What must be going through Councilman Shreve’s brain when he sits at his computer to pen his excuses for the Woodsboro times? Does he really expect anyone to relate to this stream of consciousness b.s. ?I mean really folks, does he really think we are this dumb? Let us start with excuso numero uno:
December, 12 months in office. #1 duty of the County Council is to provide budget oversight. So far, after 12 months, we still have not hired a Budget Director. I have protested this repeatedly by abstaining on all budget related votes, over 60 times this year. (I refuse to do hunger strikes : )
Ha ha! As if Billy’s not going to eat for you jerks!!! So, why did he vote “yes” for Trout Run? And why vote against the minutes? Because it’s all a very convenient bunch of crap. Billy must have been hungry when he wrote this because there’s this:
I’m not a big government guy and don’t propose hiring employees just to have them, but if you are running a restaurant, you need a cook, dishwasher, and server. The Council inherited a $550 million dollar budget and a population of 240,000. An entity this size requires staff to handle the day to day operations on day one! We aren’t running a coffee shop; we need employees.
But you just said a coffee house/restaurants need employees. Wouldn’t the better analogy be: like a coffee shop, we need an adequate number of employees to make sure things run smoothly. OHH OHH! 25 word job-posting digression time:
Billy’s Speech Writer
Must be able to take endless non sequiturs and unrelated analogies and translate them into standard English. Overtime a must!
Any hoo! Back to the article. There’s lots and lots of complaining about Mike Gastley, and how they had to put all the numbers into Kirby’s work budget software (what the what). And they still, even though they were on the BOCC for four years, weren’t able to make heads of tails of it all. What we find most interesting about this whole written catastrophe is what Billy leaves out. He omits the name of the very person that Billy and Kirby put forth. A person who not only vacations with one Councilmember, and tailgates with another, but one who is living with the very person who lost to Jan! Look at his complaint about Mr. Gastley:
How can we believe he will support the Council and not the County Executive? Is this the right person to provide checks and balances to the County Executive? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Now, can we believe that this person that Billy and Kirby put forth will provide the the appropriate support to ALL of the members of the county council? That this person would also, without bias, take information from the County Executive’s office and relay that to the council? I think we can be safe to say: NOOOOOOOOO! Maybe–just maybe–Billy would have just a shred of credibility if he had not put this name forward. But hey, since when has Billy ever worried about that?
First things first, the results from last week’s poll:
Looks like Blaine is going to make some money with those county contracts soon!
Philosomophizing. hiccup
Since the common refrain seems to be that any land owner should be able to do what they like with their property we pose this question to you faithful readers:
Howdy Yokels! Some good news! We have just discovered that we have our very own version of the satire newspaper, The Onion, right here in Frederick County. It’s operating under the name of the Emmittsburg News Journal. What’s that, you say? That’s a real newspaper? Well how can that be, after they printed this nonsense from Mr. Shreve?
I tell everyone who wants to run for office the same thing….pay your $25 and sign. Any idiot can get elected. It never ceases to amaze me how many smart people have lost elections and how many others have won.
Wait a minute….we actually agree with this statement. We are amazed that he recognizes the fact that he’s an idiot. Maybe he’s more introspective than we have given him credit for. To illustrate the fact that he is indeed an idiot, he continues with this description of the first year of the County Council:
Year 1-My take…We have accomplished nothing zero- Goose egg-Nada-Nothing.
Goose egg? And Billy better watch the use of the word nada, people may get the wrong idea concerning his stance on the English Language Ordinance. He also, very maturely, refers to Bud as “DUD.” In fact, he goes on a long rant about Bud and what a horrible, terrible, incompetent fool he is, and how we can ask ANYONE and they will tell you how difficult Bud is to work with. Maybe we should ask Disco Doug who the most difficult person is to work with really is. If you want read the whole article here. You will have the added bonus of seeing Kirby’s letter in which he repeats his really dumb story about how NASA invented a pen to use in space and the Soviets just used a pencil. I guess he doesn’t care for progress or American ingenuity. Maybe Kirby’s a communist? What’s even funnier is the whole story is a bunch of bunk.
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!
Sorry Snickers! We will try to be better!
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 hereto 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.
So last evening’s hot workshop topic was the ethics task force final report, and how that went on and on. And on. And on. It is a complex issue, worthy of serious discussion. Some things on the list:
Increasing the ethics commission size from 5 to 7 members, and limiting them to 2 terms.
Developing a defined process for reconsidering advisory provisions (I would like to put a Lebowski quote here, but it’s got a no-no word)
An astonishingly controversial conflict of interest clause that prohibits elected officials, their spouses, children, parents, or siblings, or business entities that elected officials (or any of these same close relatives) have a financial interest in from doing business with the county
Tightening up financial disclosure for some positions
A clause prohibiting retaliation toward anyone who files an ethics complaint (good idea, maybe!)
Making it possible to subpoena people for ethics violation issues
There’re a bunch of problems, and you can guess who has them (although, surprisingly, Kirby Delauter was nearly silent through the whole thing). Billy Shreve is the B.S. boy, and he was on duty. Probably thought he would have more credibility with Kirby’s Law already on the books. One such problem he has is why the commission is not appointed by an independent body (he’s miffed, because Jan gets to be the deciderer…sort of). Maybe the Bar Association? I hope he said Bar and not Bartenders.
Turns out, it’s in the charter. Who would have thunk it? The charter gives the C.E. power of appointments, with approval by the council. And then Billy’s all, “Why are we bothering if we can’t change anything?” Round and round we go, and luckily Mr. Karl Bickel manages to put it palatably by explaining that everyone is on the same page, and that the charter is the obstacle but the task force doesn’t have the authority to amend it. Billy behaves like a giant snozzcumber, even when he has a good point, like that the definition of financial interest needs to be clear. It’s the tone of voice, man.
Thrash it!!!!
We are growing numb to this argument about how nobody can have a livelihood and be an elected official with these onerous prohibitions guarding against the appearance of impropriety. Mr. Craig Hicks kindly points out that it depends upon the industry as to how large a part of the market share is dependent upon the government. I suppose this means if you are a cobbler or run a spa, you may still have a chance to avoid the debtors prison. Oh we don’t have those, anymore? Hm. I better not give anyone ideas this primary season.
Your dear ol Yokel is sick to death of the whining about how you can’t participate in government if you are a poor little bidnessman. We are trying to watch these things and be informed and responsive citizens (and help some of y’all out by sharing the info, too). We are cooking dinner, wrangling homework, and chauffeuring to and from sports fields when meetings take place. It’s not just a Founding Fathers’ world that has changed. Abigail Adams’ modern counterparts have a lot going on, and time is a luxury both men and women have to balance. Every bit as valuable as money. I know a couple of them are probably burned up about it, but nowadays (!!!) we also get to vote and hold office. The way a couple council members have spoken to their female peers when they are agitated speaks volumes.
So, Chmelik. He’s all crabby about making rules that have maybe not even been broken yet and stuff. Linda Norris-Weldt lets him know (and I believe this came up more than once) that they got input from citizens, and amongst people about town the perception is that things used to go on in the dark behind closed doors. Uh….you don’t say?
Toward the conclusion we were treated to some mental gymnastics that on one level sounded perfectly reasonable, concerning whether or not a decision from the ethics commission could be appealed. Sounds sensible, right? And then it just isn’t, because what it is really about is how it can (and that one time has) come to pass that the County Executive issues an executive order when the ethics commission is not sufficiently ethical, and it isn’t actually about appealing a penalty at all. Just griping that they might be expected to be, well, ethical.
Usually we mix in the council member comments with our report of the meeting. However, this section of the meeting deserves a separate post. Seriously thinking of doing a PIA to see who is coaching Billy and Kirby on the stuff that comes out of their mouths. Let’s begin with the esteemed Council Member from District 5.
How many more months can this go on for dear citizens? How many more?
Kirby has some really good investigative information about the Rock the Barn event that took place a few weeks back. This event was the pinnacle of unethical tomfoolery seen this side of the Appalachians! When are you people going to open your eyes and see how the union is stealing money from the teachers and then giving it to two other teachers in order to advance their evil plan for world domination? And for $1,000 a plate? Where was this barn located? The Ritz-Carlton? Thankfully, we have Kirby to unravel all the deceit that is taking place right under our noses! He over and over and over again reminds us to “Follow the money!”
Wait, what’s that Council Woman Fitzwater? The teacher’s union isn’t allowed to use member dues to contribute towards political activity? It comes from a voluntary fund, that people actually VOLUNTEER to donate to? I don’t understand. Kirby was all set to unionize his workers and then steal their dues to finance his campaign. How will he get re-elected now? And what about the $1000 a plate? That’s not true either?
It says $1000 on there somewhere!
Does that mean everything Kirby said was wrong tonight? Everything?
Oh well, let’s move on. Jerry mentions attending a drug graduation program with Chmelik. And then refuses to address anything Kirby said because, you know, dead horse.
Readers, do you really want to know about Billy’s comments? I wish I could take a live poll while I am writing this. But since we aren’t technologically there yet, sigh…
Billy hates liquor inspectors. He’s very upset that now instead of having two part time inspectors we will have one benefited, salaried inspector. Because you know paying people so they can actually live, breathe and eat really sucks! And then there’s some complaining about some mysterious, small restaurant that exists on a giant parcel of land that can’t get its liquor license. And now Billy is going to go into full hyperbolic mode and let’s us all know that this county is doing everything, and he means everything they can to make sure they are unfriendly to business. EVERYTHING!
Tony wants us to know that a blog stated that 7 out of 10 elementary schools are really good in his district. Really good. Does that mean he’ll keep that in mind next year when budget discussions come up? Tony will also have a Town Hall in Mt. Airy at 6:30 on November 2. He has promised that, “Everything is up to debate.”
M.C. reminds us that it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So ladies make sure you get those things checked out!
Bud is participating in this Saturday’s Heartly House event: Are you man enough to walk a mile in her shoes? We know some on the council watch page will probably criticize the way you walk this Saturday Bud, but we support you! Bud also has something to say about a certain Council Member’s accusation that since the new government took hold, permits have been very slow to process. (Bud doesn’t mention who made the complaint, but we have a pretty good guess). Well, Bud asked the agency to do an internal audit to see if there was anything to this. And the result? No significant change. But I am sure that dead horse will come out again soon.
Sometimes we have to wonder if Stanley Snow hired a Pavlovian psychiatrist to bring about some kind of wild dog response whenever Billy hears the word Aurora.
Seriously folks? Why is Billy so gung ho for Aurora all the time? (And we know this isn’t the exact Pavlovian method but it’s fun!)
So what has Billy done now some of you may be asking? First let’s take a tour of Councilman Billy Shreve’s Facebook page. Take your Dramamine and fasten that seat belt because it’s going to be a rough one.
Part One:
Officially from the desk of Billy Shreve!
Part Two:
Then we have this charming little discussion:
And folks this is funny:
Billy claims that he’s posting a building permit, but clear as day:
What’s that say at the top?
So lessons learned from Shreve’s Facebook page:
-Jan’s a Nazi, or Joan of Arc, or falling on her sword, or fill in the blank.
-Billy can’t read the titles of his documents or just hopes people won’t click and read.
-Jan is using eminent domain right now this very second.
-Billy cares about the poor residents of Citizens/Montevue and Jan does not.
Then today on THAT website Billy is a guest columnist. He issues a Call to Action that he and Kirby are leading against Jan’s fight to return the nursing homes to county control. Read if you dare.
Months ago, we had many questions about the continuing care agreement that the BOCC signed with Aurora. Remember this language:
IV. FUTURE INDIGENT CARE. In addition to Aurora’s continuing care obligation for the subsidized MALF residents required, above, after leasing CCRC’s Facility Business Assets and Real Property as defined in the Asset Purchase Agreement Aurora shall accept new assisted living residents requiring financial assistance, to the extent MALF beds are available, provided County agrees to pay, and continue to pay, Aurora’s full private pay amount in place at the time of each admission. The County’s commitment to fund these additional MALF residents must be reflected in a separate written agreement between Aurora and the County shall not be required or inferred by any provision of this Agreement.
To the extent that beds are available has always been a sore point for us. Can’t Aurora just fill up all the beds and not have any for the indigent? And let’s not forget that Jan’s reasons for not making the last payment was because the price negotiated for the care was for a greater number of patients than is currently receiving care. Why doesn’t that get the fiscal outrage machine in motion?
And let’s not forget that this whole sale may have been illegal according to the State. You see Maryland contributed $200,000 to the building of the new facility and as a result was supposed to have a say on what happened to it. Blaine showed up in Annapolis and with much drama tried to hand the Division of Public Works a check for said amount but was refused. Learning that not everyone can be paid off. And let’s not forget this niceLTE from a member of the Maryland Commission on Aging. A lot of good points raised.
And this whole eminent domain thing is not set in motion yet. Jan has made it very clear that she is still trying to negotiate with Aurora. Billy and Kirby, on the other hand, want no discussion. They don’t even want to admit that there may be a little bit of a problem with this deal. So really where do their interests lay?
Don’t forget tonight’s the night of the hearing. 7:00 at Winchester Hall.
Hello Local Yokel fans! We didn’t think this would be a very long meeting, but hey, why do we underestimate people’s ability to waste large amounts of time on personal vendettas? Sometimes I think we should watch our neighboring counties’meetings to see if they are anything like ours. Truly curious to know if we are unique. Anyone with any knowledge of this please comment.
If you were following our drinking gameyou had to take a shot of the usual right out of the gate. And then blah, blah, blah, Billy abstains from the agenda. (Doesn’t that mean he should abstain from having any input on anything on that agenda?) Let’s move on to Budget Transfers:
Listen to the baby possum Kirby!
Everything is going smoothly. Kirby says he has a question on BT-16-051, a project for the Public Works Division. The nice fellas from this division sit at the table expecting an actual question. For those of you who are parents, do you remember when your kids were young (or perhaps they are still at this age) and someone would ask them if they had any questions? Instead of actually having a question, which of course your child insisted that they did, it’s just a story or an observation. Well, that’s what happened here. Instead of asking them anything, Kirby goes on about some previous project (one that it turns out he wanted to bid on), making some point that we really can’t follow about the bids being over the engineer’s estimate and he swears it’s a comparison. The nice fella tells Kirby that he’s only prepared to talk about this project and does he actually have a question. The answer to that is no, just an observation. So why did you make them get up and come to the table Kirby? Billy abstains on all of the budget transfers, we know yawn!
Confirmation of County Executives Appointments. All pass.
Ethics discussion. Read this nice article in the FNP today that breaks down the changes the panel is suggesting the council make. Predictably, Kirby has something to say about it. He wants to know why we have a commission if the County Executive is going to override it. It’s a complete waste of time in his mind. The only difference being that now 71% of the board can now resign in protest. Billy isn’t much better when he tries to make a point about the quorum. Now 3 out of the 5 have to show up. This change will make it so that 4 out of 7 will make a quorum. That’s one more person than before, Billy points out. Mathias tries to explain to him that there will be more people on the board and that this really isn’t a point that he wants to get mired down in. (We hear ya!) After this, some good discussion from just about everyone takes place. What about having the commission members appointed by an independent body? That’s worth discussing. But then Tony takes it in a different direction and tries to reject the entire bill promising that he will sponsor it in the future. That motion is defeated. There will be county workshop on this on October 6th and a future public hearing. If you have any input on this be sure to contact the council before that date.
A break was put on the agenda to reconvene at 7:00. Billy doesn’t like that he has to twiddle his thumbs until then. Which could be a valid point if Bud could reasonably predict how long the first half of the meeting will take. But since he can’t……(Actually Billy’s last parting shot was: “Well let’s not make any decisions like that again.” Nice, huh?)
After Billy sat in his office twiddling his thumbs for an hour and a half, the council reconvened to take up two public hearings.
The first was concerning the bill to amend the Water, Sewers and Sewage Disposal code:
Remember during the first reading of this bill when Billy said the government shouldn’t collect small fines? Well, poor kitty cat took him literally.
This bill is to fine people $250 for taking water from hydrants.Last time Billy said the county shouldn’t take people to court to collect small fines because it wasn’t fiscally sound. And tonight he reiterated that notion by saying $250 is not enough to stop offenders. So is he advocating for making the fine larger? There’s some discussion of the WSSC method of giving contractors a meter, which is not feasible for the way we do things. Especially since our water and sewer department doesn’t have the manpower. Kirby has some reasonable questions here. This is the Kirby we wish we could see all the time. And the fine representative from this department is more than prepared to answer them. We like good questions. Not observations not so subtlety masked as complaints. Bill is moved on.
Next up is discussion of the expansion of the MedImmune facility. We will leave you with this article if you want to read more. Very ably presented by Helen and Company. Passed as well, with only Billy saying no.
Public comment was only two fellas this evening. Steve McKay gave a very informative comment about his take on the ethics law. (Can we see the power point Steve?) And hopefully his comments will be taken seriously.
Another commenter asked the council to look into some building code violations that were going to jeopardize his solar panel business. And we have to say we love how respectfully this man was treated. Let’s keep that level of respect going!
And now…Council Member comments.
So it’s not a surprise to any of us that Kirby and Tony are against the prevailing wage. And that they are encouraging the public to attend Delegate Afzali’s meeting tonight. But we’ve said enough about that so let’s move on.
Billy. If only Thor had sent down a thunderbolt to knock out the power, then we could have been spared this last bit of nonsense. Billy wants it to be known that Paul and Blaine were not issued their proper engraved invitations to sit before the dais of the county council. How could they have known when to come? (David Gray somehow figured it out.) Billy wants to make a change to the record so it’s known to one and all that they were not invited. He gets into a verbal back and forth with Chomel, who tells him that council member comments are not about making motions. But somehow it happens anyway. But not before Jerry Donald gives Billy a good dressing down as to how their presence before the council would not have made a difference. And, Jerry continues, the council didn’t ask for this issue, it was given to them and they need to make the best decision based on the record not what was going on in Paul and Blaine’s heads. Billy’s motion fails. As do we all when our time is wasted so egregiously.
In the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt, #kirbydelauter likes to keep us informed of his thoughts through a monthly column on THAT website curiously named The Tentacle. Read it in full for yourself here.
Now sit down readers, because we aren’t in total disagreement with #. We think he makes some good points about the public comments. Has there been any good answer as to why they were taken away from the beginning of the meeting? We do agree that it is a little arduous to sit through what is sometimes a 4 hour and 40 minute meeting to get your chance to speak. Anyone with any insights on this please share, because it’s a worthy discussion to have.
HOWEVER, we do have some issues with what he had to say. We do not agree with the council man’s assertion that the council should vote on an issue right after the public hearing. In fact we think he makes our point for us when he states:
Another change that should be made is that we should vote on the issue at the public hearing. This is when things like public comment are fresh in everyone’s mind, and when you can have the debate with concerned residents. As it currently stands, we vote at the third hearing, which could be as much as a month from the date of the public hearing. That makes it very difficult to remember all of the information gathered at the hearing; and one thing you lose, in particular, is the emotion that people had at that hearing. Even if you take copious notes, it’s still difficult a month later to capture all items of importance that the hearing displayed.
An issue SHOULD NOT be decided upon because of the emotion of the situation. And that is exactly why the council should be given the time to digest what has been presented to them. EXACTLY WHY. And Mr. Delauter, if you are reading this, the county records all of your meetings so you can click here to replay all the emotions you may have forgotten.
Kirby, of course, doesn’t miss an opportunity to mention the English Language Ordinance and Aurora because blah, blah, blah..who cares? But we do love this last line:
You have to keep in mind, we’re not elected forever, so how would we want a meeting to run if we were on the other side of the dais?
Oooh when, oh when is he going to be on the other side of the dais?
The never-ending saga of the Aurora take over of our county nursing home has taken a new turn. In today’s Frederick News Post we are alerted to a new lawsuit filed by the county:
Instead, the county stated in its counterclaim that Aurora broke its contract with the county by failing to pay several employees for unused annual leave, paid time off and sick leave, up to a total of 96 hours, when the employees resigned.
Aurora took ownership of the operations of the centers on May 1, 2014.
The contract stated that Aurora was to allow all county employees to continue working at the center but didn’t guarantee any length of employment.
To recognize the unused leave that the employees had built up over the course of their employment with the county, the county agreed to give Aurora a payment equivalent to what it would cost to pay out the employees for this time.
The county determined this amount was about $367,500 and paid Aurora, the counterclaim stated. The employees were entitled to a cash payment under the contract if they left the company and hadn’t used their time off, the counterclaim stated.
But when Aurora terminated the workers’ employment with the company, the counterclaim stated, Aurora refused to pay the employees for their unused leave.
Gardner said she was displeased when she heard this.
We are displeased as well! We thought a nursing home akin to Disney World would be a little more on the up and up. So what happened to this $367,500? And did anyone do any research, beyond a visit, as to how this company functioned? One click to the website Glassdoor, and we found a ton of people complaining about the low wages. But I guess that really didn’t matter to the last BOCC. Because if it’s in the Yellow Pages, well you know.…
Another part of this story bothered us. The contract that the BOCC signed with Aurora guaranteed county employees a job. And there was a bunch of talk about how this supposed fact made this a good deal for everyone. However, there was no time limit mandated as to how long Aurora had to keep the former county employees. So this brings into question the sincerity of the claims that were made to us when this whole deal was going down. This piece of information also brings back memories of another storyin which we uncovered that the contract stipulated Aurora had to cover the current indigent patients. However, they were under no obligation to do so in the future. Not that this is news or anything, but this contract served no benefit to the residents or employees of Montevue and Citizens. And, if you think for one minute that low wages and high turnover are a good recipe for running a nursing home, then we have some swamp land in Florida we would like to sell you.
Keep up this fight Jan! Who wants to take bets on how quickly Billy will be on WFMD?
frederick local yokel 