Leroy! You took the game too far! Don’t be like Leroy, people!
Seriously folks, if the Lady Yokels find you peeking out of trashcans we may have to put a moratorium on these games! It’s been a few weeks since we’ve had one, so take care if you think your tolerance may be low. Let’s begin this game with a hearty congratulations to Jessica and her husband on the birth of their son. Between us Lady Yokels there are 8 Junior Yokels running around. So welcome to the club Councilwoman Fitzwater!
Grab your agenda and follow along, there’s lots of items tonight and lots of times that the folks on the dais need to utilize their listening skills. Hopefully they are all paying attention and NOT staring at the phones for advice.
Public comment is back on the top of the agenda. 15 minutes max at 3 minutes each, means 5 folks max. If any of these 5 folks decide this is a good time to call our esteemed Council President a turncoat, slam back a Benedict Arnold with a smile upon your face.
It’s certainly tragic when things don’t work out the way you thought they would.
Nine, that’s right nine, budget transfers are up next! We are probably pretty good until we get to the bottom two concerning school construction. When the objections come, mix up some Harvey Wallbanger, since we are all so close to banging our heads on the wall.
It’s listening time now. An update will be made by the Maryland Association of Counties. Hopefully Billy and Kirby haven’t partaken of any Fireball shots beforehand and are now engaging in some drunk texting that would cause some kind of embarrassing political resignation. (Who are we kidding, drink away fellas!) In their honor, have a Fireball shot every time they seem to be distracted by their electronic lifeline.
Time to approve the County Executive’s appointment to the Maryland Fire Service Professional Qualifications Board. If this is met with any static, mix up a Flaming Asshole. Yes, we said it!
It’s time to either approve or reject the historic designation for Glenellen Farm in Ijamsville. When Billy or Turncoat Kirby object to this on account of the brain-washers not getting their “drug treatment” facility, go ahead and have yourself a UFO and good luck driving those nasty Thetans out of your body!
Yippee!
Next up is a renewal for a contract for an external audit. We hear some talk here and there about accountability and outside opinions, so if any nonsense shall occur, sip on your Billionaire cocktail. Since that’s what all these county employees are anyway, right?
Listening time again! A presentation from the department of Solid Waste management and an overview of Agricultural Preservation Programs. We’ll keep the drink the same. If anyone is staring at their electronic delight instead of the informative presentation have yourself a Fireball shot!
Lastly, it’s a presentation of amendments to the Charter from both the County Executive and Council. It’s a long list so we will refer you back to the agenda if you want to see it for yourself. Since that’s probably enough drinking for tonight, get yourself a nice cold drink of that EPA regulated water and re-hydrate.
We’ll update you on the meeting as soon as we humanly can!
Seems like the 1st of the month is Kirby’s special time to be a “Guest Columnist” on the noodley appendage. We’ll try to cover it in enough detail so you won’t have to look. However, if you prefer to be a first hand witness to this train wreck of a post, feel free to click here.
Let’s start with some vocabulary:
Feel free to pick any of the above. They all work!
Kirby’s thought process is just…well bizarre. He tries oh so very hard to come up with some cute anti-business nickname for Jan. The best he can muster is: “County Executive Jan (please take your business elsewhere) Gardner.” So very witty. In this post treating Jan as the most anti-business elected representative in the world, we are graced with three examples.
Example 1!: A rant about a trash company that is not allowed to dump their trash coming from outside the county into our county dump. Kirby doesn’t do a good job explaining how this trash is actually in county. Not at all. Instead he gives an example about buying a couch in Montgomery County and then years later being denied the right to dump it at the Frederick County landfill. Not quite the same thing, but okay. Why does Jack Handy come to mind?
Example #2!: Another company has been told that their refuse would start a fire in the landfill. We don’t know the details, and we are pretty sure that Kirby doesn’t either (just a hunch–see entire Facebook saga of wedding venues with no permits), and if this company has a legitimate claim they would be wise to go through someone other than Kirby. Who, in his analysis of this situation, claims that the county is assuming the worst about this business. There couldn’t be any logical explanations as to why the county could have this policy could there?
Example 3! (is our favorite): Here we find Kirby trying his best to defend the actions of Shade Trees and Evergreens. You know one of the aforementioned wedding venues, which secured ZERO permits? Kirby tries to answer those who would question his stance on this business in the following fashion:
Now you can say, Mr. Delauter, you know damn well Shade Trees knew they were operating illegally and it’s their fault!
I could say that, but I know all too well being in business in Frederick County for 30 years how many times the county has showed up on our jobs and stated the rules have changed without notice. That’s right, they changed county code, no notification to business owners effected, just do as we say, and get over it. Oh, and pay a fee of course.
Ummm, this is not what happened at ALL. So what does Kirby say the solution should be? So glad you asked! Kirby’s solution is that Queen Jan should use her Executive Order powers to declare that this place stay open to the end of the year. Yes, those same Executive Order powers that practically sent him to the soup kitchen. No matter those pesky health and sewage inspections. And we should all ignore the fact that legitimate businesses who went through the proper channels are being undersold.
So this epic poem concludes with Jan killing all the county businesses. And now Kirby has NO choice but to consider a run for County Executive. No choice at all.
So many unanswered questions in the world. So many.
Well folks, if you haven’t had a chance to take a gander at today’s Political Notes , it is a must see. First off, we have a summary of the cell phone discussion that we touched on from the last meeting. When Jerry suggested that the council hand over their phones during council meetings, Billy yells:
“Why don’t we just use rice paper?”
We can think of a few places we would love to shove these rice papers.
His reaction was as though Jerry suggested we do away with technology altogether. What is wrong with putting the phones away during council meetings? On the other hand, if one is waiting for instructions from the puppet master it may be a little hard to know what to do.
Next, Kirby so wants there to be a scandal. So he provided the reporter at the News Post with this:
To show his frustration, Delauter forwarded me an email last week in which a staff member at the county’s Office of Economic Development redirected his questions, on behalf of FSK Holiday Inn owner Randy Cohen, to Browning.
Delauter responded angrily.
“That’s total Bullshit………….but then again,” Delauter wrote back. “I’ll have Randy contact you directly since as an elected official we get treated like third graders from the worthless CE,” referring to the county executive.
He then suggested that Cohen contact the employee — who was copied on the email — directly.
“I don’t have the time to spend to go thru the layers of bureaucratic bullshit that CE Gardner has put in place,” Delauter wrote.
Nice, huh? He’s starting to sound all county executivey isn’t he? And what’s Kirby’s problem with third graders? Well, if Kirby isn’t able to have his issue addressed this very second isn’t the whole system just for shit? Here’s what Jan had to say about this:
Gardner said the process for handling constituent service emails was set up between her staff members and the council’s staff members.
Gardner said the executive and legislative branch staffs worked together to create the system, so staff members wouldn’t be overwhelmed by seven separate requests from each council member on one constituent issue.
“It’s absolutely not impossible for them to talk to county staff. This whole focus is about constituent service,” Gardner said, adding that a high percentage of questions get a response within a day. “… I think the system is working for the majority of council members.”
If Kirby can’t circumvent the procedures that were made by both his and the county executive’s staff, aren’t we already at tyranny’s doorstep?
The last section is our favorite. In an attempt to imitate House of Cards, Delauter, Shreve and Jenkins have created something closer to a Shack of Sharts. Just look at this description of an email exchange that someone forwarded to the FNP:
In an unrelated chain of emails forwarded to The Frederick News-Post this week, Shreve and Delauter expressed disappointment not only with county government policies, but also the form of county government entirely.
Republican Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, who was copied on the multiple email messages, suggested that the councilmen and others “push a movement to go back to the County Commissioner form of government. It worked!”
When another person on the email list suggested that a lot of Republicans who supported charter government before Gardner, a Democrat, took office would have to “eat crow” to support a reversal, Jenkins responded.
“I have no crow to eat because I predicted it would be [a] total disaster as it is turning out to be,” he wrote. “But wouldn’t everyone choke down a little crow if things could be fixed? Just take a big bite and swallow hard.”
Shreve also wrote that he would favor a repeal.
Delauter said he didn’t vote for charter government and is frequently reminded why, though he’s still considering a run for county executive in 2018.
“If I was county executive, [charter government] would be great …,” Delauter said, before adding that he was joking. “I’m kidding. That’s the form of government we have, so I have to live with it.”
Better be careful Fellas!
Well, well, well, we wonder who forwarded this along! Could it be that someone on that exchange doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid? Or was it one of them thinking this would be a great way to get all this recall charter government nonsense in the news? This isn’t new talk folks, we reported almost a year ago of Blaine’s winds of change. These guys lived in some warped bubble in which they thought Blaine was going to win it all and they would be the Boss Hoggs of the county. So, when that didn’t happen they immediately went into boo hoo, everything’s horrible mode.
I guess people just didn’t like ya!
Well, we happen to like that an discriminatory language ordinance was repealed. We like that our county has a strong ethics law. We also like that our schools and other services are finally being funded at somewhat reasonable levels. And we are oh so very pleased that the nursing homes are back in the county’s hands. We would also be remiss to not mention that we really like that we have a County Executive who isn’t getting arrested for solicitation of prostitutes. (Thanks Jan!) So we’ll stick with the Charter government thank you very much. For we remember what it was like during the last BOCC. Shiver.
I know it isn’t pleasant, but for a moment let’s take a trip down memory lane. Back to the dark days of the BOCC when the education budget wasn’t funded above the Maintenance of Effort (MOE) required by law. People came out in droves to testify before the BOCC, to no avail. This frustration helped usher Jan Gardner into office in 2014. To her word, County Executive Gardner has increased funding for our county schools. This year she allocated $10.5 million over the MOE funding from the previous year. County Superintendent Alban wanted $13.8 million for salaries in order to revamp the pay scale. The BOE slowly shook it’s collective head from side to side and reallocated $7.4 million from the salary pool. We think the title of FNP’s coverage of last night’s meeting kinda says it all:
We know budgeting is hard, and there will be winners and losers. However, the teachers are sick and tired of being the losers. Every single year. And we are sick and tired for them. Friend of the Yokel Casey Day-Kells was quoted in the paper as saying this:
The FCTA secretary, Casey Day-Kells, offered an alliterative description for how teachers are feeling: “disheartened, discouraged, disrespected, demoralized, dismayed, depressed.”
“Not only one, is the scale broken, but at this time, so are many of your employees,” Day-Kells said.
You business people out there know that demoralized employees are not good for your bottom line. And while we know our county teachers are professionals who put on their best face every day, we can’t help but think this will affect how they perform their jobs.We want to help come up with some solutions, unlike some of our county politicians:
Sorry to have to keep using this one folks. But it’s kinda not our fault.
We are going to try to follow this logic. So since the BoE cut the money from salaries , Tony should have been allowed the amendment to do away with over $6 million from the total budget because that would have made this all better…how? So confused. Are we to forget the past, Mr. Delauter? Are you now painting yourself as a “friend of education” who has no problem raising teacher salaries???!!! PLEEAZZZEE!!! What about all those years you voted to keep the budget at MOE and therefore directly contributed to this problem? And how about that other time when you cut that Head Start program because all the women should be at home with their kids baking your pie? Our memory is long and detailed, councilman. As for the teachers voting on their salaries, we’ll let the above gif take care of that. We can’t keep addressing that issue over and over again. We just can’t. But, it sure seems like a hollow complaint, when the “get rich quick plan” to become Frederick County’s brand new council member teacher millionaire hybrid class is nakedly hogwash. Obvious to literally everyone with two brain cells to rub together is that they are not able to control that money pot.
Now onto our Yokel brainstorm. Since we cannot guarantee that money allocated to the school system will be used to increase salaries how about a special little tax increase that is specifically and only for this purpose? Now before you get all:
on us, just hear us out. Things cost money people. And yes, the government should do the absolute best job it can spending it wisely. (That doesn’t mean cutting just for the sake of cutting, Kirby!) However, sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to and in order to get what we want we have to pony up! So let’s say that we have a special fee just for this purpose. Whatever goes into this fund can and will only be used for salaries. The CE, Council, and BoE cannot use it for anything else ever. Kinda like the Chesapeake restoration fee on your water bill. And it wouldn’t have to be much. If every county resident (census prediction is 245,322 for June 2015) paid $41 a year we would have an extra 10,058,202. If you spread that out in monthly payments it comes to $3.42 a month. If you are ready and able to add more, feel free. And if we ever have a year that our teachers are paid a competitive salary, we can take a break from it. What say you, Yokels? If you have any other ideas, please put them in our comment section. Let’s start a dialogue on how to fix this so we don’t have to have this same cycle of disappointment year after year after year.
There’s a workshop this evening and we are a little afraid to watch. There’s been so much animosity this week in Frederick politics we aren’t sure how this is going to play out. (Can we say we feel really bad for M.C, Jessica , Jerry and, to some extent, Tony.) Only two items on the docket: Adopting the amendments to council procedures and a discussion of solar utility projects. We’ll let you know what happens but y’all may owe us a drink or two or three….
The big news this week was President Otis’ announcement that he was leaving the Republican Party. We wrote two pieces on this topic yesterday. We here at the Yokel don’t blame him one bit considering how he’s been treated by Shrelauter and their cronies on the watch page. We’ve watched every SINGLE council meeting and have seen first hand the rude, snarky comments these two have made towards Bud. Just search through our plentiful archives and you’ll find copious examples of their abhorrent behavior. So when we read through the FNP articleabout Bud’s political affiliation, we were quite perplexed by Shrelauter’s statements. Kirby wants us pretend we’re all new here:
“Bud Otis doesn’t know me very well. I don’t intimidate very easily. I will stand up for what I think is right,” Delauter said. “I ran for office to change things and make the county a better place.” He added that he doesn’t think he’s created conflicts on the council. “If you look at the tapes, I’m pretty calm. I’m speaking my mind,” Delauter said. “That’s what my constituents keep asking me to do.”
Woden hear our cries for mercy!!! Who does this guy think he’s talking to? We’ve seen him get combative with Bud during the ethics bill discussions, we’ve seen him throw a hissy fit and storm off the dais just a few weeks ago when his budget amendments were soundly defeated. We know from his BOCC days that he screamed at fellow commissioner David Gray,lashed out at a county employeeand went after a middle school teacher in the FNP. Calm is the last adjective we would use to describe #kirbydelauter. In fact, he got his # nickname because he flew off the handle at a local reporter and demanded that she not use his name. Our nice little county got a lot of national press because of that hot mess. You don’t get to re-invent yourself, Kirby, just because you have your eye on the CE office. We all have your number.
Now it’s Shreve’s turn to give his insightful, articulate opinion on Bud’s decision. Just kidding!! Here’s what he had to say:
Shreve, who has said Otis is “a trained monkey by the Democrats” in Facebook posts, said he hasn’t lodged personal attacks against Otis, but he will.
“Tell him to hang on, because it’s just getting started,” Shreve said Thursday.
Oh really? Just getting started. We heard him say on WFMD that we libs monitor his Facebook page. If you call reading what comes in our feed monitoring…then YES. And in those feeds we’ve seen him call Bud names like Turncoatis on his Councilman page tons of times. Now Billy also claimed on the radio that the Democrats on the council have had it with Bud. Did he check with them? Cause it seems like M.C. has a different view:
“The citizens elected us to do our job. We were elected to be legislators. So far, there has been a dearth of legislation from the folks complaining,” Keegan-Ayer said. “You can’t just sit there and lob grenades all day long. Do the job you were elected to do.”
It’s always something. Never, ever anything constructive from these two. Not ever!
We have a different kind of poll for you today Yokels. We are thinking that we need some good derisive nicknames for our unesteemed Councilmen. So we have a few suggestions to get started, but we want you to add your own. We will recompile the results for a poll to determine how we henceforth refer to these guys. We are counting on you. We know you will not let us down.
And let’s close out our last poll. Looks like Ethics are important after all!
We’ve heard through the grape vine that today is Cliff Cumber’s last day at the Frederick News Post. Your Yokel Ladies have enjoyed his editorials over the years, but none so much as Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter:
Knowing Councilman Kirby Delauter as we do, we weren’t surprised that he threatenedThe Frederick News-Postwitha lawsuitbecause we had, he says — and we’re not making this up — been putting Kirby Delauter’s name in the paper without Kirby Delauter’s authorization. Attorneys would be called, Kirby Delauter said.
In fact, we spent quite some time laughing about it. Kirby Delauter, an elected official; Kirby Delauter, a public figure? Surely, Kirby Delauter can’t be serious? Kirby Delauter’s making a joke, right?
Round about then, we wondered, if it’s not a joke, how should we now refer to Kirby Delauter if we can’t use his name (Kirby Delauter)? Could we get away with an entire editorial of nothing but “Kirby Delauter” repeated over and over again — Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter? OK, imagine we agreed because of temporary madness or something funny in the water that week, how would we reference “Kirby Delauter” and do our job as journalists without running afoul of our lack of authorization?
Blanks? Sure, we sometimes use hyphens in the case of expletives. Perhaps we could do that: “K—- D——-.” Or, perhaps, “Councilman [Unauthorized].” We giggled a bit more than we should have when we came up with “the Councilman Formerly Known as Commissioner Kirby Delauter,” which doesn’t seem as funny written down in black and white and includes his name, which defeats the point. Maybe we should just put his initials, “KD,” with an asterisk to a footnote (KD*), or refer to him as GLAT, the acronym for his campaign: “Govern Like A Taxpayer.” We could even make it sound a little hip-hop with a well-placed hyphen: G-Lat. Speaking of, could we get away with “K-Del”? Or we could simply go with the Harry Potter-esque “He Who Shall Not be Named.” (Cue the lightning strike and peal of thunder.)
Yet we could take the low road down even further and childishly mangle “Kirby Delauter” into references you, the reader, would still understand. “Sherbert Deluder,” say. Or “Derby Kelauter.” “Shirley Delaughter” (and don’t call me Shirley). We found a great automatic online anagrammer that generated all kinds of alternatives and could make it a challenge for our readers to decode each time we have to reference the councilman: “Rebuked artily.” That was a good one. “Bakery diluter” is just silly but does have a ring about it. “Keyed rural bit” was another that caught our eye as somewhat telling, because Kirby Delauter’s pretty keyed up. We’re sure there’s a joke in “Brutelike Yard” somewhere.
Discernibly, though, Kirby Delauter’s ignorance of what journalism is and does is no joke, and illustrates one disturbing aspect too prevalent in conservatives’ beliefs: That the media are all-liberal stooges hell bent on pursuing some fictional leftwing agenda. Generally this “fact” is bleated when the facts on the ground differ from conservative talking points. Take Councilman Billy Shreve’s abstract, almost nonsensical defense of KD*: “I think media outlets are cowards and they hide behind the label of journalists and that’s a bully pulpit to expand their liberal” agenda. Cowards? Tell that to the families of the 60 journalists killed in 2014, or the 70 in 2013, or the 74 who died in 2012, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. All in pursuit of the truth, or the most reliable version of it at hand in the most dangerous regions of the world.
Edifying as it may be to lapse into name calling — and yes, we allowed ourselves a little childishness above and maybe a little bit below — we need to make one serious point the councilman needs to hear and understand: We will not bow to petty intimidation tactics because a local politician thinks he can score political points with his base throwing around empty threats.
Legally, Kirby Delauter has no case.
And why? Here’s how Washington Post blogger Eugene Volokh, who “teaches free speech law, religious freedom law, church-state relations law, a First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, and tort law, at UCLA School of Law,” nicely sums it up:
“Uh, Council Member: In our country, newspapers are actually allowed to write about elected officials (and others) without their permission. It’s an avantgarde experiment, to be sure, but we’ve had some success with it.” You know, that whole First Amendment thing.
That’s why we’re taking his threat with a pinch of salt. We’ve seen this behavior before (not just from Kirby Delauter) and it’s worth highlighting again. Bullying seems to be the only way Kirby “Don’t say my name” Delauter feels he can lead. Only now, the target is not the public at hearings or occasional “punk” staff member, an arrogant, self-serving, whining middle school teacher or fellow “moron” commissioner, it’s The News-Post. Instead of taking his job seriously like the voters demanded and the rest of the council seem to grasp, he’s grabbing at distractionary shoot-the-messenger tactics that make a lot of noise but, to quote Shakespeare, a man who knew drama when he saw it, noise that “signifies nothing.” Frederick County has big issues to tackle in 2015 and we have yet to hear Kirby Delauter sound out one single, sensible idea. He used the word “govern” in his slogan. Maybe he should apply that to his temper first.
Enough. Seriously. What’s Kirby Delauter going to do? Sue everyone who’s making fun of him on Twitter using the #kirbydelauter hashtag, or on Facebook? Boy, his attorney will be able to retire off that.
Reasonable men (and women) are required to move Frederick County forward. All Kirby Delauter is doing yet again is displaying his inability to control his temper, embarrassing himself, his district, the county and those who voted him into office. If he wants to govern like a taxpayer, he needs to respect the taxpayers whose money provides his paycheck, stop this silly, inflammatory nonsense, and get to work.
———————
* Kirby Delauter.
Absolute brilliance. And anyone Kirby accuses of having a mental illness is okay in our book. Therefore, Mr. Cumber, we wish you all the best and hope you will take with you this Yokel tip of the hat:
I has been a bit since our last poll. Let’s close that out and move on to our next topic. Looks like everyone thinks Billy boy would establish a special day for a special person. Thank goodness our polls are not scientific or based in any kind of reality for Frederick.
Stop crapping on everything!
There is so much going on, we can hardly limit ourselves to just one poll this week, but since we actually do have self control, we managed to narrow it down.
Since Kirby and Billy have started doing Facebook reviews of local event venues with poor business practices, numerous brides now know that the most important event of their lives!!!!! (clutch your new, blue hanky) could be jeopardized. At least, if they schedule them at places that fail to comply with common laws that businesses in surely every last county in America are subject to. Luckily Frederick County couples now know which specific places they will plan to avoid, and that they should be cautious about plans down the road, so we extend a hearty, “Thank you!”
Speaking of jeopardizing weddings, Blaine thanks you in advance, as well. Eventually he will find someone willing to overlook his past transgressions and buy his line of nonsense that he again has turned over a new leaf, again (did we say that again?).
The Yokels also thank you, as you have apparently opened our audience up to some new readership. We are speculating that it could be coming from the Oakdale-had-to-move-their-prom feeder area. And also some folks who are also subscribing to The Knot this year.
This should probably just say Fireball and low IQs…
Dontcha just love unintended consequences? That’s Frederick County politics in a nutshell.
frederick local yokel 