else about not having the correct zoning for an event venue. How does the blame for this fall on the county? Please explain.
As it was told to us through the grapevine, the fire marshall was a big killjoy and said (and we are paraphrasing with abandon), “Abso-effing–lutely not. There is not going to be a big shindig for some youngsters who want to get everybody Footloose in your event venue that could easily fall down on their heads or have a floor collapse like a balcony at a keg party, with the potential of unplanned pyrotechnics from could-be sparking electrical wiring. Heck, without a plumbing inspector, maybe they don’t even have running water or toilets. Who knows? Sounds like a night(mare) to remember, does it not?!
If you all recall, Billy wanted a legislative priority for the state to be to find out what impedes the business of roadside hot dog stands and take care of it. This is like the crown jewel of all hot dog stands. We are really looking forward to the Delauter executive administration, when the whole county dies of a botulism/salmonella cocktail.
Only under a CE Delauter administration Fire Marshall Bill!
Only you can turn back the horsemen fellow Fredericktonians!
We are so sorry to have to bring this to you on a dreary Friday afternoon. We know this news is not want you wanted to see before you start your weekend. But, it’s our duty to inform. Your Yokel gals found this floating around on the interwebs today:
Breathe! Count to 10! Breathe again!
If this is his candidacy announcement, it needs a few tweaks! But seriously folks, even though a Delauter administration (Oh, how it hurt to write that) would keep this blog in business for quite some time, we wouldn’t wish that kind of destruction on our county. It’s time to come out strongly against this before he gets serious. We don’t need any more national embarrassments.
The pollen must be getting to your friendly Yokels because we are all so tired of this budget nonsense. And tonight’s agenda looks as though we are in for more of it! Even though Councilman Billy Shreve is now a friend of the Yokel, don’t count on him picking you up, “comrades.” So take it easy and be responsible!
Seven budget transfers on the agenda, including one for the BOE (oh dear!), if anyone states an unrelated objection, since it is the fashion to grandstand lately, sip heartily on your Seven and Seven.
Time to approve the past minutes. Always a mystery as to why Billy won’t vote to approve. He was there, at least physically, what’s the prob? When he says no, pick your favorite flavor of Absolut vodka and have a shot or two. Because we are absolutely sick of his antics.
Also amongst the business items for decision: council procedure. Again we are in Billy dream fugue territory, and as there is no chance of an affirmative action allowing to hear from him at absolutely any given time during a meeting (Why does it even matter? He does that anyway.) He will probably be testy. We must recommend the Lucid absinthe.
And the budget is up, and at the last convocation of this august body we heard Kirby had a self-described half-baked plan. Surely that is a smoldering pile by now. We look forward to these ideas.
You know how we are, locals. Always stalking the inter webs where some of our most favorite fools publicly post whatever idiot notion lights up their shriveled little raisin brains. Well, we have an inkling that one of the more colorful fools about town might have something negative to say about wheelchair ramps! It is truly difficult to see where some of these characters are coming from, but we do hope he will try to explain. And without slurring any words, please! So if our suspicions are true and there is really uproar over handicap ramps, mix up a Sit on My Face cocktail, since that will be preferable to listening to that!
It’s time for a hearing to keep the tax rate static, or according to the usual suspects, It’s tax hike time!!!” We heard this same exact argument this time last year. And we are oh so sure the same exact refuted points will once again rear their ugly head. So every time Jan is accused of being a tax and spender have a sip of the Promise Land. Hopefully one day we will be there.
Hopefully you have a good enough buzz to help you through the public and council member comments. Don’t you love budget time in Olde Fredericktowne?
Thank you for this gift Councilman Delauter. We always look forward to your Tentacle articles.
It’s about that time again folks. Kirby has keyed up another article for that slithery appendage. Be sure to read through it a couple of times, because it takes that long to digest. If you can’t bring yourself to do so, read our nice synopsis below.
Now you know we are in for a treat with a title like this:
The Budget, Constituent Service and Schools
That’s a lot of ground to cover! First we are reminded of the time crunch between the time the County Executive has to present the budget and the time the County Council has to approve it. So Kirby, you better put forth an amendment to extend that in the charter since that’s the only way to fix it. I am sure the citizens of this fine county will be more than willing to give you more time. Then it’s the same blah, blah we don’t have any help so how do you expect us to do this? Afterwards, we are reminded that he was the ONLY one that came up with an alternative budget. And that he and Billy are once again the ONLY council members willing to do their own analysis. Now for a moment let’s fly back to last year. We found this nice little write up from the FNP. Remember when Billy did this:
At one point, Councilman Jerry Donald asked about the impact of following Shreve’s suggestion to completely eliminate a $1.2 million allocation for snow removal.
“What would happen if it snows?” he asked.
“We’d pray it didn’t,” said Doug Browning, the county’s chief administrative officer.
Thankfully that didn’t happen because remember this folks?:
Photo courtesy Frederick News Post
That’s right we had a blizzard!!! And Jan had this to say about the changes Kirby wanted to make to the budget. She said they were:
unclear and do not maintain a balanced budget
So it’s not enough to say and do things if they are destructive and make no sense. The next section complains about he and Billy being treated like third graders.(Yes folks, he complained about feeling like a third grader put in time out). Do we have to point out that if you act like third graders that’s the way people will treat you? Kirby even admits that he lost his cool when he “used a few choice words” to express his discontent over not being allowed to talk to someone at the county dump.
Alright Kirby, just calm down!
From day one, these two have been uncooperative, combative and have usedWFMDand their writings on the Tentacle and other “news” websites to attack their fellow members of the county government. Not to mention their behavior in meetings. We will allow that if Kirby and Billy are required to follow different protocol to talk with county staff than the other members then they may have a small point. But they have offered no proof of this. And we see the logic of individual council members not barraging county staff with one request after another. You are on a collective body that makes decisions together Kirby, you don’t get to be a lone wolf.
We are so very sorry to have to tell you that this happened again:
The horse is so very, very dead. Please stop beating it.
We guess there’s at least two more years of hearing this:
Yes, these councilmen somehow with a straight face vote on the budget that funds their employer and ultimately their own salaries. These are the same people who voted with the county executive and President Otis to disallow my company to bid on work in the county.
So we feel the need to bring out our nice little chart again:
No matter how you try to spin it Kirby this is how it is. Even if the numbers change, the message is still exactly the same as it was last year.
Kirby equates this “logic” to transgender bathrooms. Surprise, surprise, he’s against them. But why he used this time to slip that in is beyond us.
Now, for the conclusion, Kirby sorta kinda has an idea for school construction. But he’s not sure, and then is sure it will be great, even if it isn’t all worked out. And of course it has to do with privatization.
So much has happened this past week in Ye Olde Fredericktowne that your friendly Yokels have decided to do a weekly roundup. Let’s start with the County Council and happy budget fun time.
We’ve written two posts this week about budget talk. Read it here and here. However, we were very interested to find this in the Political Notes section of the paper this morning:
County Executive Jan Gardner’s budget announcement last Friday included a new little nugget. Well, five of them.
Gardner said she extended an invitation to all seven Frederick County Council members to talk about the budget, including a list of their priorities. Five members took her up on the offer: Democrats Jerry Donald, M.C. Keegan-Ayer and Jessica Fitzwater and Republicans Bud Otis and Tony Chmelik.
Gardner said she couldn’t meet all of their requests, but each was considered in her proposal.
Councilmen Billy Shreve and Kirby Delauter, also Republicans, didn’t take Gardner up on the offer, apparently.
It seems they have other plans.
Shreve, who is still upset the council doesn’t have a dedicated budget officer, gave handouts to his colleagues, showing that they are the only council in the state without such help. Nevertheless, Shreve said he was going to dig into the numbers.
“I’m going to work on this budget. Look at it. See if we can make some changes,” he said Tuesday. One major change he pitched included scrapping a plan to keep the county’s property tax rate steady — which will yield increased revenue — and instead lower the rate and cut spending.
“The easiest solution … is if you have the same amount of revenue as you did last year, you adopt the same budget you did last year,” Shreve said.
Kirby and Billy are fine sitting on the couch thank you very much!
So not only are they refusing the County Executive’s invitation to come discuss the budget, which really is a dereliction of their duty, but Billy is all fine and dandy with keeping everything the same. Why should we strive to improve? A real brain stumper!
Next on our wrap up is Sheriff Jenkins. As we are sure you all know our Sheriff testified in front of Congress this week about illegal immigration. Last night, Sean Hannity had the Sheriff and two other guests on for four minutes of the most exquisite fear mongering we have ever seen.
Is that comment for reals?
Look, we here at the Yokel do not want anyone, be it citizens, immigrants, or illegal immigrants, committing crimes. And if someone had hurt our kids, we cannot say that we wouldn’t feel the same way that poor woman who testified with the Sheriff does. However, this kind of sensational talk does nothing to bring about meaningful immigration change. What it does do is incite fear and discrimination against the Latino community. Not one of us wants criminals running around our community. Building a wall is not a realistic solution towards that goal. Also, it is a known truth that huge numbers of “illegals” arrive by plane and overstay an expired, once-valid visa, so wasteful government spending on a stupid wall is stupid and wasteful. But now we totally get why Fox News watchers are so angry and paranoid all the time. Jeeze O’Flip that channel! And we also didn’t realize how scary a place Frederick is to live, the internets must be wrong about us.
Who exactly is the beast in this scenario, Gaston?
Last on our roundup: You may have heard that a certain Presidential Contender was in town yesterday. Another nugget from the Political Notes section was this:
Apparently, that relationship stuck. Ahead of Cruz’s rally on Thursday, Hough picked Afzali to pick up the candidate from the airport. And if Cruz’s camp was impressed with Folden’s driving skills, they may have had a different review of the Afzali Cab Service. “My husband went slow, because I needed to talk to Ted,” Afzali said. “We had a lot to talk about.”
If Cruz wasn’t so terrible we might have felt sorry for him. But since he is, we laughed and laughed.
If you missed our tweets about his speech head on over to @fclocalyokel and take a looky look. The most disturbing story to come out of that mess was the transgender student who was thrown out of rally. You can read the story here. But James, we would be remiss if we did not officially give you a Yokel tip of the hat:
Thank you for having the courage to stand up for what you believe in. Always be proud of who you are!
We really don’t get all this fervor over public bathrooms. Whether you like it or not transgender people have been using public bathrooms for years. And has society crumbled as a result? No! Because nothing bad has happened! You really should be more afraid of former Republican Speakers of the Houseand U.S. Senators. But if you can’t get past it, Kirby has a solution:
Thank Zeus on his high mountain that tonight’s meeting has been divided into two parts! We need the break! Now on to our fine reporting.
Billy’s no where to be found, ran in late. So Kirby had the sole job of objecting to budget transfers. His issue? We have no proof that the bay can be saved by trees and stuff. We’ve heard this before. Science isn’t his thing. Passes and we moved on.
Installment Purchase Program Easements get no objections. Even talk to what a fine program it is. Protecting our agricultural land!
It seems like the budget season gets the tempers a flarin’! We are going to go back to our budget posts of a year ago to see how much of the rhetoric is the same. We predict A LOT. Tony, Billy and Kirby want the constant yield to be called a tax raise, all M.C. wants to do is take a vote to have a hearing on this issue so the public can discuss. How dare she interrupt their grandstanding? Billy informs us that we should all come into his world, it’s nice there he says.
We’ll pass!
Tony wants an answer as to whether or not the hearing equates to increasing the constant yield. Exasperated lawyer says this question should have been asked before the meeting so they could research the answer. Jerry then points out two of the members were on the BOCC, so shouldn’t they know the answer to that? What’s that Kirby and Billy?:
The hearing will be on May 3 for those of you who are interested.
Now, fellow Yokels, in all seriousness we are concerned about Kirby. Has he been audited? Because we remember commending him for voting against the Trout Run historical designation way back when. But tonight he’s singing a different tune. When the resolution, which is essentially the answer to Social Betterment’s lawsuit, was presented he voted no. No explanation just no. Billy wanted to know if he really had to vote for it at all since he was the lone wolf on the original vote, to which he was informed he in fact did.
We do really hope this hasn’t happened to Kirby:
We end with a nice presentation on a Maryland Development Block Grant. Meeting reconvenes at 7:00 for a public hearing on the budget.
Kudos again to County Executive Gardner for adding $10.5 million above the maintenance of effort (MOE) for our schools. Tonight there’s a hearing about the budget:
Our kids certainly can’t wait. The old BOCC’s policy of funding the public schools at MOE funding has made Frederick County dead last in the State for spending per pupil. That’s right people, dead last.
And we came across thisdisturbing articleyesterday outlining how there has been a coordinated effort to decimate public schools. If you value education in our community you have some options to have your voice heard:
Show up and testify at tonight’s hearing.
Email your county council members at: councilmembers@frederickcountymd.gov and tell them that you support the County Executive’s budget.
Vote for three of these articulate, caring and educated candidates for our Board of Education:
Let’s make sure that education is a priority here in Frederick County!
At the April 19th meeting the county council is going to present their findings in response to yet another lawsuit brought forth by Social Betterment Properties (AKA Scientology, Narconon, Xenu’s leftovers). Read the whole resolutionhereif you please, or just read through our highlights:
First off, many structures on the property are not that old. (That’s right young’un’s the 1960’s was not that long ago.)
Anecdotal information does not meet the standard of proving whether or not something is historic. You will have to do better than that!
The structures on this property are neither unique nor rare.
The criteria was not met and this decision was NOT based on religious discrimination of any individual, group or person. (Tangent-What’s the difference between an individual and a person?)
NOT TODAY!
Billy is still the only hold out. But to the rest of our council members: We here at the Yokel salute you! Thank you for sticking to your guns and not allowing litigation to bully you into changing your minds.
Hey there Yokels. Lots of regret at Ye Olde Yokel headquarters this week. We wish we had been there adding our snarky voices to the chorus of concerned citizens who focused on a lot of these issues we talk about before they actually became issues. Alas, one must move forward. And forward we go!
This evening the County Council is having a workshop on the repeal of two bills that were passed during the dark days of the last BOCC. Click here for the details:
First up for discussion is the repeal of the Agricultural Rights Transfer Option. Back in November 2014 the BOCC approved this option. In doing so the State of Maryland suspended Frederick’s Tier IV exemption under the State’s 2012 Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act. If you want to read up on it, click the link next to the proposed option on the above agenda.
Secondly, the council will discuss amending the county code. Back in 2012 the BOCC approved certain changes to the code. One of those changes allowed the BOCC, rather than the Frederick County Planning Commission, the right to approve the APFO (Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance) when the developers also submitted a DRRA (Developer Rights and Responsibilities Agreement). In other words, the planning commission could be totally taken out of the equation when it came to making sure adequate facilities exist for a new development. Approval could and did lie totally within the BOCC’s hands. This bill puts the process back in the hands of the planning commission.
Then its off to a closed session do discuss pending legislation (hi Xenu!).
frederick local yokel 