If y’all have been with your Lady Yokels for awhile, you know that this blog was birthed out of an LTE that a very sore loser by the name of Blaine Young wrote when he lost his bid for County Executive 12 long years ago. We feel the need to quote it in its entirety, though you can certainly check for yourself here, as it’s very pertinent to the tale we are about to tell:
Jan Gardner won and I lost, 54 percent to 46 percent, in the election. Everyone knows that we do not get along and never did. That does not mean everything she did was wrong and it does not mean everything I did was wrong.
The citizens want people who govern, not bicker and always blame the person before. I did it and it was wrong. She must move past always wanting to prove me wrong, undoing everything I put in place and firing or demoting those I hired or who were close to me; otherwise, it will be a very long four years. People see it as being very petty and very hurtful to those who do not deserve it.
Look at the election results and turnout: I lost the election; Gardner did not win it. The Republican Party won big! I promised to only serve one term, and the voters, even Republican voters, made sure I kept my promise. I have learned that if your heart is not really in it, don’t do it.
The pendulum has to stop swinging because of growth/development if we are ever going to move forward in Frederick County. The choice is Gardner’s. I only wish I received the same advice I am giving her.
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.
If you want to check in on how Blaine has moved on with his life (mug shots included), please go ahead and take a deep dive into our archives. This past week there are two Blaine Young articles in the paper, one an LTE and another a story in which he was quoted. It has been our experience that when he starts writing letters it means he’s thinking of running for office again.
Exhibit A:
Well, last week Blaine has some new reasons for why he lost the election and he very poorly tries to tie them into why the data centers are an issue this election cycle:
Behold:
Fear helps spur people to vote
It is interesting every election cycle to see what the hot topics will be that drive voters to the ballot box. Anger and fear work best.
Out-of-control taxes, bloated spending and property rights put me in office in 2010.
In 2014, what drove me out of office was too many cuts to the government, development, turning the county-owned nursing home over to a private company and turning over Head Start to the YMCA.
Twelve years later, it’s about data centers and national Trump policies.
It’s interesting that we want no new houses, no new apartments, no new heavy industrial and now no data centers.
While at the same time, we want no real cuts to the government and the majority do not want to pay more in taxes.
That just doesn’t work or add up, especially with current government employees such as teachers, police officers, firefighters and general government personnel wanting raises and cost-of-living increases.
I’m not even talking about requested new positions and new infrastructure.
We need more taxpayers, not more taxes, to keep pace. That’s called having some type of development happening. Growth fuels the engine of the tax base. It will be an interesting next four years.
By the way, since I left office, we are still building plenty of houses and apartments and all of the government cuts have been restored, plus many new government positions added.
Oh, by the way a private company still runs the county-owned nursing homes and the YMCA still runs Head Start, so they only used those issues to stir up voters while never reversing them. Remember fear and anger works the best.
Be careful of what’s said and what’s actually done once in office.
Elections have consequences. It’s called your tax bill.
Look, we aren’t saying he’s wrong about needing more tax revenue, but he’s wrong about why he didn’t get re-elected and we are going to fact check his nursing home claims. If you were here back in 2011, you’ll remember that Blaine Young and his cronies attempted to sell the nursing home, thereby leaving our economically disadvantaged seniors with less resources:
When Jan won, that was reversed. A private company does manage the property, but they do not own it. That is the difference that he’s glossing over. Therefore, his claim that a “private company still runs the county-owned nursing homes” is disingenuous at best. When it comes to the Head Start claim, he’s forgetting to mention why everyone got so mad at him and his board over all of that. It was the sexist comments that Kirby Delauter and Paul Smith engaged in while defending their decision to pull the county funding. Both men wondered why women couldn’t just stay home like their wives did.
But you know what folks? The inaccuracies, condescension, and lying aren’t even main point we want to bring up here regarding his LTE.
In the August 2nd edition of the Frederick News Post, there appeared an article about the data center developers handing out money to a bunch of different organizations in some kind of image rehab tour. What caught our eye here at Yokel headquarters was this:
Blaine Young, a member of the local Elks Lodge, said the concession stand is part of a larger $1.5 million renovation of the historic lodge building on West All Saints Street that has been underway the past five years.
He said the Rowan donation will pay the entire cost for the new concession stand across the street from the lodge, and for its supporting utility and security infrastructure.
It will replace an older stand that stood on the site, which was used during that Elks Lodge’s annual parade event and by other organizations for fundraising.
“It serves the community in a mighty way,” Richard Hall, exalted leader of the local Elks Lodge, said of the stand. “The churches use it; the youth organizations use it; the schools use it; we use it — so it’s a tremendous fundraiser entity to the community.”
Rest assured, if he does try to run again we’ll be here to remind everyone why he is a very poor choice.
Speaking of poor choices, let’s talk about the effect this data center is inevitably going to have on this election cycle. First of all, if you didn’t see, CE Fitzwater has reversed course about allowing these data centers on rural land:
Along with the moratorium, we are pleased to see the public’s concerns about these data centers and their impact on people’s health and the environment being addressed. What we are not pleased about is how some people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater while jumping on the bandwagon of any politician who has seen which way the wind is blowing and is all of the sudden anti-data center in a very cheap attempt to win votes. In one of these data center forums, this post was shared:
You mean this Dan Cox?:
If you think that Cox is going to go against his dear leader in the long run, we’ve got some very nice bridges to sell to you.
And, if you need more information as to why he will be horrible, read all about him here.
Then there’s Jeff Holtzinger, someone who we’ve also written about, but whose fate for us has also been sealed with this picture and post:
That’s a 100 percent no go for us. These folks are also looking to gain favor with their data center stance. While ignoring the fact that the Board of Education has no say in where these data centers are built. If you haven’t read our last post all about them, please look. Endangering our educational system and the children within are not worth the price of all of this.
We’ll keep pointing things out to you, but please drop us a message if you have anything we may be missing.
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