Oh, man. Tread carefully around the landfill workshop held at Kirby’s behest. By the time we got through the new business, day drinking seemed like an attractive option. It seems that ‘ol Hashtag thought he was going to get a constituent issue addressed by calling the Waste Management staff out so he and his drinking buddies could needle them about how they figure out if people are allowed to bring trash from outside the county and dump it in our landfill or not, which is not allowed. There’s some cautioning from staff about making imprudent decisions that could inadvertently drastically increase the amount of trash, filling the landfill faster.
There is some general agreement amongst thinking council persons and county attorneys alike that if a legislative issue is going to be solved, a bill is needed. A mystery person will have to identify the problem and draft said bill, because the person who needs to understand how all this works has no idea what everyone else might be talking about. His main point in a nutshell seems to be, “I know about a complaint my constituent has. No one else thinks it is a problem. No one else will fix it for me, but if you don’t do what I want, I will continue to waste vast amounts of time AND be a loud mouthed blowhard.”
The fact that constituent issues are not on the agenda for discussion at this time prompts a huge Delauterburst man-tantrum during the staff briefing. And you don’t have to take our word for it, because did Kirby Delauter take his tantrum to social media (also, it’s at about 43 mins on the archived video)? Well, does a bear poo in the woods? You betcha. Look at that. He didn’t even have to write this himself.
Bud tries to move on and thank the staff for their help during the briefing, and Billy cuts him short to say they aren’t done yet, and then says, “It’s like Romper Room in here.” Bud quietly offers back, “Sure is.” lololololololllllllllllll (indeed).
Jessica proposes a workshop regarding human trafficking, because several counties have task forces applicable to the issue. And between the lines, right? If we are going to have a prominent former (and yet still aspiring politician) soliciting hookers, it becomes a pet local concern. Billy then says that there are lots of groups both for and against this issue, at which point we have to feel so grateful to Jerry Donald for saying (in the appropriate appalled voice) what we were shouting at our screens, “THERE ARE GROUPS THAT ARE FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING?!?!?!?!?!” To which Billy mutters, “Well yah…depending on how you define human trafficking…” Good grief. The Confederacy lost, right? That passes 5-2 and we know you know which marionettes didn’t vote for that, right?
Billy has a whole festering bunch of ideas for workshops, making the entire New Business section of the agenda a train wreck. It’s hard to distill a word cloud of Billy’s brain into a cogent prose form. They are not even fully formed thoughts as Billy brings them forth as motions to add to the agenda, in most cases, and the others (with particular kudos to the patience of M.C. Keegan-Ayer here) try to divine what he means and reword these vague notions into something that can be worked within a “yea/nay” decision making format. This section is entirely analogous to his previous legislative priority to send to Annapolis, “Understanding what regulations impede the operation of roadside hot dog stands.” New readers, we swear we are not making this up.
These are various ideas along the lines of, “Understand how citizens make claims against the county, or how the county administers claims, what zoning stuff is obsolete, what it takes to file a complaint, a reasonable timeline for complaints, oh wait I mean for complying with zoning and building violations.” There are points at which Tony Chmelik seems to try and talk some sense into him, but he derides the need for word smithery. As though effective communication has no purpose in legislating. Tony notes that phone calls could be made to find out information.
Jerry Donald also suggests using email. Billy and Jerry repeatedly go at it, because Billy is peeved that you can’t just have a meeting every time he would rather not do anything like wait for a constituent concern, address it with legislation, and discuss it in a pertinent public hearing at that time. When Jerry Donald has to give an impromptu workshop on “How the County Council Works,” he gets called an elitist. It’s a point Billy throws at him repeatedly, when he continues to allude to the fact in rather diplomatic (if impatient) terms that he is wasting everyone’s valuable time. Not to be lost: knowing how to do your job is elitist in B.S. World.
Another infuriating problem through all of this is that Billy accuses the government of being dysfunctional because it is meant to follow a clear procedure, yet he seems to be on an open door lets-look-for-problems-no-one-has-identified-yet fact finding mission, so that someone–but definitely not him or Kirby—can write some new legislation.
Please, Frederick County, at the next local election let’s take out our trash.
frederick local yokel 