Tag: Frederick County politics

Take one dip and be done with it!

fclocalyokel1 Comment

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?:

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Where’s Kirby?

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.

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Pretty simple concept for most!

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!

 

Drunk Agenda: Game plus Standing Rules for 2017!

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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.

Worst ad campaign ever, but irresistible to suggest that we give Billy and Kirby the bird.
Worst ad campaign ever, but irresistible to suggest that we give Billy and Kirby the bird.

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.

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Namaste and all that jazz, y’all.

 

Kirby proclaims the 4th Estate dead as a doornail!

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This year ain’t done with us yet folks!!!! Kirby has taken to his favorite medium to proclaim that said medium is now the way all Americans should get their information:

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What could go wrong?!

First off Donald Trump is going to give us the truth with no spin!!!! BAAAHAAAAHAAA! Who is the sheeple now #? If you really believe for one minute that Twitter, with its 140 character limit, is a sufficient way for an American President to convey pertinent information to us…then whoa man…we really fear for our future.

1gt8uo

Now let’s address how the “average American” no longer needs the “mainstream media”. Because this is what really has us hot under our collars. First of all, may we suggest Council Man Delauter, that you take a trip down to the Newseum so you can see for yourself how very important it is to our DEMOCRACY that we have a FREE PRESS. A FREE PRESS is absolutely essential to the free spread of ideas, opinions, information and is the ONLY way we have to investigate corruption in both corporations and the government!!!! What kind of elected official not only does NOT know this, but is actually pleased that the White House Press Corps will be locked out?! This is not a good development! This is exactly what dictators and tyrants do!!! But that’s right, Putin is a cool guy is he not, Kirby? Here’s a list that illustrates how the 4th Estate is doing in Russia.

Thankfully, once again, Kirby is so very wrong. How are newspapers doing in this current climate? Very well indeed. The Washington Post is doing so well that they are adding dozens of journalists. Vanity Fair, after Trump’s mantrum, saw their subscriptions soar!

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That’s about as accurate as Kirby’s Facebook post. They are twinsies!

The Atlantic and The New York Times have also seen a rise in donations and readership. Thinking people with a sense of history know the value and necessity of a free and unhindered press.

So what can we do to support our local media? Unless you want to friend Kirby to get his updates on local governmental issues (feel free!) or perhaps encourage him to open his @RealKirbyDelauter twitter account as we previously suggested, we need to support the Frederick News Post, even though according to Kirby they haven’t told the truth for “over 40 years,” we need to show them that we have their back! If you don’t already have a subscription, please click over and sign up! Or make a donation in Kirby’s name! Let’s show Kirby that we will not sit idly by while our one of our nation’s most important institutions is disparaged! We “average Americans” see the value of having the media call out our elected official’s bullshit.

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Get a clue Trump!

Best frenemies!

fclocalyokel1 Comment

So obviously you’ve probably noticed we have Republican friends and Democratic friends, but we ourselves are pretty libby lib. People have been bemoaning the polarization in America today, and it isn’t hard to find examples of that, but around here more often than not there are things at the local level that we can find to bridge the gap. And one of those things is Billy Shreve!

Just look at how our counterparts over at Red Maryland think the exact same thing about Shreve that we do! Namely, he is “asinine,” plus this part that sounds just like something we might have written:

…it has been proven time and time again this year that when it comes to being a member of the Central Committee that Billy Shreve can always fail to meet the lowest of expectations.

He kinda loses us when he goes on to call the Houghs, “a popular State Senator and his wife…” That’s a bridge too far for us, but hey, we will stay tuned to whatever Red Maryland wants to dish up for either half of the Shrelauter faction.

This part we probably should keep on the down low, but there are some words of wisdom here that ring true (along with the implication we again agree with that Billy is a man-child):

It’s fortunate that Shreve is not intending to serve another year as Chairman because it’s clear that Frederick County, a county that is vitally important to the re-election of Governor Hogan in 2018, needs an adult to lead it for the next two years.

But, neener neener, I am the new chair of the Republican Central Committee. 2016 is probably gonna be my year. heh heh heh
An oldie, but a goodie.

 

Basket of deplorables: Fredneck collection!

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We Ladies of the Local Yokel are early birds, because let’s face it, if you go to the fair too late in the day you see stuff like this collection of whackadoodles at the GOP tent:

You idiots. Really. So stupid.
You idiots. Really. You are so stupid. And also deplorable.

Why did it not occur to these fools to at least pretend they might be in the half who weren’t going to hell in the handbasket of deplorables? What is WRONG?? with these people???? They might as well just tattoo, “I’m a racist, misogynistic xenophobe,” smack on the front of their bovine foreheads and call it done. We heard a rumor that the Republican tent is selling all their swag. So what this means is that there may be other losers who intend to buy this piece of garbage!

This is really not a bit like getting called a Yankee Doodle Dandy and then claiming the term as a badge of honor. There’s absolutely no way to fix this with some clever spin. They have always seemed pretty dumb, and pretty abhorrent. Points for self-awareness, we guess.

Wake us up when 2016 is over (also, PSA: don’t vote for Cindy Rose). K. Thx. Bye.

PSA: The county human trafficking workshop is legit worth seeing

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So much so that you might even want to have your young ‘uns check into it. The CNN video clip of the interview with Jada Pinkett Smith was something that is worth a glance, because the anecdote they discuss really shows that this could happen to anyone under the wrong circumstances. We learned a lot tonight:

Not New Business: Billy is an infantile hominid.

New Business: Human trafficking is the real deal. It’s here, and we need to be looking out for people. And our own kiddoes. Back up, you say? Will do…

They opened the workshop with this video from the Department of Homeland Security. Which is odd, because some local naysayers were very sure that this matter was just some sort of teacher orchestrated boondoggle.

Geniuses you are not.
Geniuses you are not. Further information about this catastrophic meltdown is available on the County Council Watch Watch page. Hats off to the dedicated public servant(s?) there for pointing us in the right direction.

One of these “thinkers” by the name of Cindy Rose is running for the BOE. Is it possible that the crew here is so wedged into Blaine Young‘s rump dumplings that they forgot to A.) have empathy like human beings? and B.) that they too should be worried about kids (who are hopefully at school) vulnerable to some deviant lunatic predator on social media? Because that’s all it takes nowadays.

Anyhoo, it is all well explained by Frederick Chief of Police Hargis. He had the experience of attending a youth/law enforcement forum where he actually met a couple of young victims of human trafficking, which made him more interested in the issue. One young lady came from poverty, described herself as a “bad kid” and had tried to improve her circumstances. She was exploited by a man she thought would rescue her from a miserable outlook. Another young lady had come from a family of means, but was trying to escape her parents’ bad relationship, ran from home and ended up abducted, raped, and enslaved in a motel room. One of his takeaways from these discussions was that it is important that they build rapports with victims and ask the right questions. That is what this task force is seeking to do. Build community protocols so that victims have a certain path out of victimhood, and establish the procedures to keep people from slipping through the cracks.

It is truly a shame that the dialogue above is not the slightest bit concerned with the things that the speakers this evening talked about. It really makes you wonder about the community we live in. We have nothing but respect for the input of this panel this evening. Everyone doing their part to make people safer in Frederick County. And on that note, many thanks to Councilwoman Jessica Fitzwater for shining light on this issue.

 

All the dead horses fit to be beaten were trotted out after the long council break

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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.
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.

 

Hope your livers are all rested up! Cause tonight’s going to be a doozy!

fclocalyokel2 Comments
It's amazing how backed up you can get in a month!
It’s amazing how backed up you can get in a month!

Howdy Yokels! The council has taken a month off from legislatin’ and tonight they are coming back with a vengence! Billy should be all nice and relaxed from his bro vacay with Blaine to Costa Rica. And Kirby should be in high spirits since he’s been planning a weapons give-a-away at his place of business. Will this be enough to put them in a jovial mood? Only time will tell! Grab a hold of your agenda and pace yourself for we are in for a looooong night (please click on that–there’s really no way we can do it all justice here).

We’ll skip over the first Public Comments, because usually everyone else does, too. Also we’ll skip the Consent Agenda. If Billy doesn’t have to participate in this part, we don’t either, right? There are plenty of Business Items to keep us really busy.

Two items on the first reading calendar. A bill regarding Fire and Rescue Services and changes to the noise ordinance. If anyone should throw a fit during this part of the process, throw back an Anti-Freeze #2. 

Two items on the Third Reading Calendar, and a few Public Hearings. This is why we ask you to click, since today’s abridged version of the Agenda Drinking Game is in the interest of our sanity and your safety so that we can segue into the part of the meeting where there may well be lots of public comments. Wheeeee.

 

The APFO (Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance) presented on behalf of the County Executive by Bud Otis will absolutely require the consumption of a Drama Queen (or two…or three) while we see which of our CouncilTrumpets makes the most noise.

The Zoning Bill: usually a zoning discussion is the point during which yer Yokel ladies stop laughing and our text exchange looks more like “zzzzzzzzoning this is so boring.” Maybe just take a rest yourselves. This agenda is a lot to process.

A Pilot program to allow Medical Cannabis Growers in the Agricultural Zoning District will require a Back Stage Pass to get you past Sheriff Jenkins’ objections (presumed, y’all know we don’t call him up and ask, we just stereotype the High Sheriff because it’s easy and predictable and we aren’t getting paid for this job).

A Bill concerning Frederick County’s Hotel Rental Tax Rate. Whilst this discussion carries forth, sip your Hotel California, if you have entered into one of the internet chat rooms (that link is good for a chuckle) for or against the construction of this hotel:

“You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave!”

Council Member comments are often the most melodramatic of the evening. If you can still see at this point, mix up a Curtain Call.

 

 

Happy 240th America! It’s your 240th turn to scream at your screen!

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Hopefully in 2018 we will put them on vacation!
Hopefully in 2018 we will put them on vacation!

We hope you had a fun 4th! After the ridiculousness that went on during last week’s workshop, we don’t have much hope for sanity this week. Grab your agenda, tune up your FCGTV and let’s do this!

We’ll be surprised if anyone comes to speak for the pre-meeting comment, since it’s failed to happen thus far.  So we’ll skip ahead to one of our fave county employees, Rick Harcum.  He’s here to speak of some budget adjustments. The list is long and we have little hope that our usual suspects will not grandstand. So when they do what they do, sip on your President cocktail in honor of Bud and all he has to put up with.

The High Sheriff will be in the house to discuss a joint grant application with the City of Frederick. This actually looks like some good stuff, with the money split between the Sheriff’s office and the Frederick City police. Click on the agenda to get all the details.

Up next is naming the County Attorney as the Resident Agent for the county as required by law. If this discussion is too much for some to comprehend, mix up a Roosevelt, since he’s probably spinning in his grave.

There are some first and third readings of bills proposed by the county executive on the agenda. Kirby threw this Facebook fit earlier:

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Someone hasn’t read our post about what a traitor is. And these guys have a hard time  comprehending what a legislative body does. Jan cannot introduce legislation. She needs someone on the council to do it for her. And quelle horror! She actually has some people on the council who think it’s advantageous to work together. If Kirby can get over his Ted Cruz style of legislatin’ we’ll all be better off. If he brings up anything on this Facebook rant mix up a batch of Martha Washington’s punch. Since we are fairly certain that’s what the good lady would do to him.

To round things up there’re two public hearings. One on sewage amendments and the other on charter amendments. There’s gonna be words. When there are slam back your Bear Witness. Since bearing witness to this all really can be a burden.

Grab some water and hydrate for public and council member comments. This can sometimes be the hardest part of the meeting.