Tag: Frederick Politics

Let’s take a looky at these election results!

fclocalyokelLeave a comment

Right off the bat, we are going to pose and then answer our own question. How do we know that the Maryland Republican Party isn’t a serious party?

That right there is your answer.

If you are new to Frederick or Maryland politics, we’ll give a quick refresher on this one. However, if you already tired of reading, we can sum him up in one tweet:

You can look at the timestamp and date of that to make your own conclusions about what kind of statement he was making about Vice President Pence.

If you have more time, jump into our archives to explore all we’ve had to say about him over the years:

https://fredericklocalyokel.com/?s=dan+cox

Or, if you prefer a bigger news network, you can watch this video of him accepting a gift from the Proud Boys:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/21/dan-cox-maryland-proud-boys

Or read all about the Christian Homeschooling world he’s a part of and think about what that means concerning his viewpoints on public schools and women’s rights:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/03/dan-cox-christian-homeschooling-maryland

Even if you are mad at Wes Moore about something, this guy is not the right alternative. Time and time again he’s shown us who he is and we need to pay attention. He’s a big fan of Trump and he will bow down to anything that man wants. Including allowing ICE in.

Next up is the school board race! If you’ve been following us around for a bit, you know how passionate we are about keeping the control of that board out of the hand of zealots. But let’s do some making fun first. Ever since mail in voting became more popular, our hate slatish folks (or whatever fruit colored name they are calling themselves this time around) claim some kind of victory before everything is counted up!

Exhibit A:

And of course, when the mail in ballots were counted all up the four people who will protect our kids and make sure that our classrooms don’t turn into some Texas-like dystopian nightmare got thousands of more votes than Fletcher and her ilk.

You can revisit the post below to see exactly why you should not vote for Fletcher:

This post will not find you well…..

Here’s some insights into another one of her slate members, Tyler Walker:

Shall we imagine the curriculum he’ll set up for our girls if he holds women and their position in society is such low esteem?

If you read the Frederick News Post coverage of the election results, you may have noticed this quote about a third slate member, Shelley L. Potter:

Potter, who does contract work for Outlier, a generative artificial intelligence company, wants increased focus on academic excellence, fiscal responsibility and more parent involvement in schools.

She also advocates for school choice and competitive compensation for teachers.

We know that her current career with a generative artificial intelligence company won’t sit well with many of us who care about education.

In that same article, the fourth member, Geoffrey Seidel states,

Seidel, who works as a clinical project manager for the clinical monitoring research program directorate at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, wants more parent involvement in schools, focus on core academics and an expansion of career pathway programs.

Seidel also advocates for consistent discipline policies and giving opportunities for family feedback on schools.

You can do with that as you please. We are actually in a very good position as compared to last voting cycle in that we have the exact number of people running that are needed to fill the four slots. No 5th person to throw off the math here. Couple that with the disparity in the votes and, so far it’s looking pretty good that we’ll keep the Trump orangies off the ballot!

Be sure to cast your ballot for all of the four candidates below:

Casey Day
Rae Gallagher
Dean Rose
Time to talk about the county races.

Let us begin with this. Your Lady Yokels are unequivocally against the building of data centers in this county. However, we do understand that these deals were made awhile ago, and trying to back out of them is probably legally and financially untenable. We still don’t understand why the overlay was changed or why the county so quickly took the referendum to court. Brad Young and some other folks running learned on election day just how serious this issue is to county voters. So, now we are all in a very difficult position. There’s no way we are throwing our support behind Holtzinger, who couldn’t be bothered to prove he actually lived in Frederick and violated a bunch of ethics laws while serving as mayor of Frederick. Plus, there’s this:

Hard, hard pass!

CE Fitzwater needs to do some fence-mending with county residents, especially those people who live close to these proposed data centers. And the rest of us need to remember what’s important to us in this county. For giving up our county offices to someone just because they say they are anti-data center isn’t a good choice either. We like someone who is going to make sure our schools are funded properly, that our parks are well-tended to, our libraries are not only places for books but community building, and all of our citizen’s needs are met. We know that these elections are going to mean some tough choices for folks, and we get that. But please don’t vote for someone just because they say they are anti-data centers without doing some digging. There’s some real risk in that course of action as well.

Brennan is acting as her own what?

fclocalyokelLeave a comment

While we were discussing with our circle of Yokels all the recent Board of Education campaign reports, one of our inner circle pointed out a big no-no. In Jaime Brennan’s most recent filing, she signed her own name as treasurer.

Exhibit A

Well, according to Maryland Campaign law, this is not a thing that is allowed to be done!

Exhibit B

We don’t know what the consequences of doing such a thing are, but we are not of the type to let things like this slide. If she cannot follow a simple rule such as this, she doesn’t deserve to be elected to that board again.

Jessica should do what? Let’s get real folks!

fclocalyokel2 Comments
Some of y’all need to come back down to Earth!

On the heels of the announcement that Nancy Allen moved to Gettysburg and would be resigning from the Frederick County Board of Education, our local Republican party decided to engage in some high theatrics:

Let’s talk about what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot!

Let’s say we lived in a dark timeline in which Michael Hough was the CE, and let’s just speculate for just half a second that Dean Rose decided that he couldn’t maintain two residences in Maryland and Pennsylvania and decided to throw in the towel? What would Hough do? What would this local Republican party do? We don’t need to think too long on that one! Y’all make our heads spin!

However, that isn’t even the main point. Allen decided she couldn’t or wouldn’t serve out the rest of her term. When she did this she knew (or should have known) the process for selecting her own replacement. Let’s take a look at what the law says, and be sure to see who sponsored it because what a treat!

Nowhere do we see that the new candidate needs to match the philosophy of the old. And how would that happen anyway? If anyone thought that was a necessity then the law would have been written to allow the board of education member to appoint their successor. But no one thought that idea made any sense!

We took some time to peruse the letters of intent for the over 50 people who applied for the vacancy:

https://www.frederickcountymd.gov/9170/Board-of-Education—2025-Vacancy?fbclid=IwY2xjawOr6C1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFyWUtVWkdJUldVWUg2S0E5c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHkYOI4raJ6Yd11Bwa5GI2PQXC-dOVemMtisl62MP2Sq85p5SVZepp-dYaapd_aem_nQOGJ5HkDARPtH3VpQV2Jw

Most of the candidates wrote about their dedication to education, their qualifications, and their community service experience. Unless some magic rubric exists to weed out those who wouldn’t be akin to Nancy Allen, we can’t imagine how their half-baked idea would even work!

The reality is the County Executive is only obligated to appoint (along with the County Council’s approval) the most qualified individual to fill out the last year of Allen’s term. As it is a non partisan race, there is no reason to only interview people who align themselves with the Republican party. And considering how those who align themselves with the Republican party have been behaving on that board this past year, why would anyone want that?

This post will not find you well…..

fclocalyokel2 Comments

We’ll start with the good news! Three amazing people have filed to run for the BOE next year! Check them out and please consider supporting them:

Casey Day

Jess Douglass

Chad Wilson

Even though each day seems like an eternity lately, next year will be here before we know it!

And now for the bad news…..

Apologies all around!

Heather Fletcher is running again. If you forgot who this now twice failed candidate is, don’t worry we’ll remind you. First let’s hand her the microphone to see how y’all like her:

Exhibit A: Her defense of Colt Black:

https://www.facebook.com/61558619399066/videos/626018053725844

Exhibit B: That time she checked out all the books about LGBTQ+ people and stole pins from the library:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/school-board-candidate-checks-many-065000967.html

Exhibit C: Look how she responded to Liz Barrett saying that all families and people matter at FCPS:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BrSxWXQnq

Exhibit D: No words needed…

Exhibit E: here’s all the posts in which we’ve mentioned her:

https://fredericklocalyokel.com/?s=heather+fletcher

This post will also serve as your reminder that all of us like-minded people need to vote for the SAME number of candidates as there are openings on the board. Just look at all we’ve had to put up with because of Black and Brennan so far! #learnfromthepast!

Holy Zeus! We’ve been doing this for ten years!

fclocalyokel4 Comments

As we sat around the Round Table at Yokel Headquarters late last week, your Lady Yokels could hardly believe that 10 years had lapsed since we began this endeavor. In celebration of this milestone anniversary we will like to take you on a stroll down memory lane.

Not sure that everyone does, so we are going to retell it!

10 years ago, after reading this LTE, https://www.fredericknewspost.com/places/local/frederick_county/frederick/blaine-young-work-together-or-nothing-will-get-accomplished/article_b1616559-e265-5a0d-9fbc-fe09bfdbe811.html, from our anti-muse, Blaine Young, a group of what became known as the Lady Yokels met in our favorite coffee spot, Dublin Roasters. After we appropriately insulted both Blaine Young and his very poor analysis of why he lost, we decided that we needed to shine the spotlight not only on Blaine, but also on his buddies, Kirby Delauter, Billy Shreve, and Tony Chmelik. At first, we discussed writing a book, but nixed that idea fairly quickly as we knew keeping an eye on these people was going to be a very fluid situation. By the end of that first meeting we decided to embark upon a blog to educate people on what is not often at the top of their to-do list, the inner workings of their local government. (Don’t worry, we’ve also kept an eye on Blaine so every time he tries to slither back into politics we are there to remind everyone of his arrests and bad behavior!)

For the next four years we religiously watched every county council meeting. More often than not, we created a drinking game to accompany such meetings in order to spice things up a bit. Here’s an example:

Will the first meeting of Fall enthrall? Your September 25th drinking game!

We sincerely hope that we didn’t hurt anyone’s livers as these games were only meant for fun. Over the first four years we made sure that everyone had a front seat to just how crazy things were with those three on the council. Here’s a curated sampling from our archives:

Historian Chmelik holds lecture on George Washington and 21st century issues. Outrage follows.
The dog and pony show continued…pony stomps dog to death.
King of the Deplorables: who else makes pro human trafficking claims?

While there are so many artifacts from this part of Yokel history, this is still hands down our favorite:

Backstory: Kirby wanted to prove that the Citizens for Quality of Life PAC was corrupt, but you will notice that nothing comes out of the PAC and somehow Jessica ended up with everything!

After one term in office, Kirby and Billy tried to obtain a higher office, while Tony wanted to stay put. Thankfully enough people paid attention and NONE of that happened! We sent our three amigos out with a departing post:

Oh, they are not getting off this easy! Your Yokel good-bye post to the three amigos!

After saner folks got on the council we kinda checked out on that scene, though we did decide to check back once last summer and boy was there some drama:

A Yokel Stroll Down Memory Lane! Let’s check in with that County Council!

Our main, but certainly not our only focus, has been the Frederick County School Board. People often underestimate (though perhaps that sentiment isn’t as true as it was in the past) the damage the wrong people can do on a school board. Just take a look at Colt Black and Jaime Brennan! The person who dragged us into this new focus was none other than Cindy Rose. Thankfully everyone understood how bad she would be, and after four failed attempts, she has finally seemed to have given up. Here’s some highlights of what we had to say about that one:

All aboard the crazy train-Cindy Rose edition- Part infinity…apparently!
Cindy Rose is stupid AND dangerous
Crazy untucked: Cindy Rose edition

Hopefully we will be more successful next year in reminding everyone how to do the math with the school board candidates so we don’t get left with the shit show we have right now.

Thank you all for an interesting and fun ten years! Think of your Lady Yokels tonight as we clink our glasses together and hope that we can survive another ten years of politics! We appreciate all of you being a part of this journey.

How much are we willing to put up with around here?

fclocalyokel1 Comment
Yeah, what about that?!

If you haven’t paid attention to all the budget troubles going on around here..welcome to the terrible party. In the next few weeks the budget for FCPS is going to be voted on, and we need to make sure that our schools get what they need to educate our children. We’ll let a good friend of the Yokel explain it to y’all:

The most important duty of local government is to educate the children living within their borders. If we fail at this it really doesn’t matter how nice our parks, roads or other public services are. At the bottom of this post we are going to list the email addresses for county council members and County Executive Fitzwater so you can email them with your concerns.

Speaking of the important duty of education, one of the most important duties we have as citizens is to vote for competent school board members. That is where a fair number of us failed this time around. We tried to sound the warning about there being too many candidates on our side, but that warning did not reach enough ears and we are now left to deal with the consequences of it all.

Colt Black has decided to use his short time on the board to harass and demean LGBTQ+ students at school board meetings. From the Frederick News Post:

Referring to the part of a districtwide gender identity policy, Policy 443, that instructs teachers and staff members to use a student’s preferred name and pronouns, Black said at a Jan. 8 school board meeting: “Just as much as you have your right to be you, we have our right to be free from you.”

Lots of local folks filed complaints about this outrageous comment from a sitting school board member. Well, today an independent investigator determined that Black did not violate Title IX:

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/education/schools/public_k-12/investigation-finds-school-board-members-comments-didnt-violate-federal-law/article_2242bd78-0413-5402-a476-ea6b9bddc8a8.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawJP7-tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTHsWze5wnM0FF0CfAHFShoMiFnr0KpqqyZsBrtDN_DGWvhhaE8i89afYg_aem_muXKc9ju-tcCUZ_Ax74Plw

But that doesn’t mean that he’s not an unqualified bigot that shouldn’t be on the board. We’ll tell you right now that the 5 member panel of judges here at the LY have already tried and convicted him in our court of public opinion, and so has a majority of the school board:

We’ll remind y’all again in a couple of years, but we do need to remember how the math works when it comes to school board elections. We cannot pay this high price again.

And now for the emails:

Jessica Fitzwater

County Executive

Kathan McCarthy
Manager, Constituent Services
Email 
Ph: 301-600-6083 
Fx: 301-600-1050 

County Council

Winchester Hall
12 East Church Street
Frederick, MD  21701
Email

Ph:  301-600-1135
Fx:  301-600-1849

The Kids Strike Back: Some thoughts on tonight’s BOE meeting!

fclocalyokel2 Comments

Several alert readers messaged your Lady Yokels to instruct us to tune in to the board meeting. Colt Black was getting his ass handed to him for his insensitive, and frankly stupid, comments about some students in our schools. We encourage all who didn’t see it, to go back and watch it as soon as it’s posted on their site.

You’ll have to mire through Heather Fletcher telling you in the name of Jesus Christ to get rid of all the porn in the school, and suffer through Tom Neumark mansplaining the budget…but it’s worth it. Because, more importantly, you’ll learn from the kids how we are going to survive this Trump hell for the next four years.

The students who came to speak during public comment made it clear to Mr. Black and the world of the impact of Policy 443. They spoke to how much better school was for both them and their friends as a result of this policy. They made it known that they would not accept any hint of discrimination in their school system.

Then came the board member comments, and we have to say that the students really knew what they were doing when they elected Elijah Steele as their representative. Mr. Steele constructed a defense of his fellow students against people like Colt Black and Jaime Brennan by using student testimony and actual facts to support why this policy matters. He reminded them not to bring their political agenda into the school system! Something they love to accuse others of, but apparently don’t see in themselves.

Afterwards, the adults on the board gave their comments. Colt Black chose to be sarcastic about his critics and then mad about the budget instead of taking any time to reflect on his behavior. Jaime Brennan wants to know why we can’t all just come together after all the hateful things she and Black have said. And Nancy Allen, who wasn’t going to speak and probably shouldn’t have, goes off on a rant about how poorly treated both she and Colt Black have been because of the horrible and hateful things they said! Can’t these people get a break and spew their hate without any repercussions?! Geeze!

Imagine that!

The other board members really stepped up to the plate and stood up for all of the students in our school system. Karen Yoho reminded us of the discussion in 2016 when Policy 443 came about. It was because of students! Mr. Rose threw some Southern shade Colt Black’s way and made it known that he would no longer tolerate any bashing of kids at board meetings. Board members Gallagher and Monier both voiced their support for policies for that protect kids. These are the people that make our board and our school system better.

What Black, Brennan, and Allen need to realize is that they are there for the kids, all of them. They and their followers can put forth all of the hyperbolic “the sky is falling” bullshit they want about what this policy “could” do, but the truth is they are wrong. There has not been a single incident of any of this propaganda happening in FCPS. Since this is an FCPS policy that only applies in FCPS, that is all that matters. If you cannot prove harm, then you don’t have a leg to stand on. What we do see over and over again is student after student testifying to how much this policy has helped them at school. That’s all that matters. Leave these kids alone, leave this policy alone, and let’s move on to more important issues.

Thank you to everyone who reminded your despondent Lady Yokels how we are going to survive this new fresh hell we find ourselves in. These kids and Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde have reminded us how to move on by standing up for what is morally right in this world:

We won’t let these people hurt the ones that we love.

Our In and Out List of 2024! We did our best!

fclocalyokelLeave a comment

We’ve been doing this for almost a decade, and hands down this was the hardest one to assemble!

INOUT
DreadHope
Recognizing past patterns in elections and not ignoring them!Hoping that everything will just work itself out!
Teaching kids and adults how to spot fake news!Believing that people know how to sort through all the crap on the internet!
Not giving up!Burying our heads in the sand!
Finding better role models!Fanboying over oligarchs! 

Our Top 5 Posts of 2024! Let’s see if we can identify a pattern!

fclocalyokelLeave a comment

We’ve been through a lot this year Yokels! But like the dumpster above we are going to have to find some way to plant a dumb little smile on our faces and solider on! You may see a pattern with our top five posts this year! Coming it at #5:

5. Let’s Armchair Quarterback Those Primary Election Results:

Let’s Armchair Quarterback the primary election results!

In this post we had a lot to celebrate, most especially that Dan Cox got knocked out in the primary! Towards the end we had a warning about the school board election results that was not heeded by enough folks!

4. A Yokel Stroll Down Memory Lane! Let’s Check in With That County Council.

A Yokel Stroll Down Memory Lane! Let’s check in with that County Council!

In the midst of the summer heat, we decided to go back to our roots and watch a county council meeting. We had pulled away from doing so after Kirby, Billy, and Tony (Maybe we should think twice before voting for people whose names end in Y- except you Jerry!) got sent back home! It wasn’t a pleasant experience, so we haven’t been back. Though recently we’ve been alerted to some of the Frederick City Council meetings and we may have to pay more attention to those as there is an election next year!

3. It’s Time to Get Real about the BOE Election!

It’s time to get real about the BOE election!

We tried folks! We tried!

2. Calling All Voters, And We Mean All, The BOE Primary is just around the Corner!

Calling all voters, and we mean all, the BOE primary is just around the corner.

See comments for #3.

  1. And for our number one spot, the man whose letter to editor about his loss to Jan spurred the creation of this blog, occupies our most read post of the year: Blaine Young Can’t Seem to Keep Himself Out of Trouble:
Blaine Young can’t seem to keep himself out of trouble….

We looked at West Virginia’s case search and his trial date is in 4 days:

Did you notice the theme? We need to do a better job of only supporting and promoting the exact number of candidates as there are open seats on the board of education. Some people are starting to get it:

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/frederick-county-dems-consider-limit-on-recommendations-for-school-board-race/article_d828c07c-85d7-581a-b3dd-0be0c5a6e7d8.html

So unless we want a Board of Education that will support Donald Trump’s agenda of destroying the public education system, we need to be sure everyone understands how these elections work!

We wish all of our readers a peaceful holiday week and as good a 2025 that we can muster through!

Fine! We will talk about the election!

fclocalyokel1 Comment
Keep repeating, “Everything is fine! Everything is fine!”

Usually we are quicker to the chase when it comes to talking about election results. However, we know that our faithful readers will give us some grace on this one.

There is a lot to celebrate in our fine state and county. After all, we overwhelmingly voted for Harris, Alsobrooks, and Delaney. So, at least in our little enclave of a state and county, we know that it’s not okay with a majority of us that a lying felonious charlatan fascist has control of the presidency. We also have a great mayor who has promised to stand up and protect our immigrant and LGBTQ+ neighbors against the tomfoolery that is sure to come our way:

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/politics_and_government/elections/oconnor-vows-to-protect-local-immigrants-resist-possible-trump-policies/article_521f90ab-3089-5380-9059-5eae1db47697.html

That’s something to be proud of, right?!

We’ve gotta hold on to what we can!

HOWEVER, we also need to talk about the Board of Education race. We tried to warn y’all about the danger of voting outside the Apple ballot and we are not above this:

Over and over again we tried to sound the alarm!

Exhibit A:

It’s time to get real about the BOE election!

Alas! Too many people did not listen and here’s what happened:

Sanity is in control of the board by one vote now! One vote! The lesson that has to be learned here is those of us who want a reasonable school board that isn’t full of book banners, homophobes, and history deniers need to consolidate around the exact number of seats that are open on the board! No more! We’ve had too many examples of this to not understand how it works by now!

If you need something to fight for, and ya’ll the local arena is where you can really make a difference, then make it paying attention to this board! Then, in two years time, make sure that you and everyone you know votes for the SAME people for whatever number of open seats there happens to be.

Let’s give you an example of what we are up against. If you take a look at the education section of Project 2025, you will see one of the proposals is to withhold school meals from schools who don’t fulfill their hateful agenda. Behold:

If this isn’t monstrous, then what is? Withholding food to kids is something dictators do! They also want to empower parents to sue school systems whenever they think any part of the curriculum goes against what the parents deem is against their rights. Can you imagine this? We know that the point of all of this is to undermine and break the public school system, so why are we allowing people onto the board that won’t fight against these policies? Why are we, as a county, not learning from past elections? Why? Why? Why?!!!

It’s time to lie down now.

We’ll all have to hope for the best the next time around. We need to recharge and then to continue fighting the good fight for the sake of our county and our kids. Hopefully, y’all are with us.