It is unbelievable to your Yokel gals the lengths to which some of these people will go to in defending Blaine Young. A look at the paper today reveals an LTE, short and sweet.It’s so short it would have fit in one little block quote. Some lady admonishing the FNP for being mean.
Can we just ask? Why is nothing ever their fault? Kirby can make an ass of himself on a public forum, and it’s other people’s problem for noticing. Blaine allegedly can’t keep his pants zipped anywhere for any reason at a time period lasting for decades, and WE are the ones embarrassing his family (!!!!) according to the unwavering logical fallacy that is the hallmark of the County Council Watch page. Oh, and by-the-by, if you aren’t following the County Council Watch Watch, you should be! It will save you having to peek at the condition of that festering boil on the butt of the county.
And guess what, dear “Area Woman” of the Watch Watch! We don’t even have to be the voyeurs to your exhibitionist friend group. There is an entire network of concerned citizens who just occasionally lets us know when something interesting is going on. It’s just that simple. Probably they let everyone and their mother know about the same stuff, but the Baltimore Sun is staffed and paid to call everyone for comment. We’re just leading you to the same public information you could find any old time, but the internet made it faster. Like the White Pages. Remember when you had to look in a book? Well, no longer. Same with court records, Woman.
When we started this group one of our goals was to poke fun at the local mess so that maybe more people would be willing to pay attention to local politics. It’s absolutely not our fault if your weirdo sideshow makes the best scandals. Too bad that “Mexican” food for dinner is too boring to capture anyone’s imagination. Multiple sex scandals (even more than one with hookers), repeatedly doing stuff so dumb that the A.P. runs stories about how dumb you are, or the “je ne sais quoi” Billy contributes to the Honey Boo Boo vibe of Frederick county are just plain fascinating.
Get ahold of yourself, Woman!
This matter of going after people’s kids. No one is going after kids, except for Area Woman trying to suggest it would be fine to persecute ours. We are absolutely in agreement with Blaine’s deleted Facebook apology (the one the Baltimore Sun screen capped and distributed like common stalkers, hahah!): his family and romantic partner(s?) need space. However, if a john’s kids feel ashamed by his gross behavior, that’s a john’s fault and he should have thought about that before breaking the law. It seems like there have been ample opportunities to learn this lesson:
Keep your crazy tucked in, people. And your other stuff, too, while you’re at it.
Ding a ding dang. When did Blaine Young get a gig on the BOARD OF CONTRIBUTORS at the FNP?
What a hot mess. But, this should promise plenty of localyokel inspiration.
This buffoon did remind a yokel that we need to give a huge shout out to some public commenters at last Tuesday’s meeting. We had well thought out statements from several of our dependable, well-informed, engaged residents, and thanks go out to them again for keeping on top of our county business and keeping our representatives in check. Democracy doesn’t work without involved citizens.
Particularly the PTA Presidents of Hillcrest and Urbana Elementary Schools should be lauded for staying through a long meeting in order to have the chance at the very end of the night to speak up, in a united voice, about the needs of their students and school communities.
Blaine has decided to take to the keyboard in defense of the have nots’ right to be equally exposed to potentially carcinogenic (who can say? not the federal government at any rate) turf. Turf which has also been linked to higher frequency of concussions and sprained ankles, burn, and a malady called “turf toe”…whatever that is. In the sun a turf field gets as hot as Qatar. Women athletes of FIFA have pointed to artificial turf as a blatant point of discrimination, as the men would never be expected to play a single beautiful game in a World Cup tournament on anything inferior to natural grass.
He’s so generous with the construction projects.
And moving right along, what is all this noise about sports for anyway? This same logic should apply first and foremost to sorely needed school construction. The primary purpose of schools is education (duh). Before we get involved in complaining that FCPS builds new sports stadiums according to modern standards, and old stadiums are old–this is really as stupid as it sounds, isn’t it?–we should be hearing Mr. Young advocating for modern *school* buildings in Middletown and Urbana and Waverley, where they are still using open concept floor plans as though it is 1970. Or for the students of Centerville, who started out with a shiny, happy new school that could hardly begin to hold all of them. And for the students of Hillcrest. If memory serves, the portables are now so old they are visibly decaying. How is anyone supposed to take this Blaine Young turf war seriously? Kudos again to Hillcrest and Urbana’s PTA communities for not turning a shared need for construction funding into their own turf war.
This thing should be more popular than the Gadsden flag.
Yup. Hang on to your hats, locals, it’s gonna be a crazy ride to follow this one.
Political notes in the FNP today (Sept. 11, 2015) has struck irony gold. Shreve has filed a PIA request to find out what he could simply ask Bud Otis about. The topic is what he believes to be a super secret deal trying to make the Monrovia Town Center development age-restricted. This would spread out the traffic concentration to different times of day maybe, and not stretch the schools any farther than they are now–not a terrible idea, really!
What is just knee-slapping hilarity is that Billy seized on the idea that they could just make MTC age restricted during the council discussion last meeting. That would be the one about what the heck they were going to be able to do to alleviate the FACT letter taint (Mr. Smith and his dumb letter writing: will he learn?). Over and over, to the point of exhaustion. In his ever exasperated tone. Never you mind that it would be impossible take that direction at that point in the process (and you really have to ask yourself how this continues to confuse an experienced elected official).
Is this part of the Fantasy Conspiracy League Draft, hosted on Facebook by the Billy/Kirby/(Chmelik? please definitively distinguish yourself, man) faction of their party? Who can say for sure, but as they say, “It would be irresponsible not to speculate…”
Psssst…it should have the contraction “it’s” instead of the possessive “its” here. We didn’t make it. Education matters, evidently!
We were afraid that last night’s Board of Education meeting was going to turn into an ugly us vs. them shame fest.( If you want to watch the meeting, clickhere to get to FCPS’s TV channel). Thankfully, we were all so very wrong. First off let’s give an old yokel tip of the hat to Board of Education President Brad Young for setting the tone of last night’s meeting:
There has been a misrepresentation that this is an either/or situation. I don’t want to see this as one vs. the other. Both schools are needed.
This entire board 150% agrees that both schools are needed.
Just for you Mr. Young. Thank you for setting the tone for what could have been a very contentious meeting.
County Executive Jan Gardner also spoke:
We need to advocate together for our community’s needs. We are all in it together.
The Frederick News Post also reported that the speakers also kept that tone of togetherness. At the end of the meeting, it was reported, that the PTA Presidents exchanged contact information. Way to go ladies!
Brad Young, and others, have told us the main reason that we have these money problems is due to the prevailing wage. Back in 2014, the State passed a law that if they provided more than 50% of the school construction bill, wages need to be set at a certain level. This is why Frederick High’s costs have skyrocketed and also why these construction projects are in jeopardy. Now, before anyone villianizes the prevailing wage, let’s all remember to look at the big picture. We have a huge problem in this country of good folks working hard and not having enough money to pay their bills. If the prevailing wage measure helps with that, then it’s a good thing. We need to find a way to pay people well and get what our school system needs to educate our children properly.
So what can we do?
As we reported yesterday, we can petition Governor Hogan to release some of the education funds that he’s been holding on to. Click here to get to the petition.
Jan said she is going to work on raising the impact and school development fees so the developers pick up their fair share of the price tag. These builders shouldn’t be allowed to come into our county, make huge profits, and then leave us with clogged roads and overcrowded schools. When her bill comes to the county council, make sure they hear your voice. We suspect there may be, umm let’s see, at least three people who will be against this.
Email, call or visit our state and local officials. Here’s a nice listof all of them. Make sure they know how you feel about school funding in our county. Because……..
On this last day of June, a fine, fairly mild summer day, the Frederick County Council convened to take care of the business at hand. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of tonight’s meeting , dear readers, we must start off with a message to our BFF Bud Otis. We here at the Local Yokel sincerely hope that your wife is on the mend. We are very glad to hear that our EMT and 911 services are top-notch. And we are sure that since the “everything must be privatized” majority is gone they will continue to receive the funding necessary to keep them so. Mrs. Otis please accept our virtual flowers and very real well wishes:
At the top of the agenda was Budget Transfers. A fairly common occurrence, quickly discussed and voted on. Should be no surprise that Billy was the main hold out. But that’s become boring to us so let’s go to the next item.
Approval of the Frederick Community College FY 2016 operating budget. Very nicely presented by FCC representative Dana McDonald I must say. She explains how the county contribution has helped the school. Most importantly, how the contribution has helped keep tuition increases low. I don’t know about you but I believe that FCC is a wonderful institution. It’s a great place to start college without the high price tag or to gain a certification or simply expand your knowledge. One would have to be living under a rock to have not heard of the crippling student debt that many young people carry. It would be very hard to imagine that an elected public official would be ignorant of the fact that the high price tag of a Bachelor’s degree is a real concern in these United States of America.
Who is living here?
Just kidding, we totally can image who…Billy! Not only is he the only one to give this poor woman any grief, but he once again renders a presenter speechless with his inquiries. He wants to know why county residents can’t pay more in tuition if they want to! He wants to know why county residents are given any special “subsidy” at all, because folks he would love to charge them all the out-of-state rate! Every single meeting we are presented with more and more proof that Mr. Shreve is not a big picture kind of guy. I offer this article on the economic impacts of high student debtso Billy can come out of the darkness and into the light. Fortunately, the other council members see the value in an affordable post-secondary educational institution and the budget was approved 6-1.
Time for another item of common occurrence…County Executive appointments. All passed unanimously, except for the planning commission in which Billy is trying to make some point about Trout Run by voting no.
Earlier in the week we posted about item d. on the agenda. Local Yokel is not a fan of giving Mr. Smith any money at this point. Well, the only council member who agreed with us was M.C.. She argued that, “as a lawyer he should have known better.” But with 6-1 she was clearly in the minority and Mr. Smith will be receiving almost $12,000 in legal fees that he claims were associated with his duties as a former county commissioner.
A couple of items about plumbing code and an amendment to the moderately priced dwelling unit bill and then we are on to the big-ticket item: Monrovia Town Center. In short, no decision. Of course Tony would love to see this rushed through and at one point he became very agitated at Jessica for asking a question that he deemed irrelevant. Thankfully, because of the leadership of M.C. Keegan-Ayer, the council is going to review this information on the MTC dating from January 2014 to the present. The council wants to make sure they can make a thoughtful, educated decision about what has certainly turned into a nightmare for everyone involved. Even though Tony wanted a 30 day limit to this thoughtful deliberation, more reasonable heads prevailed and a decision will be deferred until September.
A few thoughts on public comment. It is very sad to us that people have to thank the county council for behaving in a thoughtful, deliberate manner. Shouldn’t that be a given? But that’s exactly what speaker after speaker did this evening. Whether Kirby or Billy want to admit it, the last four years of the board of county commissioners was a dark time in our county’s history. Citizens felt disrespected and it was really frightening to us that our county government was in the hands of a group of people who don’t really believe that government should exist at all. Billy gave us a flash back of this disrespectful behavior when he openly sparred with a member of our community, and then Jessica, over some concerns this community member has over Route 75. Billy was consistently rude and out-of-order during this whole interaction. As one woman stated, it is embarrassing to think this man represents our county.
Blaine’s not there to back you up anymore! It’s time to behave if you want to sit at the grown up table!
Another point concerning public comments is that Tony took the brunt of the criticisms this evening. He was accused of not answering communications, not properly representing his district and the people are not happy! He tried to answer these accusations in his comments, telling people to stop smirking, but it’s fairly evident where Tony’s loyalties lay. He’s got a lot of fences to mend if he hopes for another shot at this council seat.
Is he listening? Time will tell.
Not sure what’s going on with Kirby lately. He needs someone to fix his microphone because once again it was very hard to hear him. His comment at the end of the meeting was very strange. He announced that he received a text that a cement truck dumped its load on the side of a road and will someone look into it? This all seemed really out-of-place. Why is someone texting Kirby with this information? And why announce it at the meeting? Does he want us to know that people call him as well? Maybe he’s tired of Billy getting all the credit.
We will end this post with a Twitter update from Jen Fifield of the Frederick News Post:
What’s this about? Why is the developer getting a police escort?
If you’ve read our past musings about Billy, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he likes to post county documents to his Facebook page. Not all, only those that he thinks will get people all riled up. Take for example, that time he posted the legal documents in whichAurora made the county aware they were suing them. More recently he posted the English Language Ordinance repeal bill. No comment, just put it out there. Want to know what it is now? I am sure you don’t, but if I had to look at it:
Since Blaine doesn’t have the bully pulpit anymore, I’ll take up the torch!
That’s right it’s the county’s agreement with Regina Williams concerning her employment with Frederick County. Now please notice that this is addressed to Jen Fifield at the Frederick News Post. We applaud reporters for using the Freedom of Information Act and reporting to us what is happening in our government. And from that point of view, we get it! Newspapers are in the business of keeping us abreast of what goes on behind closed doors, without the media our democracy could not exist. Billy’s motives is what bothers us. From the Aurora payment, to the repeal bill to this. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of question as to why this may not have been the best working situation for both the County Executive and Ms. Williams. It was a conflict of interest when she was involved with the President of the Board of County Commissioners and it’s a conflict because she’s still in a relationship with the man who wanted Jan’s job. From every viewpoint this is a human resources nightmare. Billy seems not to know whom he represents. He puts stuff out there, quite often with no comment of his own, and it’s really hard to figure out what his point is. Plus, it’s really getting quite tedious bringing this stuff to light. So Billy, please, please stop it.
Frederick is a small city with great entrepreneurial spirit. The mutually supportive vibe going on in the community among the residents and the small business owners is one of the things that makes it a pleasure to live here. We have to stress the importance of including our media resources on the pedestal of local esteem, particularly on this solemn occasion. The Gazette will cease publication at their remaining Montgomery County facility this week. The Gaithersburg Gazette started in 1959; Frederick’s version was discontinued in 2013.
Imagine for a moment what we would do here without a local paper at all. Son of a corn nut! What corruption could be possible with no real journalists reporting on it?
“For the moment, nobody does what we do. Nobody covers these communities,” Lyons said in 2011. “If we went away tomorrow, there’d be a heck of a lot of news go away. If The New York Times stopped covering Washington, D.C., tomorrow, there’d be other people to cover Washington, D.C.” (Bethesda Magazine, July 12, 2015)
Local journalism can be a peculiar beast. Many entry-level reporters cut their teeth at small local papers. Young reporters can have a steep learning curve with the pertinent issues, which are almost always a densely packed snoozefest of taxes, budgets, land use, property values, and school politics. It’s hard enough to get adult homeowners with children to engage with these issues, much as we try to insist on the importance (and honest-to-Thor, a council meeting can be entertaining as all get out). It creates a new challenge for a reporter who has no first hand experience with their reader’s perspective on what information is prioritized, and may be discouraged to discover that readers mostly like dumb stuff. Papers and online media are full of the junk that sells, at the expense of the stuff that matters.
Local papers are expensive. They don’t have the advertising reach of larger ones, so subscribing costs more, and people complain about that (heck, The Gazette was free, and it still didn’t stay afloat). The expectation is that journalists and the media do it all, with less and less in terms of resources. Much like it is with teachers. They are held to a standard of perfection, and frequently not enabled to achieve it. 10 ugly truths about modern journalismaddresses more than one of these, but the most important here:
In the age of layoffs and buyouts, many of the first people to go in the newsroom are the copy editors, the people ensure that published stories are accurate and well-written. Without copy editors, many stories, especially those that appear online, are being published without first being checked for spelling and grammar. These errors are becoming even more frequent and are a mark of credibility against the news outlet.
We local yokels are random mommies who think community engagement will help the place we are raising young people. We can only do so much; we can do a lot less without a true outlet working their beats. Teachers and journalists share some other common ground with regard to a volatile and demanding profession that is not well compensated (you know when they increase class size, they decrease staff size, right?):
In the golden age of journalism, reporters could dedicate themselves exclusively to their work in the newsroom when there was no fear of being sudden layoffs [sic]. But when a pink slip could come at a moment’s notice and paychecks are becoming increasingly smaller, many more journalists are writing books, creating blogs, consulting, and anything that can build their personal brand or bring in a few extra dollars.
*Recycling a paper does not help their bottom line. It’s important to your community that you become a paying customer. How important? Well…
Journalism is the only media enterprise that democracy absolutely requires—and it is the only media practice and actual business that is specifically mentioned and protected by the U.S. Constitution.
It’s hard to find the words to attack a costumed children’s character. Not really. We’ve been doing that since the first viewing of Barney, obviously. We thought Xenu and the Thetans and and e-meters were weird, but a local resident who penned this LTE in defense of Narconon has a special angle to delight and/or terrify our children, who really sometimes like to meet people in goofy costumes even less than grownups do. And that is Gumption the Dragon. Check out No Narconon at Trout Run’s links and information, including Gumption’s movie. Gumption has (allegedly) made several public appearances in Frederick and Washington Counties. Imagine the unfortunate soul hiking the Appalachian Trail alone for weeks when he stumbled across Gumption the Dragon interrupting his solitude.
Yikes.
The end of the video has a text slide announcing: Gumption the Dragon Shares Secrets of Power. It was mostly a cheesy, low-rent, kid’s birthday party kind of thing, until the end when it went full kool-aid.
The new county budget will spell doom for each and every one of us!
I know our readers may not believe this but Blaine Young is like a father to us. It’s true! After writing his “Work together or nothing will get accomplished” LTE we were motivated to create this little blog. So for that we will be eternally grateful.
But now we are confused. Because in said LTE we were told:
I have moved on in my life. I wish her the best of luck, as it is very tough trying to keep everyone happy while trying to keep your campaign promises.
But today on his politician Facebook page we see this:
We are sure he really, really hates that he had to tell us so. But this ,and last week’s appearance on the Bob Miller morning show, does not seem as though someone is moving on with his life. We cannot help but remark upon the fact that he seems to be creating hysteria where none really exists. This budget reflects a change that quite frankly many people wanted to see. Enough people, at least, who decided that they would like to see Jan at the helm rather than he. So while Blaine may want us to believe that he’s out, he really still believes that he’s the only one that can keep the sky from crashing down upon us.
A big slap on the back and a firm hand shake goes out to Steve McKay for an LTE in the Frederick News Post. His words align neatly with our sentiments about Bud Otis, and point out some of the problems that come along with partisan posturing in our community. Yer Yokel writers hope that these criticisms coming from within the party will have some impact.
Signing Grover Norquist’s Pledge: you get what you pay for.
Watching The Grover Norquist Fan Club speak against Bud Otis in the most recent county council meeting really chapped our hides. When Democrats like what a Republican is doing, it doesn’t make the man a turn-coat, it makes him a success. We are all conservatives: we want our needs met without waste. We are all liberals: we have needs that we acknowledge must be met with public funds. Considering public safety and property values, we must balance our taxing and spending priorities. Bud Otis is doing this without acting pants-on-head ridiculous.
Shreve and Delauter have a history of running their mouths with partisan rhetoric. Such attention seeking behaviors are great tactics for Bob Miller’s radio show ratings, and for nationally known politicians who want to use their elected position to launch their next gig on the box of crazy obnoxious talking heads. Using techniques pioneered by toddlers who don’t want to leave the sandbox is a farcical approach to local government, though. It makes good neighbors despise you for poisoning their well. People simply need the best possible result with the least amount of drama, particularly when we are likely to be bumping into each other at the schools, parks, sports fields, and libraries. Presuming we are going to have enough realists around here that we don’t let all of that fall into disrepair. Local officials do not enjoy the buffer that Rush Limbaugh has between himself and most of America. Nobody wants to buy Dittohead bumper stickers from the guys they elected to make sure their county continues to be a nice place to live. Clearly stating a refusal to think for ones’ own self makes people lose respect for constant unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances.
Furthermore, most people are engaged enough with their community–even if they don’t follow its politics–to realize that a single issue focus offered up by Grover Norquist is unmarketable at the local level. Community needs are more nuanced than that (and if you keep your thinking hat on, national needs are, too, but we’ll bet on having more success tackling the smaller messes we’ve stepped in around these parts).
Yikes.
frederick local yokel 