Tag: Frederick County Government

Let’s end this week on a high note!!!

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With all our talk of untucked craziness and hissy fits this week, it’s been really easy to lose sight of the good happening in our county government. Today, County Executive Jan Gardner held a press conference to highlight her budget for the Fiscal Year 2017. Now this isn’t a done deal, there’ s still a bunch of hearings and county council meetings to be held, but oh how wonderful it is to have an executive who knows how important it is to invest in our community services.  Here’s some of our faves:

The budget provides $10.5 million in funding to the Frederick County Public Schools above the minimum required Maintenance of Effort (MOE) level and an additional $500,000 in one-time funding for school technology.

Frederick Community College (FCC) plays an important role in lifelong learning and training adults of all ages for the workplace. The budget reflects an investment of $700,000 to help keep community college affordable and accessible. This investment will provide salary improvements for staff and make improvements to campus security.

The budget proposes adding three librarians to restore operating hours at our regional libraries – C. Burr Artz, Urbana and Thurmont. This will allow expanded hours until 9 p.m. during the week at these locations, facilitate greater use of the community rooms, and accommodate the needs of our library patrons.  The long-awaited Walkersville Branch Library will move forward with construction. A significant portion of this project is funded by library impact fees and state funding.

The budget meets increasing demand for early childhood intervention services providing for two Occupational Therapists, a Speech Language Pathologist and funding for substitute therapists.

CREST is Frederick County’s first higher education center. It is uniquely designed to provide higher education in science and technology fields specifically to provide advanced degrees to meet workforce needs for local biotech and life science companies. The budget proposes $40,000 in annual funding to match city and state funds.

This budget provides for a new pay scale for both deputies and corrections staff. It is critically important that we pay competitive wages to value our existing employees and attract the best and brightest to work in our community. In addition, the budget provides for two new deputies for courthouse security, one new deputy for narcotics, and a fiscal services director. Division of Fire and Rescue Service.

The top priority in Fire and Rescue is to improve staffing levels to staff equipment and meet growing call volume. To achieve this goal, the budget adds 12 new firefighter positions. The budget also funds a firefighter/EMT recruit class, supports the fireparamedic conversion approved in the current fiscal year, and provides equipment and training support.

9-1-1 communications is a busy place and our call takers are on the front line of almost every emergency. On average, a call taker handles 50 calls per hour. The budget provides for four new call takers to meet growing call volume. These positions are part of a three year plan to increase current capabilities and to staff closer to industry standards.

Fulfilling a campaign promise to restore the county’s longstanding productive partnership with our non-profit human service agencies, the budget provides a modest increase of $250,000 to Community Partnership Grants. Grants awarded this year went to over 20 human service non-profit agencies in the county to provide for basic human needs, such as food, housing, medical care, car repair so people can get to work, and other basic needs.

The capital improvement program for FY 17 includes funding for the first phase of construction of the Othello Park near Rosemont and Brunswick, which will add needed sports fields and recreational opportunities in this area of the county. The capital budget also provides for planned upgrades to the Kemptown Park near Mount Airy/Monrovia. The Point of Rocks Commons Park also will move forward in the upcoming year.

In the face of a dramatic rise in overdoses and fatalities stemming from heroin and opiod abuse, the State of Maryland has decided to transition Health Departments away from providing direct substance abuse treatment to an oversight role. Treatment programs will shift to private sector providers. The Frederick County Health Department has been approved to continue the substance abuse program in the detention center as well as the methadone treatment program. Because the state will no longer directly support these programs, the budget provides gap funding to continue these critical substance abuse treatment and prevention programs.

There’s much more so read the entire proposal here. 

The future is looking great for our county!

 

 

Workshops shouldn’t be this painful-April 12 County Council edition

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As we let you know yesterday there was a county council workshop to discuss two land use issues. We can say this: Billy and Kirby do not like it when old BOCC business is criticized. Even when given something like a million explanations as to why something should go they steadfastly refuse to do so. Have to admire their tenacity. Or not.

First off, kudos once again to our county workers. It must be the bane of their existence to have to come before the council and try to explain things to a couple of these fellas. A few of the presenters tonight seem to have had it with Billy and Kirby, as has the FNP. In the article describing yesterday’s meeting there was no mention of their behavior.  How dare the FNP not report upon their hissy fits? This upset Billy and Kirby so much that this had to happen:

 

Not at all accurate people!
Not at all accurate, people!
Oh don't worry Billy. We watched and we decided.
Oh don’t worry Billy. We watched and we decided.

So let’s deal with the Agricultural bit first. County staff has met with the State over the issue concerning our lost Tier IV Exemption status. The State, in turn, gave four options the county could utilize to remedy the situation. County staff has weighed the pros and cons of each option and decided the best one one was to repeal the ARTO. Here’s the rationale:

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Well, Kirby, Billy and Tony want to have their own meeting with the State. Some nonsense about how “they can work things out”. Isn’t that what the staff’s job is? Not one of them gives any  good reason as to why this ordinance should stand. Not a one. Kirby, at one point, concedes that he is not an expert on this subject. However, its not enough to make him stop arguing.

Sorry, Marmalade, we need a better reason that that.
Sorry, Marmalade, we need a better reason that that.

Then it was off to the second item of business. Reinstating the old APFO process. Our poor, downtrodden county employee, Jim, explained very thoroughly how this new process , passed in 2012, helped no one in any way shape or form. Jim even went as far to suggest that perhaps the BOCC made this change because they were concerned that the make up of the Planning Commission at that time would not be friendly to some of the projects that were proposed. Billy had some sarcastic comments, but as usual, nothing of substance to back his arguments.

Being a workshop, there’s still more discussion to be had. One final question though: If Billy votes no to going into a closed session does that mean the rest of the council can lock him out? Please say yes!

Can the mistakes of the past be undone?

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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:

04 12 16 Workshop

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!).

Can we have a positive track in Frederick County?

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Well, we’re off the rails here. Some of our council members threw us for a loop at the April 5th council meeting. For the most part, the theme of the meeting was, “All Aboard!” Most notably, Tony Chmelik was so agreeable (as we discussed in our other post about the weirdness of the meeting) that he just couldn’t wait to vote in favor of things he has been railing against for months. Not just that, though. He actually seemed jovial. Not sure what’s going on with him. To be fair, he has never had Billy and Kirby’s combative style or disrespectful tone, he just gets oddly passionate about stuff that seems very much at odds with his constituency.

Word to the wise.
Word to the wise.

Which leads us to our further astonishment. Usually the portion of the meeting in which council members make comment leads us into the dark tunnels of their minds. This is especially true when Billy and Kirby have something gnawing at them. Nothing happened! Our brains wrestled around hard with the fact that Billy seemed to have some thoughtful and interesting comments about handling our county’s pressing drug addiction problems, and highlighted first responders’ use of Narcan inhalers. Just recalling it, our jaws begin to hang slack in amazement. Nary a crazy train in sight. If they keep this up, we won’t have anything to say. We, ladies and gentlemen of the county, are not really sure what to hope for! We’ve become kinda fond of our little blogging hobby based on the wacko birds.

We continue to be grateful to Bud Otis. It was no surprise that he was thoughtful and used his position to give voice to the issues members of our community are dealing with. He has proven time and again to be the picture of dignity and positivity. His comments regarding the struggles of servers relying on tips for their income were thoughtful and inspiring. He also spoke eloquently of the needs of FCPS school students who are experiencing homelessness. He highlighted the work of a partnership running the New Horizons program so that these students have constructive activities and a good environment throughout the summer months. There is a gofundme campaign to help meet the financial needs of the program, if you are able to lend a hand.

What the hell happened? Your April 5th council meeting roundup!

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Life is all about change. Humans, in order to survive and thrive, must be adaptable to change.  If not, you end up denying indisputable climate data and supporting a candidate that promises to make everything great again. So we here at the Yokel want to be adaptable. We don’t want to end up stockpiling canned goods and squatting on National Wildlife preserves. We really don’t! That’s why we want to accept all of the changes we saw at the meeting last night no matter how hard that may be.

First we’ll start with someone who could use a bit of change.

AYE Billy AYE!
AYE Billy AYE!

We’ve done a few posts about Billy’s oppositional defiance disorder.When he can bring himself to vote he never, ever says Aye. Everyone else can do it,  but Billy likes to be a trailblazer. Nobody is going to tell him how to talk,  no sirree Bob. Until Billy sends us a message explaining why he does this we’re going to refer to him as a:

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Next on the agenda is some sewer talk. The two amendments to the code and one out of sequence item concerning sewer hookup to Lewistown were passed with little to no fanfare. Then came the third reading section of the evening.

First off, Jessica tables the bill concerning the changes that can be made to historical designations. Of course Xenu is playing a hand in this. And the FNP article on it acknowledges as much. We here at the Yokel agree with Mark Long’s public comments concerning the Scientologists turning the land over to the park service. Enough is enough. We don’t want a bizarre cult recruitment center thinly disguised as a very ineffective drug treatment center in our neck of the woods.

The next bill was also tabled. This time it was medical cannabis that landed on the cutting room floor. In a separate FNP article we learn:

Keegan-Ayer said after Tuesday’s County Council meeting she didn’t have four votes among the seven council members to approve the bill. In early March, she told The Frederick News-Post she believed a majority of the council supported the legislation.

She said Tuesday that she was aware of concerns among some council members, but declined to elaborate what they were.

“In my opinion, they were not based on fact,” Keegan-Ayer said of the concerns.

What’s that you say?! Some council members hold opinions that aren’t based on facts? When did this start? Oh that’s right December 1, 2014.  Come on people, enough craziness about marijuana. There’s even been research suggesting that we may not have the opioid/heroine addiction problems if Nixon hadn’t made everyone so cuckoo over marijuana and let it be researched as a pain management drug. Let’s all operate in the real world..please!!!

Now we come to the part of the meeting that still has us scratching our watches and winding our butts. Remember a few weeks back when Councilman Chemlik was all so against the impact fees?  We recall a long soliloquy in defense of our poor, downtrodden developers. Fast forward to last night and oh how things have changed. We like the change, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want an explanation! Tony is now for both of these fees! He was so very excited to vote for them that he screamed Aye into his microphone before the vote had even been taken. We would like to accept his vote and move on, but we can’t.  What the hell happened?

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Isn’t it ironic? No it is not.

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Just like a bad Alanis Morisette song, Kirby doesn’t get irony. Let us help:

irony

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noun iro·ny \ˈī-rə-nē also ˈī(-ə)r-nē\
Popularity: Top 1% of lookups

Simple Definition of irony

  • : the use of words that mean the opposite of what you really think especially in order to be funny

  • : a situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony

Now, we will allow that maybe Kirby thought he was being funny. However, it is in no way, shape, or form ironic that the county passed an ethics ordinance. Even if he didn’t like it it doesn’t mean it’s corrupt.  And this certainly was NOT the opposite of what everyone expected. When can we move on?

irony

 

Billy drops “f” bomb in workshop!!!!

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It couldn't have ANYTHING to do with him, could it?
It couldn’t have ANYTHING to do with him, could it?

 

Howdy Yokels!! We’ll get back to our title in a moment.

Last night’s workshop had three items to discuss; Medical Marijuana, Kirby and Tony’s task force, and changes to the council’s rules and procedures.

We are all for the growth and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.  It is absolutely ludicrous that the Federal Government still considers marijuana to be a schedule 1 drug.  Ludicrous.  M.C. was the star tonight and had lots of good facts as to the research and uses of cannabis.  For example, there is a possibility that cannabis could be used as an alternative to opioids for pain management. If you still need to be convinced hop on over to this website and watch some of these movies. Let’ s not let Richard Nixon era craziness cloud our views on the benefits of this drug.

Next up is some very confusing talk about the creation of a task force to discuss this lease back idea of building schools.  Tony wants to go to Jan with the full support of the council. There’s some discussion as to why this needs to be done since Jan has already agreed to look into it. And Tony thinks its “very unfortunate” that anyone would think that this task force would be perceived as being against what the County Executive is trying to accomplish. Now why in the world would anyone think that Tony and Kirby would do anything to undermine Jan?

INCONCEIVABLE

Now, for the juicy stuff. The council members want to change some of their rules and procedures. This is where Billy gets really testy. He wants a break!!! Right now!!! Bud takes a little longer than Billy cares to wait and you can clearly hear him drop the “mother of all words” and storm out.

Just  cue up the video and go to the second hour and 29 minutes in ( 2:29) and enjoy! You may also want to click on the procedures to see the changes that Billy wants. Basically he wants to be able to talk all the time about whatever he wants. He doesn’t have the support of his fellow members. In fact, he and Tony have a nice little back and forth over all of this. But the pinnacle of irony for us is when Billy proclaims:

We don’t communicate very effectively.

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Special Alert: Billy wants to hand all county taxing power over to Annapolis delegation!

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Alright, we'll give you two.
Alright, we’ll give you two.

It’s very possible that we’ve broken Billy. Maybe it was those long, cold, lonely walks from the Church Street parking garage. Or perhaps, it was the endless scratching upon the windows of Winchester Hall for someone, anyone, to let him in. For we know not what to make of what happened here this evening.

Our frustration was at top peak at the start, for we know not how long this pervasive strategy to do nothing will go on:

Agenda vote-NO

Budget transfers-Abstain

Minutes-Abstain

Then old Billy boy wants to be a part of stuff and decides to vote Yes on appointments. Not the proper AYE mind you, he’s not going down without a fight. (Why does it feel as though we have written these exact words at least twenty times now?)

Now we’ve come to the part where we think all the stress may be getting to Billy. You see our legislators in Annapolis have decided to strip the county council’s ability to change the hotel tax. Some of the county council members were upset about local control being swept away, but not Billy. These words came out of his mouth:

I support the delegation taking all taxing ability away from this council.

You see Billy is a self proclaimed “big picture kind of guy” who sees the “end results”. So logically, he will vote to allow the delegation to take local taxing ability away because he doesn’t like one particular bill. That’s a mighty big picture there. There’s also some confusion about voting to vote on allowing Bud to speak on this issue, and Jessica has to tell Billy not to vote against his own motion. However, when it came time for the actual motion, Billy was left flapping out all alone.  But not before he got one more zinger in aimed at Bud:

I would not have you speak on behalf of the council or for me in general.

What a hero. Good luck in Annapolis Mr. Otis.

How our hearts soared when we thought tonight would be the night this ethics nonsense would be put to rest. But curse you mystery letter sent in to the council at 3:00 this afternoon. The ghost of Antonin Scalia must have had something to do with this because all Kirby would allude to was that it was “unconstitutional”. We get a little more information from Councilmember Donald when he says its mostly the same old stuff again with the Kirby profiting from the county until  2018 clause  still alive and well. And Sweet Sappho, Billy doesn’t even have the letter. So we must postpone!!! We disagree here, Billy should read what he’s given and Kirby doesn’t get to wait until the last hour to obstruct things. He’s had plenty of time. But alas, it is done. Another week…another dead horse.

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Billy explains his abstentions-still makes no sense.

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Come on Cricket give the liar a break!
Come on Cricket give the liar a break!

What must be going through Councilman Shreve’s brain when he sits at his computer to pen his excuses for the Woodsboro times? Does he really expect anyone to relate to this stream of consciousness b.s. ? I mean really folks, does he really think we are this dumb?  Let us start with excuso numero uno:

December, 12 months in office. #1 duty of the County Council is to provide budget oversight. So far, after 12 months, we still have not hired a Budget Director. I have protested this repeatedly by abstaining on all budget related votes, over 60 times this year. (I refuse to do hunger strikes : )

Ha ha! As if Billy’s not going to eat for you jerks!!! So, why did he vote “yes” for Trout Run? And why vote against the minutes? Because it’s all a very convenient bunch of crap. Billy must have been hungry when he wrote this because there’s this:

I’m not a big government guy and don’t propose hiring employees just to have them, but if you are running a restaurant, you need a cook, dishwasher, and server. The Council inherited a $550 million dollar budget and a population of 240,000. An entity this size requires staff to handle the day to day operations on day one! We aren’t running a coffee shop; we need employees.

But you just said a coffee house/restaurants need employees. Wouldn’t the better analogy be: like a coffee shop, we need an adequate number of employees to make sure things run smoothly. OHH OHH! 25 word job-posting digression time:

Billy’s Speech Writer

Must be able to take endless non sequiturs and unrelated analogies and translate them into standard English. Overtime a must!

Any hoo! Back to the article. There’s lots and lots of complaining about Mike Gastley, and how they had to put all the numbers into Kirby’s work budget software (what the what). And they still, even though they were on the BOCC for four years, weren’t able to make heads of tails of it all. What we find most interesting about this whole written catastrophe is what Billy leaves out. He omits the name of the very person that Billy and Kirby put forth. A person who not only vacations with one Councilmember, and tailgates with another, but one who is living with the very person who lost to Jan! Look at his complaint about Mr. Gastley:

How can we believe he will support the Council and not the County Executive? Is this the right person to provide checks and balances to the County Executive? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Now, can we believe that this person that Billy and Kirby put forth will provide the the appropriate support to ALL of the members of the county council? That this person would also, without bias, take information from the County Executive’s office and relay that to the council?  I think we can be safe to say: NOOOOOOOOO! Maybe–just maybe–Billy would have just a shred of credibility if he had not put this name forward. But hey, since when has Billy ever worried about that?

September 15th meeting roundup. How a question is different from an observation edition.

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Hello Local Yokel fans! We didn’t think this would be a very long meeting, but hey, why do we underestimate people’s ability to waste large amounts of time on personal vendettas? Sometimes I think we should watch our neighboring counties’meetings to see if they are anything like ours. Truly curious to know if we are unique. Anyone with any knowledge of this please comment.

If you were following our drinking game you had to take a shot of the usual right out of the gate. And then blah, blah, blah, Billy abstains from the agenda. (Doesn’t that mean he should abstain from having any input on anything on that agenda?) Let’s move on to Budget Transfers:

Listen to the baby possum Kirby!
Listen to the baby possum Kirby!

Everything is going smoothly. Kirby says he has a question on BT-16-051, a project for the Public Works Division. The nice fellas from this division sit at the table expecting an actual question. For those of you who are parents, do you remember when your kids were young (or perhaps they are still at this age) and someone would ask them if they had any questions? Instead of actually having a question, which of course your child insisted that they did, it’s just a story or an observation. Well, that’s what happened here. Instead of asking them anything, Kirby goes on about some previous project (one that it turns out he wanted to bid on), making some point that we really can’t follow about the bids being over the engineer’s estimate and he swears it’s a comparison. The nice fella tells Kirby that he’s only prepared to talk about this project and does he actually have a question. The answer to that is no, just an observation. So why did you make them get up and come to the table Kirby? Billy abstains on all of the budget transfers, we know yawn!

Confirmation of County Executives Appointments. All pass.

Ethics discussion. Read this nice article in the FNP today that breaks down the changes the panel is suggesting the council make. Predictably, Kirby has something to say about it. He wants to know why we have a commission if the County Executive is going to override it. It’s a complete waste of time in his mind. The only difference being that now 71% of the board can now resign in protest. Billy isn’t much better when he tries to make a point about the quorum. Now 3 out of the 5 have to show up. This change will make it so that 4 out  of 7 will make a quorum. That’s one more person than before, Billy points out. Mathias tries to explain to him that there will be more people on the board and that this really isn’t a point that he wants to get mired down in. (We hear ya!) After this, some good discussion from just about everyone takes place. What about having the commission members appointed by an independent body? That’s worth discussing. But then Tony takes it in a different direction and tries to reject the entire bill promising that he will sponsor it in the future. That motion is defeated. There will be  county workshop on this on October 6th and a future public hearing. If you have any input on this be sure to contact the council before that date.

A break was put on the agenda to reconvene at 7:00. Billy doesn’t like that he has to twiddle his thumbs until then. Which could be a valid point if Bud could reasonably predict how long the first half of the meeting will take. But since he can’t……(Actually Billy’s last parting shot was: “Well let’s not make any decisions like that again.” Nice, huh?)

After Billy sat in his office twiddling his thumbs for an hour and a half, the council reconvened to take up two public hearings.

The first was concerning the bill to amend the Water, Sewers and Sewage Disposal code:

Remember during the first reading of this bill when Billy said the government shouldn't collect small fines? Well, poor kitty cat took him literally.
Remember during the first reading of this bill when Billy said the government shouldn’t collect small fines? Well, poor kitty cat took him literally.

This bill is to fine people $250 for taking water from hydrants. Last time Billy said the county shouldn’t take people to court to collect small fines because it wasn’t fiscally sound. And tonight he reiterated that notion by saying $250 is not enough to stop offenders. So is he advocating for making the fine larger? There’s some discussion of the WSSC method of giving contractors a meter, which is not feasible for the way we do things. Especially since our water and sewer department doesn’t have the manpower. Kirby has some reasonable questions here. This is the Kirby we wish we could see all the time. And the fine representative from this department is more than prepared to answer them. We like good questions. Not observations not so subtlety masked as complaints. Bill is moved on.

Next up is discussion of the expansion of the MedImmune facility. We will leave you with this article if you want to read more. Very ably presented by Helen and Company. Passed as well, with only Billy saying no.

Public comment was only two fellas this evening. Steve McKay gave a very informative comment about his take on the ethics law. (Can we see the power point Steve?) And hopefully his comments will be taken seriously.

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Another commenter asked the council to look into some building code violations that were going to jeopardize his solar panel business. And we have to say we love how respectfully this man was treated. Let’s keep that level of respect going!

And now…Council Member comments.

So it’s not a surprise to any of us that Kirby and Tony are against the prevailing wage. And that they are encouraging the public to attend Delegate Afzali’s meeting tonight. But we’ve said enough about that so let’s move on.

Billy. If only Thor had sent down a thunderbolt to knock out the power, then we could have been spared this last bit of nonsense. Billy wants it to be known that Paul and Blaine were not issued their proper engraved invitations to sit before the dais of the county council. How could they have known when to come? (David Gray somehow figured it out.) Billy wants to make a change to the record so it’s known to one and all that they were not invited. He gets into a verbal back and forth with Chomel, who tells him that council member comments are not about making motions. But somehow it happens anyway. But not before Jerry Donald gives Billy a good dressing down as to how their presence before the council would not have made a difference. And, Jerry continues, the council didn’t ask for this issue, it was given to them and they need to make the best decision based on the record not what was going on in Paul and Blaine’s heads. Billy’s motion fails. As do we all when our time is wasted so egregiously.