Tag: M.C. Keegan-Ayer

It’s Awards Season–and we have some in mind for the 2/5 County Council Meeting

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Your locals bounced into the show late mid-Monocacy River Plan Presentation and it does sound like the early part of the meeting was worth listening to because there were some comments made with bipartisan concerns about things that were eliminated from the plan and we don’t have the low down on that. Our chief take away really is that it is a plan. It isn’t legislation, although it may be the basis for crafting legislation that uses the plan as a resource. If that’s the case, then you get to go through the whole process that is normal when you have an elected public official you have to talk to. Part of the plan is specifically that eminent domain should not be used, so the entire land grabbing narrative is silly. Like so many things. And we will have to return to how representative democracy works later when we had to consume the entire bottle of Barefoot Bubbly.

They ticked through the public hearing portion of the bills the council is considering rather quickly, after a brief interlude of disco video game psychedelic electronica music. Who picks that stuff?

Then there was a discussion about bills for the council to offer support to or withhold sending support to for the state delegation, and holy moly. It would be appropriate to hit the sauce just so that we can address this in writing. We are going to award the nickname Philly to Phil Dacey, due to an uncanny likeness this evening to Billy Shreve’s confusion over Roberts’ Rules everything. Tonight he was incensed that they must quickly offer opinions on items they don’t know enough about. This would seem like a BFD, if it were true that the public never gets to weigh in. But here is the thing: the public elected Delegates and Senators and Joseph(ina) Q. Public is perfectly free to contact the people who will actually be voting on these bills to let them know what their priorities are. The council opinion is not meant to convey the constituents’ opinions, so much as it is meant to offer insight from the standpoint of officials who have a closer relationship with all the invested players in the business community and pertinent county agencies. And hey, we can understand if you aren’t familiar with this process that it seems a little crazy, but at least they asked for your opinion. You can give it, or not. And there’s a little foreshadowing for you folks…

First they were to offer support or decline to support a bill to establish a registry of private laboratories that have biohazardous materials so that in the event of an emergency the first responders know about the biohazards. This is of particular concern to Frederick County for reasons that are hopefully obvious to most everyone. Steve McKay referred to this bill as a “no-brainer” because (per his explanation) basically we are talking about nasty stuff that is one step away from being weaponized. Philly indignantly snapped, “Are you implying the state delegation has no brain?” There was more agony with the hand wringing over not knowing anything about this and having to decide in a hurry (glug, glug, glug) and Kai piled on, seconding the “no-brainer” quality of this needed legislation. I mean, whoever heard of it being a big deal if anthrax happens to get out into the environment, right? Oh and also this has come up thrice already with unanimous support from the Council in every previous year, but it has passed the House of Delegates and failed in the Senate repeatedly. Jerry Donald contributed that Ron Young is optimistic that it can be passed at long last because the thorn in the Senate is not longer in office. Fingers crossed. 6 ayes, 1 abstention on this one. You can’t make this stuff up.

Phil Dacey gets the “Abstinence-Only Doesn’t Work” Award. In this case it literally means you aren’t working. Sigh.

That he was getting nowhere with tabling the opportunity to give an opinion to the delegation started to really grate at Dacey, and in turn agitate your Yokel on duty. The next one was somewhat confusing, because of a sort of double negative setup. Here’s the query: Should the Council oppose including Frederick County in State Legislation exempting Agritourism businesses from being required to meet certain life safety building and zoning standards.

Some of the more interesting work of the previous Council was working to have farm wineries and breweries and allow special events in these spaces. Because many of them are charming old barns they are susceptible to certain safety hazards (like flammability), and so this having been a thing that was extensively cultivated involving the various interested parties like brewers and vintners and farmers and county agencies, the thinking was, “Nah, we’d not like to have gone through all that and have these things exempted from safety measures.” Fire safety regulation has had its opponents previously, if you followed the rogue wedding venues dramas of the past year or so. (If not: Here, here, here.) Philly moved to table the opportunity for opinion giving. Back and forth and forth and back and then got snippy that he had a motion and M.C. had to explain that nobody seconded the motion, and then no one did, so the motion failed.

And.

He.

Kept.

Going.

There was so much whining and undignified begging. It was truly disrespectful of the process that he was so desperately trying to knight-in-shining-armor save from itself. Steve McKay and Jessica Fitzwater both said they were comfortable with taking a position, because it was a position not to do something rather than a position favoring a new measure. We have to disagree here. That is entirely beside the point, which is up above, but we will revisit. We are all free to contact our representatives in Annapolis. That is how government works. We don’t need it to pass from us through Kai Hagen and Michael Blue or whomever. Annnnnd…On that note, we are so terribly remiss in bestowing an award of gratitude upon Michael the Miracle of District 5–this is such an improvement from He Who Shan’t Be Named. With that, we will end on a positive note. Deep breaths.

We aren’t out of a hobby yet!

fclocalyokel1 Comment

Ladies and gentlemen, Frederick Countians of all ages, we regret to inform you that we are some bit afeared of what we are hoping is not a trend. The early part–and extremely educational segment–of the meeting was focused on the budget decision held over from the previous meeting with regards to allowing the health department to buy a vehicle. In order for Phil Dacey to better understand the situation, Dr. Barbara Brookmyer came and gave an awesome tutorial, and we are all the better for knowing what we know now. Recommended viewing, in fact. Much like the Human Trafficking Workshop of the previous council, we learned a lot about a matter that has serious impact upon the well-being of our community.

Today we learned the health department is a dually led entity that is part state and part county. The state wants the county to procure a vehicle for a safe syringes program. NB: this will not cost the county money. The program in the state of Maryland involves several different mandatory elements, including collecting dirty needles, supplying clean needles, and undergoing disease testing for stuff like HIV and hepatitis C. Reasons they would like for this program to be successful in Frederick County include our geographic location on “The Heroin Highway” and our neighboring two abysmally afflicted counties in West Virginia. Dr. Brookmyer used a specific example of a jurisdiction that traced all 190 HIV cases to a single syringe, she stressed that the price of treating a single case of HIV can run to $600,000 (times 190 is $114,000,000.00) and a clean syringe costs 10 whole cents (times 190 is $19.00. Cost benefits analysis, bro.

Other reasons they would like to keep this thing mobile is the NIMBY’s preferring not to have a drug treatment program run on their corner (Weird, right! Have y’all heard about our totally uncontroversial Downtown Frederick Marriott, though?) and also that our county is hugenormous, and furthermore that people who do the drugs don’t necessarily come to your central office, especially because often they are not super interested in going to all that trouble for the express purpose of not doing the drugs. However, meeting them where they are at often establishes relationships that show them where to go and who will help when they do decide they ready to stop doing the drugs. Phil Dacey told us basically that it’s cool if many of us are infected with HIV, because he is a libertarian ideologue. Besides, he notes that he’s better than we think because he didn’t call it Uber for Needles. Har har. Honk if you love Frednecks in a suit. Opioids anyone? Hat tip to M.C. Keegan-Ayer for the adult perspective of child rearing in the days where your kids have lost someone to drugs. By all means, ideologue away by your lonesome. This decision passed 6-1, but at least our NewBilly can say “nay.”

There were also presentations on Public Information Act Requests, and Ethics, and Open Meetings. We learned all kinds of wise advice from this. You should not write out things you don’t want to see in print. Also probably don’t send your Anthony Weiner if you don’t want to see it in the news. That part, which we like to think was implied, was not covered, nor was, “He won’t buy the cow, dear, if you give him the milk for free,” but mostly this stuff was common sense responsibility. Also, too, no public money campaigning (but what about if you want to put your campaign sign and the Boy Scouts in Winchester Hall…still no? ok then…).

Then we had the final brouhaha in which we both kind of agree with Phil Dacey and simultaneously are in danger of having a stroke. He does not want to go into closed session to talk to the BOE appointee who would potentially fill Ken Kerr’s vacated seat, because he feels that elected people get elected in public, not quietly in an office. That’s true, and everyone kind of sees what he is saying, but there’s some reluctance to just up and change everything on this candidate mid-process because this was how they handled personnel changes before, and because doing like that’s frankly a bit obnoxious and unprofessional. Lots of back and forth ensues about whether or not they will ask this candidate about willingness to answer stuff in public, but he is still going to vote no about the closed session motion. At this point we are screaming at our TV: HOW WILL YOU ASK HER TO DO THAT IF YOU DO NOT LEAVE AND GO ASK? When will this magic take place? Please make it stop!!!!

Party Bonus: Dacey brought a fan club for public comment. Then Steve McKay reined that in with some diplomacy and knowledge about the authority behind this BOE replacement idea, which is The Code of Maryland Regulations (a.k.a. COMAR).

 

Lost in the woods: decisions, decisions, decisons edition

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Your council thingy for today. Billy Shreve has a proposal. (Isn’t that the beginning of a spooky campfire tale?) Well, here, we were going to transcribe it, but have a screen grab for efficiency:

We are not “a lawyer”, but how does the County legislate the State? If the thing we think is a thing is a thing, chug a 40.

READER UPDATE: Anne Hicks (thank you, Anne!) points out that Billy wants these residences to be edible! Dipped in sewer sauce. YUM.

Next decision is whether or not the preferred bureaucracy gets to oversee a photovoltaic (that’s solar, yo) array at the Ballenger-McKinney wastewater treatment plant. This is for reasons of red tape and red tape minimization specifically. Billy will whine impertinently, because whining about solar is one of his hobbies, ranked just after rollerblading and growing out that mullet-tail. If we are also right about who whines here…do nothing. Because a serious horror show is coming, and you will want to be in top form for…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. 6 proposed amendments to the Act to Adjust School Construction Fees.

Goodnight, and good luck. We will all be at soccer. Let us know who/what gets tossed in the wood chipper or whatever.

 

 

River board row

fclocalyokel3 Comments

The bottomless well of drama with regards to the Monocacy River Board brings up some particular issues we have with the inconsistently applied logic surrounding this. (e.g. Border Wall: GREAT!!! Monocacy River Health: LAND GRAB!!!)

We recently hosted a bit of a brouhaha on our wall when we got persnickety about Sheriff Non-Expert spending more time mugging for the Fox News cameras about border issues he is ill acquainted with, in spite of his famous field trip, than dealing with the likes of human trafficking and opioids (the third pillar of #BeBEST, y’all! get with the program, already). It’s a bug up our toots that the same Wall Enthusiast Clan has labeled efforts to preserve the river as a land grab when it is not, yet taking ranchers in Texas’ access to the waterway their cattle use actually would be a land grab that would destroy their livelihoods.  heavy sighhhhhhhhh 

Here is a sample: OH NOES…the example we were set to provide was from a Local Wall Enthusiast who apparently deleted his dumb argument when confronted with how ill informed he is about stuff that happens way far away. Yippee? This is a great opportunity to note that the same fool was back and forth and up and down with some ladies disputing him in the comments, but as soon as a man told him he didn’t know what he was talking about, he tucked tail and ran, deleting the evidence of his misguided assumptions. Protip: mansplanations are not better than information.

And on the subject of information, we know Billy Shreve has a history of being loosely acquainted with science. Holy moly, that old historical reference is a doozy. We were having a Local Yokel STEM night and discussing a science article about how the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park has changed the river health there because now the deer stay out of the deathtraps that river valleys create for them and their population is better controlled by natural predation, so the vegetation on the river has helped to create a barrier against erosion. Apparently Yellowstone is trying to be Yellowstone and let the Grand Canyon keep doing its thing. Billy will be sad. The fact that we had all individually read or seen something about this brought us to our next point. Being ignorant is a choice, whether you are talking about eminent domain or erosion.

Information.

Anywhooooo. M.C. Keegan-Ayer goes above and beyond in the name of transparency and service to the citizens who have vested interests and legitimate concerns, and who’s against that? All of the Republicans on the Council. Isn’t that a great irony? Well, actually…not so much anymore, sadly. More like par for the course. Philosophy has nothing to do with their decision making. Tribalism is the whole picture. No wonder Bud Otis disassociated from the party and has gone rogue independent maverick-like.

If you will click through the link above about M.C. Keegan-Ayer’s resolution in the Frederick News Post, we would like to make a special mention shoutout to the astute engaged citizenry commenting on the article there. We thought “petulantly lazy” as a description of Billy Shreve perfectly addressed his conduct both yesterday and since forever. We would also like to boost one comment in particular–that of Matt Seubert, who is the current president of RALE.

Well done, sir! Although we would be remiss if we didn’t say that although none of the present day coterie of LocalYokels lives in D2, we also think Lisa Jarosinski is pretty cool. She has been actively involved with RALE as well. Bipartisan chill, between her and Steve McKay. D2 could be a win-win race, if Republicans do it right in the primary.

Let’s stop voting for people who don’t care about anything but causing problems and creating scenes. It will make our hobby very boring, which would be better for everyone in Frederick County. In fact, if we could do that, the whole country would be better off.

 

Annual tradition: fantasy budget cuts

fclocalyokel4 Comments

In case you are new here, every year Kirby comes up with “fat” that we can trim from the budget (also Tony and Billy, but mostly Kirby) in the form of unicorn and rainbows amendments. He proposes a bunch of stuff without knowing really what this money does or what happens when we take it away. Like today when we tried to cut the money for library staff at Walkersville and Myersville. Oopsie-daisy-dummy. (Failed) Sometimes he has to pull his own amendments because he didn’t know what they were. Weird how that happens.

Just as long as you don’t become the County Executive, do whatever.

We breezed onto the scene right about the time Billy tried to suspend the rules and let The Yellow T-Shirt Brigade take over. We expected shenanigans and malarkey, because Billy was involved, but in reality this was the Career Firefighters’ Association, and their presence there and contributions everywhere are very much appreciated by Local Yokels and all of our friends everywhere. We are very pleased that our assumptions are wrong, because they were somewhat dark, based upon Billy’s Twitter feed and the black hole of intellect that can drag a yokel into. On the upside, Billy Shreve’s State Senate page only has 35 likes, so we may be free of his torment soon.

Something like this scene occurred (text transcript)

Kirby just got petulant because they don’t want to cut $$ for MET to go do theater programs at schools with high percent FARM (that’s free and reduced meals, if you don’t know the lingo) lunch kids because they had no problem voting down a quarter mil for Classical Charter.
M.C.’s reply: We haven’t voted on that yet.
Kirby: Well, the last two years!
Yokel text: Oh my God. You know what we should do? Find the post we wrote about his amendments last year and see if it matches up. Just to prove what a dead horse beater he is!
Man, oh man. Even the broken sidewalk budget cuts are part of the historical record! (Tonight Kirby explained that he had made a handshake deal with the mayor of Emmitsburg and he’s going to split the cost of the sidewalk repairs. M.C. was as uncomfortable as we would have been not knowing whether or not Mr. Mayor had agreed to this, but Jerry counseled that it was Kirby’s D and if he didn’t want to fix the sidewalks one way or the other, that would be his problem in the end. So fine. That all works out spiffy.)
But enough about Kirby, because Tony Chmelik got in a complete snit over $45,000 for an administration position in the Office of Economic Development. Since they’ve been doing a grand old job, even though they haven’t filled a position, but have needed to for four years, it’s obviously fine to continue overworking people there who are covering that shift, so to speak. Surely nobody who is doing extra work all the damn time will find a new job where they don’t have to put up with that. Right, Billy and Kirby? Suggestion: you volunteer your time, just like teachers do when they are grading and planning and documenting after school and on weekends, and sacrifice pay for being useless human bookends to the council since you apparently earn money for other things that you do in life. The pay of two marginally sentient council persons will cover one administrator in the OED. Problem solved! Also, tons of egregious mansplaining from Tony Chmelik here. The Lady Yokels felt that Helen Propheter was a particular heroine tonight, because who wants to be treated like that IN PUBLIC for their job? Nobody. Billy and Kirby also had “contributions” to this discussion in the form of: won’t we need to build all the houses you keep telling us to stop approving? NO. The answer is no. Some people already live here and could work closer to home, and would even like that. Question: what if we just made Jefferson TECH Park make the leap from fiction to nonfiction?
Jessica is a hero tonight, over and over again. Every time Kirby and Tony tried to snip, snap the budget she jumped in, diplomatically, like an excellent teacher, to guide them toward the information showing that they are so very, very wrong. For all her hard work this evening we present her the following award:
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We are also happy to report that Bud landed on the side of county employees by helping to defeat Kirby and Tony’s austerity amendments. Nice to see you back on the team, Bud!

April 17th meeting menu: third reading casserole with Fredneck salad

fclocalyokel1 Comment

Here is an exact transcript of our text messages concerning the first part of the meeting (yawn):

Billy voted against the agenda.
Abstained on the budget adjustments.
Voted for the minutes.
 He is such an idiot
Then both he and Kirby gave the same tired old argument about how keeping the tax rate the same is the same as a tax hike.
For the 4th year in a row.
Then there was a magical interlude of professionalism wherein the Retired Military Tax Credit was combed through by county staff before it passed, and we moved on to the circus events.
Billy had proposed legislation requiring that council members receive some minuscule amount of education regarding what the hell they are supposed to be doing there. Presumably this is because Billy is confuzzled. Possibly because he says he took a thing online with a quiz and it took five minutes, so what’s the big deal? How very educational. M.C. Keegan-Ayer proposed some amendments, which Tony Chmelik felt neutered the power of that legislation since it made it a mere suggestion. M.C. was basically like (to paraphrase this as we would have said it), look, don’t get all snippy with me, I was just trying to polish Billy’s turd here. Nobody was into making unnecessary laws, except Billy. Failed 1-6.

Then there was the zoning violation drama, which is naturally a big ol thing to the nincompoop faction, in large part because of the great wedding venue drama of 2016. Billy and Kirby are both very upset that zoning complaints can be filed anonymously and for some weird reason they are allergic to anonymous criticism (neener-neener), and so Jerry Donald had to explain to them that some people may be afraid of their neighbors–and for good reason. (Tangential thought: can you imagine if Billy Shreve or Kirby Delauter were your neighbor? And you had some sort of property dispute? Scary.) At one point M.C. made it clear that she was not even able to try and fix this. Sigh. This failed too, because obviously. Turd status: unpolishable.

Also there was the wood chipping scandal (it’s as if these bills Billy launch begin a listicle of Billy and Kirby’s prior buffoonery and proof that neither of them deserve to hold current office and certainly do not deserve to be entrusted with any additional responsibilities). Their position here, in a nutshell, is that these people have been in violation of the law for ages now, and how is it fair that someone noticed and is going to make them stop? Scandalous indeed! In fact, it becomes rather clear through Kirby’s bellyaching about County Executive Jan Gardner’s role in these zoning violations matters that he still does not understand the different branches of government under the charter. How is he going to be the county executive if he doesn’t know what that is? It will be a lot like the current status of Billy Shreve, who does not know what he is supposed to be doing ever.

This bill failed because the one business it was initially custom tailored by Councildolt Shreve to benefit–until Tony Chmelik took over the turd polishing operation–was likely to be harmed by it, and hardly anyone thought that was a good idea. At one point during the discussion of this (or it could have been the earlier bill, but no matter) Billy was so stuck in oppositional defiant mode that he started opposing his own position. It was really a scene. Billy still remembers to like his own dumb ideas in the end, though. And after all that grandstanding and noise that Kirby made here, he voted against it!

Off-track betting passed unanimously. It now has to go back for public hearing.

 

Piecemeal digest of February 27th Workshop

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Your Yokel Ladies have been in and out of this meeting for the past couple of days. It’s a lot to contend with, so we are chunking it up and throwing it down, bit by bit.

No Shreve, what a relief! Meetings are always nicer without him!

Steve Horn and friend are in the house to present the Livable Frederick plan. You can go to this website to see all the details, plus the entire plan as it stands today. We say today, because there are still chances for change. If you read our drinking game, you saw that Kirby called this plan a POS. He doesn’t use exactly those words, but he does have things to say. For example, he wants Steve Horn and Co. to explain why the modeling software they use isn’t some kind of soothsayer. It is explained, ever so gently, that all modeling is, by definition, a guess. However, Mr. Horn also points out that the accuracy really isn’t the point here. The point is to see what different paths the county can take based on the possible outcomes that may occur. It’s called PLANNING. Well, Kirby isn’t done. He tells us that the market should decide where people live because the market is NEVER wrong. That’s right people: NEVER. Well, he is also very gently told why that isn’t true.  Jerry clears up the erroneous notion going around that this plan is going to downzone properties. It is not. Tony complains some, but it’s pretty much nonsense. After an hour this discussion wraps up.

Unsurprisingly to anyone who pays attention around here, Tony was the council member contacted to introduce legislation having to do with Off Track Betting (OTB). He brings in four representatives, including local lawyer Rand Weinberg, to discuss this pending legislation. Essentially, they want to identify a local restaurant to set up OTB, kinda like Cracked Claw before it closed down. First reading of this bill will be soon.

The Veterans Affairs Council had a lovely professional presentation that introduced the panel of distinguished advocates. Please keep doing what you do. We are relieved to see this move forward. There isn’t a lot of new information to report. Well, other than that a miracle of trans-partisanship that occurred when Bud Otis (unaffiliated), M.C. Keegan-Ayer (D), and Tony Chmelik (R) pared down the originally proposed bill, which had “timed out,” and according to the knowledgeable panel this bill is a reasonable step forward in accomplishing the goal of having a “one stop shop” for veterans to get assistance in accessing the services that are available to them. We know this is a huge problem, and the point that it is unreasonable to expect a veteran with PTSD to sit on the phone through a menu of options for 13 minutes is absolutely true. There were other ghastly anecdotes, so please know that we thank you all for working on this, and we apologize that we aren’t giving this the focus that it is due. There is just so much to say about so much today (and another meeting tonight, people!).

There was the Interagency Internal Audit Authority thing: a panel of accountants working on a bill to codify the existence, charges, and governance of their authority (the interagency aspect is the county, FCPS, and FCC). Work on this bill began in 2014 with the transition to charter government, and they are doing the formal work to ensure that the appointments to the body will not be under the control of those being audited. In other words, a county executive should never be making those appointments, nor should FCPS or FCC be sending their people to do the work. They propose that the current members will nominate future members. Sounds good.

Then we reach the issue of the proposed pipeline under the Potomac River at Hancock. Some environmentalists (yay! go Sierra Club!) ask that a letter be drafted–ideally from the Council, but if not, by individuals on the Council– asking for Governor Hogan to withhold the 401 Water Quality Certificate and request a full environmental impact review of this project from the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). This is requested because:

  • We are downstream from an 8 inch pipeline that would tunnel under the Potomac River to connect a proposed pipeline in West Virginia with an existing one in West Virginia
  • A bunch of municipal governments both up and downstream have already said, “Hey, let’s be careful!” and sent their own letters, including Hagerstown, Boonsboro, Washington County, Montgomery County and P.G. County. hm.
  • The geology (that’s rock formations, yo) of the land they will tunnel under is extra risky, because the Karst geology (science term) is Swiss-cheesey, so if a blowout occurred, the chemicals could be dispersed in any direction. Many pipelines already go under the river, but none through this type of geological formation.
  • Frederick County get lots of our drinking water from the Potomac (91%). And the City of Frederick also gets some of its water supply there, too, (17%) so we would theoretically not want to risk poisoning our water supply.
  • The Chesapeake Bay is also downstream (for good measure).
In case you were wondering where this thing is supposed to go. You can kind of see the Eastern Panhandle Expansion converging with the Potomac there, but unfortunately the County Seal and headings got in the way of some of the relevant details on a couple of these slides.
  • We nicked their slides. Hopefully they don’t mind. Here is the Karst Swiss Cheese. Get the idea?

This is all well and good for the reasonable, and even seems likely for the less reasonable eventually, reluctantly, however it pains them, to agree that we shouldn’t be reckless with our drinking water. However, it must be noted that we have two drilling savants, both Republican, on our esteemed County Council, so the curt reaction to the idea of a letter from Tony Chmelik was, “It depends on what the letter says.” Well, they only asked for a letter to exhibit caution and thorough review, not to declare pipeline construction forever abolished, so the hang up is hard to understand, but thank goodness we could be treated to some gassy emissions from these guys. We probably don’t even need a pipeline, since we create our own energy like that. Fun fact: one of your local ladies used to work in the gas pipeline accounting, so we know a thing or two round here, too. Gas is tricky to account for, as a matter of fact, due to particle dispersion. That and the Swiss-cheesy thing are a double tricky combo.

**Ten Minute Break because they’ve been there since 4:30; this is taking an eternity and there is a lot left.** Stay tuned. Holy moly, they’re trying to kill us, y’all. There’s another meeting tonight, you know.

So it seems kind of like Billy’s blissful absence and Kirby “#ImReallyRunning4CountyExecutive” Delauter’s recently located partial degree of restraint (NB: we didn’t watch Council Member Comments, so we could be wrong about that) freed the air for Tony Chmelik to fill the role of council insurgent. At this point we are losing all the patience that we never had, but Ray Barnes and the legal advice come with him, and also Steve McKay, think that the move to ax the section of the code pertaining to DRRAs entirely is no bueno and will cause a bunch of legal problems and their advice is to not move forward with that. They have other ideas. And obviously Tony has a problem with them going before Dog and Everyone implying that he meant to do away with DRRAs forever (“What would the developers think???” <<clutches pearls>>) when he would NEVER. He and Jerry Donald have a back and forth that is pretty priceless, wherein Jerry admits that was his goal, and he also thought that was what Tony wanted. We are pleased with Jerry Donald. He is funny but not mean. We have a hard time with that. Then Jessica Fitzwater asks the question we are wondering too, which was, to paraphrase in LocalYokel jargon, “WTF were we trying to do for real then?”

We have finally thought to ourselves somewhere in the midst of the MXD discussion: we do not like this bill either. We would all be pissed if we bought a house and then they changed the zoning and we lived next to a warehouse now. We aren’t going to listen to this anymore. We. Are. So. Done.

20/20 hindsight? We have 20/20 foresight! It’s your weekly drinking game time.

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Pulease hold onto your liver. This meeting could put you 5 steps closer to cirrhosis. Grab your agenda while we look into our crystal balls to predict how this meeting is going to go down.

cristal_champagne
Just kidding. This is our Cristal. Get it???

When Billy abstains from the agenda, shake your fist at your screen and fix yourself a drunk uncle.

Since Kirby was such a jerk last week, and Tony was the week before, we predict the public will show up to comment at the beginning of the meeting. The public wants to be heard. When this happens swing back a shot of brandy to steel your nerves.

Next up are several budget adjustments for emergency services and les pauvres enfants. Shrelauter usually talks up how important fire and rescue are until it is actually time to spend money. When one of them starts squawking, pour yourself a screaming eagle.

Next up, business items.

There are board confirmations, and then two items related to transportation. Then Tony Chmelik will discuss the state legislative issues, so have a Flying Dog during the business items, because there are some dueling beer bills in Annapolis, and our small craft breweries are at risk. (If you would like to be a beer advocate, details about the beer bills are here). Be good to our local businesses.

First reading calendar. The agenda lists dueling senior tax credit bills. Kirby already tried and failed to propose a fully thought out tax credit bill for public servants, so we are not holding our breath that this first reading of his will be any more successful. Fortunately, Jerry’s bill is up first. Cristal is telling me that we should all have a bottle on standby. When Jerry’s bill is well received take a swig. If you just want Kirby to stop talking, take another swig.

a9b454c73e2bda9656f629f05e6eebb120535a5de51f880bcbb4c9329f78bf1d
We are looking at you Kirby.

M.C. Keegan-Ayer is proposing legislation that would make more stringent guidelines to the effect that if your neighborhood pool isn’t in your neighborhood, then it’s not your neighborhood pool. If that makes sense to you, have another swig. If you think your neighborhood pool should be outside your neighborhood, you know nothing. You get nothing.

Now we are all the way up to the dramatic third readings, and y’all. We’re nervous. Not gonna lie.

A decision will be made on Jan’s Bill regarding DRRAs (Developer Rights and Responsibilities, if you’re nasty). Finish the bottle. Finish it before they start talking or voting, and then steel yourself for…

Permitted Uses in MXD. Council decision. Pick your poison. And there’s an addition of a proposed amendment by Council President Bud Otis.

Then there is a public hearing on a Water and Sewerage Plan Amendment, which sounds like the perfect time to pass out after what may happen above. Especially since they go on a break and reconvene at 7:00 to cover the Amended Forest Resource Ordinance and Public Comments.

Council Member Comments would be a good time to loudly crunch some ice chips.

Fin.

 

 

 

 

 

Epic meeting of February 6th: round 1

fclocalyokel5 Comments

The yokels all missed the very beginning, only to tune in as Melanie Cox of the League of Women Voters was saying, “…give us a chance to speak.” The immediate assumption is that this is about the botched process for changing Frederick County’s representation to the Maryland Association of Counties (MACO). If we’re wrong about that, let us know and we will edit. We keep threatening to write a meeting up without watching it and see if we can guess what happens, because we know our characters purty stinkin well at this point. For example, Melanie Cox is a classy lady for whom dignity and propriety is important, so under the circumstances, it makes sense to leap to the conclusion that she would have liked to see a transparent process for the thing that…spoiler alert…comes to fruition later on.

Regular examples of totally predictable events: Budget adjustments. Everyone votes for those, except Billy the Abstinent. Then everyone votes to approve the minutes, except Billy the Obstinate. And you also already know that he couldn’t bother to speak into his microphone.

We have a presentation on a Mutual Aid Agreement with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and the Hagerstown P.D. A member of the Sheriff’s department comes in our Sheriff’s stead, because… hold on to your little ACLU fold-up Constitutions…because Jenkins is out of pocket. Why? Because he is meeting with The President about immigration. Another of the Yokels had a boss who used meeting with the president as her euphemism for going to do her powder room business, which makes us snicker.

Mr. Yokel observes from the other couch, “The President of What???” We will not go into our skepticism of Jenkins’ qualifications on this subject, from the vantage point of living on the Mason-Dixon border. Riding Arpaio’s coattails onto Fox is all the qualifications the Dunning-Kruger Administration requires. Mr. Yokel still believes this tale is sound and fury signifying nothing, and since Newt Gingrich declared that facts are no longer a thing (and heck if he isn’t painfully right), we will all believe in whatever manner our emotional states’ require. The decision is in favor of a cooperative approach to providing for the common defence.

We move on to stripping M.C. Keegan-Ayer of her appointment to MACO so that Tony Chmelik can have it. M.C. is classy and abstains from voting on a matter that pertains to herself. Guess who doesn’t?! Both of them speak in favor of improving the process by which this is done. Great idea…

There’s a presentation about closing the intersection of Old Frederick Rd. at 15, for the sake of safety and traffic efficiency. Much more of this is needed in that general area–both in the safety and efficiency department.

We come to the First Calendar Readings, which is mainly the Throw Covfefe at the Wall and See What Sticks section, as far as Billy Shreve is concerned. Steve McKay said it best:

Council Member Billy Shreve is introducing a bunch of bills. I guess you can tell that it’s an election year. Billy Shreve – known to abstain on most votes – is all of the sudden introducing a handful of bills. Sorry folks, but after three years of his disagreeable nature, this doesn’t impress me a bit.

No one wants to speak, making us wonder if there are any redeeming qualities these bills may have if their authors cannot be bothered to enlighten us. Chemlik feels a bit of shame and takes up his own cause on the wood chipping bill. Isn’t local politics sexxxxxxy? Shreve is the definition of shameless.

Justin’s bringing sexy back Fredneck style.

And we are on a break!

 

The Tony Show gets upstaged by Kirby in bizarre encore performance

fclocalyokel3 Comments

Loquacious lecturing Tony Chmelik–imagine our surprise when we fret that Shrelauter will muck things up, and then he takes the reins. He got into orator mode again this week, and man we can do without the Tony with a condescending tone schtick. Sighhhh.

There was long discussion of the River Board process, which had Councilman Chmelik frustrated with the time these things take and the lack of television air time, but the bulk of his grievances centered on County Executive Jan Gardner’s public briefing last week regarding the school capacity report and traffic study. And he wrote and delivered an exhausting, pompous speech on the matter, in lieu of discussing like a normal person.

Jessica Fitzwater criticized him for wanting to spend additional taxpayer dollars to find something that reached conclusions he agreed with, and after listening to him complain about money already spent and tiresome, lengthy processes, it was hard not to see her point. He had some great ideas in there, though, such as how it would be inaccurate to assume all the houses would actually be sold (????). We find that kind of funny coming from someone with as large a family as he has. Why didn’t the report assume families of twelve would move into every one of those homes? We can come at this from both sides, dude. It also bugged him out that increasing costs of construction weren’t factored in, and isn’t that shooting yourself in the foot, if you want to say maybe we don’t need to plan for big expenses? We have a confuse.

At any rate, that finally ended (if you’d like to know more, the Frederick News Post has a good run down that won’t make you want to stab yourself in the ears; we cannot recommend actually exposing yourself to the archives of this meeting) and they went into closed session. Chmelik helpfully acknowledged during Council Member Comments that we had probably heard enough from him. Hoo-boy. Truer words never spoken.

And then, apparently national laughingstock Kirby Delauter wanted to take it outside with Jerry Donald over that meme someone made with Jerry spanking Kirby. We’ll put it in here for educational purposes, since he’s opened the door to that (genius!), and ICYMI. It’s in reference to Jerry Donald using his social media account to publicize the inaccuracy of Kirby’s assertions that the Democrats on the Council are planning to make Frederick a sanctuary county. How dare he insist Misleading Push-Poll and Fake News Employer Kirby stick to the facts. This caused Kirby to (allegedly) call him another name for a trendy pink knitted lady hat, approximately one time for each woman who attended that march, it sounds like. He wants Jerry Donald to monitor his Facebooking more closely, which is beyond hilarious, considering the source. Maybe Kirby should worry about the damage he does with his own Facebook account. Or lippy outbursts.

Did we think this was worth using? Not that much, really. Now that the context has changed? Yes, yes it is.

A Miner Detail spoke with Delauter, who claims that M.C. Keegen-Ayer and Jerry Donald just want to make the council look foolish–an assertion that causes us to hoot in side-spitting, knee slapping laughter, given the dedication he has to looking like a fool all by his own self.

Do you know what? Billy Shreve wasn’t even worth mentioning. That’s how bad all this was!