We thought we’d mix it up a little this week. Here’s your agenda. In case you do feel compelled to drink at any point, we’ll recommend you toss back an Alien Secretion and encourage Xenu to scamper on outta here.
New fun time: Council meeting bingo
Tag: Jerry Donald
Item EFF on the agenda
The dreaded budget analyst conversation. The sole acceptable, qualified candidate for the job withdrew his name from consideration. One can only speculate why being at Billy (and Kirby)’s beck and call was unappealing. We didn’t apply for the job ourselves, that’s for dang sure.
A brief rundown of the discussion:
Right out of the gate Billy starts the sniping tone. Blah blah blah woof woof woof. Petulant child. You know the drill.
M.C. says they have endeavored to find out what is done elsewhere, looking at similar counties in Maryland. Turns out Wicomico, Cecil and Harford’s county councils don’t have budget analysts because they are legislative bodies. Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard’s have a county auditor, but that doesn’t make sense for Frederick because the council isn’t responsible for that function.
Jerry throws out a novel idea. Specifically ask the departments what they have, what they need, if things have been working out in the past, etc, etc, etc. As for these personal visits with county staff, “A number of us went to a number of things.” Jerry, ever the educator, charmingly refers to this as “the budget education process.” We are left to speculate about who amongst them made up the education seeking numbers. And also, based on the historical record, who probably didn’t.
M.C. reiterates this concept of communicating with the staff. Hiring someone takes time and money, and she points out the irony that she is taking the conservative position here (she didn’t say, “guess who isn’t,” but we’ve pointed that out before). Summing up her position, she (can do math?) doesn’t need someone to say, “Yup, those numbers balance.”
Tony: I agree with that.
M.C.: I have a little wax in my ears…
Local Yokel: hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa
Seems like nobody’s on poor Billy’s side anymore.
Let’s take a break from the hard stuff-Your March 8th drinking game.
Whew! With all of the meetings lately and St. Patrick’s Day coming up,we are going to go with an non-alcoholic version this week. Before you revolt, remember you can always add some Fireball, Vodka or whatever your poison happens to be. We’re just trying to look out for y’all. Grab your agenda and follow along.
This is soooo boring we know. But if Billy abstains from the consent agenda, again, mix yourself up a Banana Bonkers.
The next item is to just change around some dates for the bargaining for the Fire and Rescue union. Our First Responders’ unions are rarely met with the same vitriol that other unions face. But if someone uses this as an opportunity to go all anti-union on us slam back The Ghoul’s Green Drink.
Now it’s time for the public hearing on medical cannabis. We here at the yokel are for this. If there’s any talk about everyone turning into pot heads, sip gently on your Lean Green Smoothie.
All that’s left is public and council member comments. It’s the part of the evening where we usually get into trouble. So if you feel the need to pull out the booze we won’t judge.
Hate snow days? Let Kirby think outside the box and fix that for ya!
Every few weeks Kirby pens some propaganda for the Emmitsburg News Journal. (Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?)Predictably, Kirby focuses his “column” on the poor persecuted developers of our county. Read what we’ve had to say about this privatization idea here. He cries foul over Councilman Donald’s email that suggests that letting students eat lunch in the hallway rather than making developers pay their share is pathetic. Then there’s this:
Council Member Chmelik and I met with the Superintendent of Schools Dr. Terry Alban and we mentioned putting a task force together to have the school system lease schools from private entities, a true public, private partnership. One thing I said to Dr. Alban that I think resonated with her was that during the recent snow storm I asked her how she spent her time? She said she was busy coordinating efforts to see when schools could be open. I replied that if she leased the schools from a private entity, she could make a simple phone call and state what day she wanted the schools open, and if they were not open, the entity would pay a penalty, pre-determined within their contract. This way she can concentrate on what she does best, educating students and not worrying about snow removal. I mentioned also that it’s her job to produce students that enter college, vocational school, the military or the workforce that are educated and prepared for this highly competitive world we live in. We all agree on that.
Folks, this hurts our brains. Is this private entity going to be in charge of clearing all the roads to and from the school. Because, if not, how the hell are the students going to get there? And what about all the other schools in the county? This logic truly boggles the mind. It sounds simple and reasonable, until you actually think about it for more than two minutes. No other new information was obtained from this letter. Other than he’ll have it all worked out in the next “6-12 months”.
Special Alert: Billy wants to hand all county taxing power over to Annapolis delegation!
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.
Drinking games and FNP editorials–Soothsayers or Self-fulfilling prophesies? Take your pick.
Fellow Yokels we can sum up tonight’s meeting with this:
Everything started out per usual. Billy voted no on the agenda, abstained from some consent items and, for some reason, voted against the appointment of the Chief Information Officer. Kirby started to act up a little bit when the talk turned to developers. He wants to make sure that all you people know that his precious little BOCC did not “give away the farm” to developers. We know Kirby! It was farms with a capital S on the end. Thanks for clearing that up!
Things got about as testy as we’ve seen them during council member comments. It was bad folks, like Civil War bad:
First we will start with Kirby. Because, believe it or not, he was the tamer of the two tonight. Right out of the gate, he suggested that we Jiffy Lube the FCPS custodians. Why you may ask? Because the private sector is always better! How many times does Kirby need to tell you idiots that before it sinks in? Then he starts in on Doug. It’s so mysterious that the FNP is only accurate when it prints stories that suit Kirby and Billy’s purposes. Every other time it’s an extension of the left wing media machine.
Next it’s this one’s turn:
Billy goes full force into Doug’s character. Now Billy has been waiting a long, long time for this opportunity. Doug has had to put Billy in his place many times over this last year. And old Billy is not above slandering Doug’s character and making accusations based on a case that he will never, ever know the details of. We all know that one of Billy’s strong suits is rambling on about things he knows nothing about. He makes us aware of the fact that since the insurance company “convicted” Doug the council should right now this very second go on a witch hunt to remove him from his position. That’s right, there should be a full investigation into whether or not the County Executive is harboring known insurance company convicts in Winchester Hall. And it’s at this point that we wish we had a mad cat at our disposal.
Isn’t it interesting, folks, how Billy and Kirby are always complaining about how things are politically motivated when the former BOCC’s legislation is overturned? How many times have they moaned and groaned about that? Yet, here we are. One accusation in the newspaper and they are ready to blow up the taxpayers money to open up some kind of investigation so they can get rid of one of Jan’s appointees. Well, Doug is not going to take this lying down.
Doug informs the two gentlemen on the dais that they do not know what they are talking about. (Durh!) Doug goes on to say that these two do not seem to be confined by anything, let alone the truth. (Sing it!) He then goes on to say that he is going to sue them for defamation of character. Now that is a trial that we here at The Yokel would want a front seat to. Bud ends this exchange, because it’s going no where and a county council meeting really isn’t the appropriate venue for this discussion. While the grown up side of us agrees, we would have really liked to see how the rest of this discussion played out.
With Doug out of the line of fire, Billy turns his ire on Bud.
Billy has lots to say. And instead of ending this talk about Doug, he tries to act as though he’s not really talking about him by bringing up the FCC case. Bud throws down his gavel and calls Billy out of order. Billy waahhs, “Isn’t [he] allowed to talk about whatever he wants to during comments?” Is that a real question? The answer to that has to be a resounding: NO. Then the fight begins. In the left corner we have the embarrassment of Frederick County, and in the right, the voice of sanity.
Billy questions why the council can’t have their own budget officer. Bud tells them they will. “When”? Billy demands. It will be on the January agenda. And does this guy read anything that is given to him? It gets worse folks. Billy and Kirby put forth a name for the council’s budget director. And we here at The Yokel knew exactly who it was before her name was even mentioned. And we bet you do as well. So these two lap dogs of Blaine decided to name his girlfriend. The same girlfriend with whom Blaine was having an affair while she was his subordinate. But to Kirby this is no big deal at all. He tells Bud that he’s going to have to fire a whole bunch of people in the county because this is going on everywhere. That’s right people it’s all kinds of sexytime in the Frederick County government. Who knew!?
Thankfully Billy’s time is up, but he tries to interrupt Jerry, who in turn yells at him,”I’ve tried sharing a microphone with you before and it’s like sharing a steak with a pitbull!” Bam! Jerry then goes on to thank anyone who will be willing to work with a group as dysfunctional as this council. Everyone else was a grown up this evening. And it’s sad that they don’t often get the recognition they deserve. So we here at the Yokel would like to issue this award:
Well done, Jessica. Folks, the only way this is going to get better is if Billy and Kirby are off that dais. There’s no fixing this. There’s just no way.
Notes from the desk of Local Yokel: Dec 1 meeting recap
If you were to be a F.L.Y. on the wall at the fredericklocalyokel last eve, this is what was getting swatted around here. We know we take a little too much care with the side show at the expense of the sensible discussion, but other than the man whose legislation was being voted on, there was a whole lot of talk concentrated in that one arena.
Do consent agenda items usually take this long? No; but if someone in the construction bidness would dig it, voila! This is fascinating stuff, and suddenly government is not just a thorn in your side, but something to hold and caress with tender loving care.
Billy. Always trying to be in “Gotcha! Mode.” Also, Shreve sounds * just like GWB when he does it.
How is a subdivision different than an easement? Is he for real? Oh, and he assumes King George didn’t just give us Pinecliff park. So he’s right about something! Congrats. It came about in the 70’s, apparently, and the sled run was popular back then, “When we regularly got snow in the winter.” But who cares about the environment, right?
Poor Jerry Donald. He is going to have an aneurism trying to make a grown man understand that the properties of liquid are commonly accepted. He doesn’t teach first grade science, does he?
Kirby either has no clue or is deliberately obtuse about the concept of a grandfather clause (or perhaps didn’t read this “ACA like” legislation and will find out what’s in it after it passes…spoiler alert!). LOLs for Jerry telling Kirby he has to introduce his own legislation to make it retroactive.
Kirby: I don’t want to do anything. (Nuff said.)
Why would Kirby want all the emails? He didn’t read anything before he got here (for a duration of decades, possibly). What difference could “all the emails” possibly make?
Fun fact for another #kirbydelauter talking point (people at Yale want free education): Yale is the least likely place to have angst over free education, whether you are in the science department, or not. Know why? At Yale there is 100% tuition guarantee for demonstrated need.
Cheers, Councilman Donald! Everyone does want free beer!
Let’s talk about boat ramps and rafting tours? Do you need a boat ramp to put a raft in the water? We should ask those guys who went on that whitewater adventure with the cooler full of whiskey sours during Hurricane Sandy. Does anyone know…Oh man, did we accidentally elect them to our County Council?
Tony. Tony? Tony!!! He has seen environmental science first hand and just thinks the concerns, which he finds understandable, are being overstated. (That happened! Tip of the Hat for Council Member Chmelik! Tony probably did not get invited out for Fireball shots with the friends after that.)
Poor Doug Browning. (Disco Doug!) Can you guys imagine if part of your job description involved showing up on a regular basis to be publicly flogged by Billy Shreve? (NO! We are so lucky! We don’t even have to talk to him, ever, if we don’t want to!)
Council comments include a smallish Delauterburst, and Billy chastising everyone for the dysfunctionality of the council after this first year, largely caused by the fact that despite being an incumbent county office holder he (and his like-minded, similarly experienced, and comparably cranky friend) seemed the freshman. Also not helping: Billy tries to impede functioning at every opportunity. Especially if you can make the meeting drag on so long that members of the public go home/tune out.
Happy anniversary, charter government!
Water buffer zones? Not on Kirby’s incremental watch!
It’s the one year anniversary of the County Council!!! Has it really been a whole year already? Tonight’s anniversary meeting, friends, was….let’s say something to behold. At the very least it’s a prime example of why obtuse people who refuse to read shouldn’t have any political power. The prime offender this evening:
It should come as no surprise that Kirby doesn’t want to extend the water buffer zones. If you read our drinking game we practically predicted it. What was surprising was how many times your faithful yokels messaged each other with this line: “OMG, is he really this dumb? ” First off, Kirby, here’s a really easy picture to help you along your journey of figuring this whole bill out:
Kirby either didn’t read the water body buffer bill or doesn’t know what is going on. The bill applies to future properties that are going to be subdivided. Get that? Future properties. Well no, no, no, Your Govern Like A Taxpayer Today Councilman is not going to let you liberal witches tell him how close to the water he’s allowed to build his outhouse. (Just kidding…Kirby is just fine with using the yard). He starts in with some strange rant about Pinecliff Park and the pavilions and how they all need to be ripped out because that’s the only way to get clean water. And, if we are going to get clean water we better do it right. In full schoolteacher mode, Jerry Donald asks Kirby if he would like to introduce a new bill to remove all existing structures that are in the 150 foot water buffer range. To which Kirby replies, ” I don’t want to do anything.” Kirby then insists on “easy to read scientific data” that proves this buffer zone will help clean the water. Well, too bad I didn’t save the water aquifer my son made in kindergarten, because I really think that will help in this case. Because Kirby is not going to listen to any stinking report from those Commie loving Yalies or the Army Corp of Engineers (those libtards). It’s more than obvious that Kirby is on some property rights mission from Donald Trump this evening. We would really like him to really consider what happens when property owners are allowed to do whatever the hell they want to.
Regulations exist for a reason right? If you said yes you must be one of those Democrats. And we all know what Kirby wants to do to Democrats.
Your October 20 drinking game: Libraries, Agriculture and Marijuana oh my!
If you had to drink copious amounts of wine to get over this past weekend’s Letters to Editor extravaganza, you may just want to observe this week’s game. What LTE’s ? Well, Blaine’s of course, but that’s par for the course. The one that had us all in a tizzy was the “letter” that waxed nostalgic about the good old days when people formed posses and kicked everyone’s butts. You know, the days of milk and honey when your friendly gun did no harm and certainly way before that devil Obama taught all our sissy children to run and hide from gunfire instead of charging the gun man head on. Man those were the days!
If you were blissfully ignorant of all that apologies, apologies! We’ll get on to the game. Grab your agenda, DO NOT call Billy (unless you have something funny to say) and remember this is all in good fun. Click here to watch it live.
Consent agenda looks really interesting. Lots of Billy’s pet causes: Library, Family Partnership, Parks and Rec, Housing and Community Development. Will this all pass without a hitch? Of course not. If Billy tells us to go the now defunct Borders to buy a book or in any way decides to criticize the purchase list of the library slam back a Ernest Hemingway Special.
Next up we have the first reading of an amendment to appeal the Agricultural Rights Transfer Ordinance. If there is any complaining, even a sigh, about overturning another Blaine deal drink some Bitch Juice!
Time for Public Comments! For everyone that decides to complain about the county taking back the nursing home, take a sip of your Zombie, since that’s what that kind of talk makes us feel like.
Whoop Whoop! Council member comments! We hear that Fireballs are popular with some of the members. Therefore, if anything untoward should happen, slam back the Fireball shots at will!
Last item is a hearing about the growth of Medical Cannabis here in Frederick county. So far we seem to be aligned with Billy on this issue. (Not sure if our motives are the same, but hey, we’ll take what we can get!) Also, not sure how the other members feel (looking at you Tony), so if there’s any dissent on giving sick people the relief they need, have a shot of some cannabis vodka.
Who is calling the county council rudderless?
We are all familiar with last week’s county council meeting’s outcome. The Monrovia Town Center process is starting over from the beginning. We wrote about it, the Frederick News Post wrote about it and today Billy wrote about it:
Great Gods on Mount Olympus hear our cries for mercy!!!! So many things to point out here folks. Let’s do a nice bullet list:
- Why is Billy using the Fox News lie “Fair and Balanced”?
- Paul Smith very specifically said in his letter that he WOULD not submit an affidavit. And refused to even talk about it with the Frederick News Post. Why would he come and testify before the county council?
- Then there’s Blaine who said it was a “boldface lie” that he was invited. But somehow his fellow BOCC member, David Gray, was able to find out the day of the hearing and had no problem standing in line to testify. Maybe Blaine feels as though he needs a special engraved invitation to speak.
- And Kirby…what the hell are you talking about rudderless? Perhaps he needs one of these:
Finally Billy uses this quote from the judge’s order:
Read the Judges instructions on page 3, the last 3 lines: “Therefore, this Court must remand the matter to the County for further proceedings, including testimony, to resolve the issues raised in this Opinion“http://www.frederickcountymd.gov/DocumentCenter/View/280736
I don’t see how this proves his point. In fact it seems to support starting the process over. This is how the council has chosen to deal with the problems with the record, these two need to get over it and get on board. The vessel isn’t rudderless. Just because you don’t like the course, Kirby and Billy, doesn’t mean it isn’t going anywhere.
Maybe these guys need to stop using social media. Then again, it provides us with an endless source of information.
frederick local yokel 