Tag: M.C. Keegan-Ayer

Can we have one meeting where someone doesn’t complain about the nursing home? The answer, of course, is no.

fclocalyokel4 Comments

The discussion of whether or not to approve the non binding Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU)  began and ended with exactly the same point. This meeting was to discuss the county’s TIF (Tax Incremental Funding) bond of $2.8 million. That’s it. Doug Browning (nice to see you back Doug!) and Council Member Keegan-Ayer made that clear at the beginning and end of the discussion. That’s all the county has to consider at this point. Sounds easy, right? WRONG.

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Kirby wants it KNOWN that the agreement signed in 2014 with the city is not the same one they are speaking of now. Actually, as Council Member Donald points out, it is! Jerry tells Kirby that he can read it to him and Kirby says: You can read what is says but I am going to tell you what it means!!! That’s right folks, forget about all that vocabulary you learned during your fancy elite schooling because it doesn’t matter! Kirby will now tell you what all the words mean!! Isn’t that a relief?  He wants to make sure that all you jerks are not going to “pin this” on the last BOCC! Kirby rambles on about how everyone is being disingenuous dangling the carrot of Main Street money in front of municipalities. Because of course they will say yes to money! Durh! And finally, he would have never voted for this if he had known we were picking the winners and losers in the hotel business. Hmm, winners and losers… that sounds familiar. Where have we heard that line before?

True conservative Republicans would say that being open for business means no government restrictions, other than protecting the public, allowing the free market to dictate winners and losers.

That’s right, those exact words were in Blaine’s last column that he wrote for the Frederick News Post before that honor was taken away from him because of that unfortunate hotel thing.

Jerry makes some more points about the increase in tax revenue the county will receive and Kirby uses that opportunity to bemoan the nursing homes….again.

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Now Billy is waiting in the corner to pounce. He’s got a bunch of  nonsensical questions that all have a very reasonable answer. He tries with a mortgage analogy and fails miserably. Then he tries a car. Tells Doug and Richard it’s as though you are giving them a brand new car and saying here just change the oil and take care of the tires. But bless Richard’s heart, he turns the car analogy around and says: No, it’s as though they built almost the entire car, including the engine, and now they have to take care of it. Thank you for playing along with our village idiot sir.

We haven’t heard much from Tony lately, but he’s using tonight as his chance to step back into the spotlight. He’s doing his thing where he tells us he’s going to vote for whatever is on the table, however, you people are still going to listen to all of his objections to it first. The most curious was that he was lamenting the fact that Fort Detrick would be using a 4 star hotel to hold their meetings. He’s insinuating that those kinds of accommodations are way too nice for government employees. Jeeze, you greedy tax suckers, can’t you just be happy with the old waffle house down by the highway?

M.C. is exasperated by all this talk and tries to redirect the fellas back to the task at hand.  You are only voting on the TIF of $2.8 million (which is lower than what was agreed to in 2014) that will only be used for public improvements, STOP GRANDSTANDING!

No new business items to consider and they vote to go into closed session. Well, all except Billy, because he’s trying to get attention again. Meeting on whether or not they will vote on this MOU will take place on October 25.

Has the High Sheriff had it with Shreve? Your 10/4 meeting roundup!

fclocalyokel1 Comment

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The agenda was all flip floppy tonight because the High Sheriff had other obligations and wanted to speak about the noise ordinance.  A few weeks back Sheriff Jenkins was in the house to discuss changes to said bill. His main objective is to change this from a criminal offense to a civil one. The logic being that since the burden of proof for a criminal citation is so hard to reach, issuing a civil citation would allow law enforcement to better deal with this issue.

Well Billy Shreve, our very own dirt bike expert and connoisseur, has oh so many problems. The list of changes he wants to make is long and futile. He even suggests that the county would have to hire a sound engineer to properly deal with this issue. It is at this point that the High Sheriff states that all of Shreve’s amendments are unreasonable. And oh my, my, my is there trouble in paradise?  Could it be that aggravation with the legislatin’ style of Billy Shreve has spread far and wide?  Tony also jumps on the anti-Shreve train and accuses Billy of playing a game of semantics. In the end, Kirby is the only one who votes for his amendments. At least he still has one friend left.

Kirby’s suggestion that construction starting time be moved to 7 a.m. means the bill needs to be re-written and voted on at a later time.

Back to public comments. Some are still not too happy about the cannabis.

Kirby is sure weird things are afloat in the budget.

County Executive appointments are all good. Has there ever been an explanation as to why Shrelauter refuses to say aye?

Councilwoman Keegan-Ayer tries to clear up the misinformation over the medical cannabis bill. But no matter what she says, there will always be those who hear the big scary word “marijuana” and go absolutely cray cray!

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Because of all the scandals and the inability of some of her council members to understand facts, she has decided to lay the bill on the table. Which means that as of today, because it’s the end of the 90 day period, the bill will die. We are so very sad to see this happen. Bud Otis commends the Vice President for all of her hard work on this issue. The most Deplorable of the Deplorables pipes up and yells to Bud:”How were you going to vote on it?” Bud calmly states that the bill has been  tabled to which Billy screams, “That’s what I thought!” Now, dear readers, we don’t like to say we hate people. We hate their actions, we think they do really dumb things, we think they aren’t qualified to hold public office, etc., etc. But right now, we HATE Shreve.

And then the other representative in the Shrelauter department apparently mistakenly thought the # signal had been activated.

Calling #KirbyDealauter. (Never.)
Calling #KirbyDealauter. (Never.)

 

It would have been difficult to follow his seemingly wrecked train of thought, had we not had this handy dandy guide from just earlier where Kirby did this Red Letter Editor thingamabob. If you are thinking it’s like Red Letter Christian, it’s totally not like that. Here is a field guide to a fairly typical mantrum from The Red Visaged Kirby.

 

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Of course, Jerry Donald did some fact checking during his public comments. Thanks, Councilmember Donald, for keeping him honest. Or trying, at any rate.

 

The legislative priorities part was interesting

fclocalyokel1 Comment

Holy moly, it’s that magical time of the year where the council members must send legislative priorities for Frederick County up to the County Executive’s office so that they can be included in the upcoming public hearing regarding these priorities. Some highlights below.

Kirby sent out a press release about his wish list, which we have already told you all about. He suffers from a special condition wherein he has no idea that he lives in Maryland and not Kansas not Texas. It was his turn to go first, but he was whispering to his neighbor and so they called on Jerry to go first, and there were words exchanged about it being ineffective and useless but still everyone wanted to support Delegate Krimm’s efforts to do something about derelict properties.

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Then when M.C. asked Kirb-o if he was ready to take his turn now, Billy piped up to ask who was running the meeting and asked if Bud was going to start doing it now. We learned he extols the “bar stool manners” one day when he was whining about people criticizing him on Facebook (gosh, we wonder who criticizes him so much…). That is theoretically like saying what you would say to the person next to you at the bar, but in practice seems to be treating everyone like he’s a mean drunk. We heard he’s a teetotaler; it’s just an analogy, people.

Taking to Facebook to confirm our suspicions correct, apparently the reason he wants to put forth something that has already been taken up in Annapolis was just to try and take the teachers down a notch. Also, Billy called the teacher’s union like organized crime, because they obligate non-union teachers to pay a fee to the union for taking advantage of the contract negotiation process, even if they aren’t going to pay dues and join in the process. So as you plainly see, this is exactly like Tony Soprano.

We might be able to help a fella out here. While we don't know Bud, and we don't call people because we don't like people, we do know that he is a Seventh Day Adventist and that they are kind of groovy in some regards. One of which being that they are pacifists, which means they are unlikely to be interested in shootemup solutions.
We might be able to help a fella out here. While we don’t know Bud, and we don’t call people because we are all kind of antisocial, we do know that he is a Seventh Day Adventist and that they are kind of groovy in some regards. Groovy meaning they are pacifists, thus unlikely to be interested in traditional shootemup solutions.

Oh, what else happened last night? That’s right, school vouchers turned everything all upside down. Sound explanations were made about how private schools don’t have to accept all kids, so if you send some of them to school with a voucher then the remaining kids in the public school system will be those who are most expensive to educate. Tony complained about people having to send kids to the school near their house, and how it’s unfair that you can’t get on a bus and go to whatever school you want. Which is frankly insanely at odds with his willingness to tax and spend, because of the massive public investment that would be necessary to facilitate transportation in this vision. Much like with school vouchers and charter schools, these ideas can only benefit those who can afford both the time and actual physical resources required to transport kids to LaLaLand Perfect Elementary. Suddenly Billy was claiming to be looking out for the poorest in society–so long as they are not too poor to afford a reliable car and gas money–and deriding Bud for being able to send his kids to private school.

Kirby had his other stuff about school funding, too, and they rewrote his thing about reallocating funds from one construction project to another so that it was appropriately nonthreatening to good policy, and sent it on ahead. Probably having sensed they needed to do something…anything…to make him a place at the grown up table.

There’s more worth reporting, but we’ve invested enough time and emotional energy in this meeting already today, and you’re still getting a bargain if we cut it a little short.

9/20 council meeting: we will try to be brief, episode 1, or Deplorables in inaction.

fclocalyokel1 Comment

Hey so the archived video is 6 and a half hours long. There’s far too much to work with here. Let’s start with the very beginning. A, B, C, Do, Re, Mi, and so forth. Potato. Crackpot.

Kirby mixes it up with the consent agenda, and wants to look at one of the items separately, and that would be this one.

What better time to lose your mind than when your buddy is going to get money he needs?
What better time to lose your mind than when your buddy, who’s on hand to talk about noise ordinances, is going to get money he needs? Funny enough, he also is able to confirm that when Jerry Donald makes you seem like you are being dumb and don’t understand how the budget process works, you are in fact being dumb and don’t understand how the budget process works. Awkwarrrrrrrd. Some foreshadowing. They are not d’accord about noise ordinances later, either.

But, being incompetent doesn’t stop him–like the regular Dunning Kruger Effect case study that he is. Making matters worse he is complaining about two different procedures not being the same, just because he needs a platform to showboat his personal issue that they didn’t get paid back for helping Baltimore and wants to somehow vilify Jan (because it is a day ending in Y). All the while, he can’t even figure out when prompted that the procedure he should use would be to make a motion to separate the items on the consent agenda. When M.C. asks if he would like to make said motion, he retorts, “However you wanna do it.” No, not however she wants to. There’s a procedure, you drip. Wasn’t it that procedure was the most important thing in the world? The good news is that all that noise was useless, and everybody got the money they need in the end.

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Then we heard from Chief Tom Owens about the need to accept a grant to help staff the volunteer fire stations with career staff. This was very educational. Did you know that sometimes they send an ambulance with 2 people out (since you really can’t have only a driver both driving and attending to the medical condition in the back) and so that leaves a firetruck with only a driver, and often they all take off to a car accident in this configuration when all the equipment is required? Doesn’t that seem a little…anemic. Lewistown doesn’t have staff to operate an ambulance after 6pm, so they don’t and send a back up probably from Frederick, in the event of an emergency (and that does it; personal vow to never move out of a city). Ideally a station with an ambulance and engine should have 5 people so that the whole thing works. TBH this Local Lady was running kids around and listening to the early part of the meeting on the available wifi while chauffeuring kids to activities, and missed the conclusion. However, today’s FNP reveals that this went down as one might imagine. That’s why you need to subscribe: they pay someone to stay the whole bleeding time. And thanks to them we know that the rug that ties the whole room together is that if you need to make a point, what better time than when first responders want grant money paid for by the taxes we all pay, to make itself useful here in our community.

Some Republican members of the council questioned whether the county should accept the grant, citing the higher cost for salaries in the division once the grant runs out.

Who wonders which Republicans? Any hypotheses? Not even curious enough to go consult the archives are you? Neither are we. And also:

After the council’s vote, a group of a dozen firefighters stood in the crowd and cheered.

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It sure would be nice if Billy and Kirby had a goal other than causing problems.

 

 

It’s about that time again! Your faithful September 20 drinking game!

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It’s time for your favorite Frederick Politics game! There’s a lot on the agenda this evening. We are sure that there will be some grumbling from Shreve’s end about the start time, but we’ll try and block that out. Your Lady Yokel’s are going to leave you with a bingo game this evening. You can decide when to take a drink. With every checked box or when you get an actual Bingo! It’s totally up to you. Also, feel free to interpret the choices very liberally, the exact wording need not apply! Do remember this game is only for entertainment purposes. Billy wants NOTHING to do with our readers.

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Let’s all be elitists! Send in your legislative ideas!

fclocalyokel2 Comments

This evening, the county council will embark upon a workshop to consider legislative ideas to send to Annapolis. Don’t forget that you can email either the County Executive or your council member with any ideas you may have.

Some of our representatives shriek loudly about how everything is horrible in our fine county. Will they have any ideas to submit this evening? Late last evening we were lucky enough to receive Kirby’s legislative priorities. Read all about them here. Your Lady Yokels are on the case.

Jeremiah is a little more polite than we are.
Jeremiah is a little more polite than we are.

Some ideas from the past year. ICYMI.

Medical Cannabis Snack Time Update

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One of the hotbox topics last night was concerning M.C. Keegan-Ayer’s proposed legislation to establish a pilot program allowing medical cannabis to be grown in agricultural zones in Frederick County. If you have not been following this matter, medical cannabis growth is currently permitted in industrial zones only. She moved to approve an amendment to that legislation, which provides for the recommendations that previous public commenters spoke about and the planning committee put forth. Setbacks and enclosures and stuff like that. So, responsive government, FTW!

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Oh no Patty the Cow, there’s going to be THC in the milk! Think of the children!

Jerry Donald said that his constituents’ feedback has been overwhelmingly opposed to this program, so that is where he stands. However, the feedback from the public having been added into the legislation, it made sense to pass that amendment and let this matter return to a public hearing situation so that the public might have their say about the proposed changes. Can you imagine? Rare as a unicorn! A legislator who is listening to his constituents and behaving?! FWIW, we are into the medical cannabis and we wish we could have our way, but M.C. and Jessica are our laydeez, and Jerry isn’t. Both of them pretty much always seem to be doing what we would vote for, up to and including using the council member comments portion as a teachable moment for those who need the education. Mrs. Fitzwater got voted teacher of the year last night at the Yokel desk. The whole system seems to be working ideally as a representative democracy. We previously received some tsk-tsk genre feedback about our opinions on medical cannabis–formed due to friends suffering through cancer treatment–and what would befall Jerry if he supported this, but it seems like Jerry Donald is able to figure out what to do and isn’t even motivated at all to please us, which makes total sense and good for you, Jerry! You’re doing it right, too!

Can we please stop pretending government serves no purpose? Thanks.
Can we please stop pretending government serves no purpose? Thanks.

This entire discussion went exactly as good government ought to. In hindsight, we have come to realize this is mainly due to the fact that Billy Shreve is not opposed to it, so we didn’t have to listen to the obligatory buffoonery segment. We are so sorry to even mention this, because we thought today could be the day Billy’s clip was going to stay on green for the entirety of a meeting. He even made a quick witted joke, but then ruined it by immediately being a total jerk to Bud Otis (who, as one who was elected at-large, also seems to be doing what floats a lot of boats, so all that Turncoat Talk is also a bunch of hogwash). As it turns out, Billy later plummeted quickly through yellow and his clip was demoted to red. Per usual. Who is going to draw the short straw and have to call home about this?

What do hotels, marijuana, solar panels and zoning have in common? Welcome to your August 30th drinking game!

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Happy now Shrelauter?!
Happy now Shrelauter?!

Since the council returned from their break, we’ve heard some pretty dumb things. We are still trying to recover from Billy telling us that we can safely drink from any stream in the county, when we clearly CANNOT. What misinformation is in store for our tender little ears this week? Grab a copy of your trusty agenda, pull up next to your favorite reality channel and batten down the hatches! And as always, this game is just for fun! No passing out in the alleys!

The very beginning of our evening begins behind closed doors. The council will interview a County Executive appointee. In honor of the torture this poor soul is about to embark on, who will have to endure some “interesting” questions from the entity we call Shrelauter, warm yourself up with a Secret Garden Cocktail. 

Not sure why they bother calling the meeting to order since a few will never abide. We begin with public comment, some idiot either abstaining or refusing to vote on the consent agenda and then the approval of three budget transfers. No school transfers this week so  Kirby won’t have the opportunity to throw out his dead horse speech about the teachers on the council lining their pockets. Oh what a shame!

Dr. Monica Grant is up for approval for the Director of the Citizens Service Director. Read more about her here.  

We have one first reading on a program Regarding Establishment of a Clean Energy Loan Program for Commercial Properties. Then the council has to make some decisions.

First up is the Adequate Facilities Code. When Kirby laments the fact that his super expensive plan to fund four schools was killed, shoot back some Tough to Hear shots. It’s really becoming tiresome isn’t it?

Next up, Jerry has a plan to make zoning changes more public, so people have a chance to actually know what’s going on in their neighborhoods. “Shouldn’t” be any problems with this, but if there is, mix yourself up a B-52.

Time to decide on the marijuana pilot program. We heard some rumor that the High Sheriff was on the radio saying that prostitution should be legal, however, pot is a danger this county should never know. When we get confirmation on whether or not our top law enforcement officer really thinks a plant is more dangerous than the abuse and degradation of poor, disadvantaged people we’ll certainly let you know. For now just have your self a Elixir Bloody Mary, because we all need our vitamins.

If you have seen any of these Facebook hotel accounts, you know that the proposed downtown hotel is a touchy subject for some. However, many people came out in support of raising this tax, so we are fairly certain it’s a done deal. If the talk gets a little dicey, slam back a Stinger.

If this doesn’t get us to 7:00, Billy will complain and moan about how Bud can’t foresee the exact time a meeting will take and we’ll want to slam every clock over that head of his! Yes, Billy we all know how busy you are, and none of us gives a rat’s ass.

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Billy, ranting about nothing just makes you look stoooopid.

Two public hearings on the agenda. Zoning, Adequate Facilities and Developer Rights are wrapped up all in one. The second deals with Solar Panel Installation. We’ll let your livers rest during this section of the evening. We do predict, however, that the second hearing will go smoother than the first.

Public comment and then what seems to do us in, Council Member comment. Before the C.M comment section of the evening commences fortify yourself with a Snickertini. For the only way to get through this mess anymore is to laugh.

 

Time keeps on ticking , ticking… your public hearing section of the July 19th meeting.

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The council reconvened at 7:00 for the public hearing to extend the fee in lieu of building Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs). This is being done in order to allow time for the completion of a housing study. This ordinance was set to expire in September but will now be continued until June 30, 2017. There was a nice presentation from Jessica, Milton Bailey (the new Director of Housing and Community Development) and three members of the public in support of the extension.

No takers for the public comment.

Jerry starts out the council member comments tonight. The new paved path is officially open through Middletown Park. There will be more information about his new bill concerning notification of re-zoning. And, he encourages people to get out to their local carnivals to support the firefighters.

Tony passes. In fact we did not hear a peep out of him the entire evening.

Jessica thanks the people who came out for the public hearing and praised the upcoming Ballenger Run project for including affordable rental units in their development plan. She also thanks everyone for having patience with the council as they modify their procedures and processes. She hopes they can continue to have positive dialogue.

Kirby congratulates the Thurmont Little League for making it to the State Tournament. Makes us aware that Little League is not only about winning but also about learning how to lose gracefully. Huh? We can only hope our beloved # learns this lesson himself. Very, very, soon.

He also discusses the new hotel bill. He has some issues with the stormwater management (shocker) and parking. He hasn’t gotten the answers he wanted from the city so he wants to know why are we pushing this forward.

Billy piggybacks on Jessica’s appreciation of people’s patience with the council. But of course, he’s going to complain about the time schedule again. He doesn’t like that the meeting begins at 4:30 and then the public hearing is to begin at 7:00. Tonight’s meeting was short enough for them to have a 2 hour break and it’s ridiculous! Unless and until Billy can predict how long the meeting will last, for we have seen some short ones and some that run all the way up to 7:00, he’s just blowing a lot of hot air. It is more convenient for the public to schedule it this way because then you know what portion of the meeting to show up for. But his time is way valuable people!

No more valuable than anyone else's Batman!
No more valuable than anyone else’s Batman!

M.C. talks about the extension of the bike path out to Rosemont Ave and commends the first graduating class of community health workers. These graduates will go out in our community to provide health care in those regions of our county where people don’t readily have access. A good program indeed.

Bud asks Chief of Staff Cherney to help Kirby get the information that he was seeking about the hotel. Mr. Otis also talks about the grant to Hood’s nursing program and the re-establishment of the I-270 coalition. He finishes up by reminding us that the Fireworks in Baker Park will be held on July 24 and a Veteran’s Rally in the Valley will be held on July 30 at the fairgrounds.

No more meetings until August 15!

 

Laissez les mauvais temps rouler! The First 1/2 of your July 19th meeting!

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Short and sweet. The council will reconvene at 7:00 for a public hearing but here is what has happened thus far…

Billy votes against the agenda, no one signed up for pre-meeting public comment, Billy abstains from the consent agenda. Before getting into the meat of the meeting Bud commends Jerry for his suggestion on putting cell phones aside. Billy yells: “Let’s stick to the agenda.” We all know that he and Kirby cannot function up there if they don’t have the texts from the puppet master to guide their way. Oh whatever would they do?

All County Executive confirmations pass. Charter amendments will go through on the November ballot with one change. Council member Fitzwater made a motion to change 2 business days to 4 when it came to bill amendment notices. All three passed and will be grouped as two questions (One will deal with the two budget issues and the other bill amendments) for the good voters to decide upon this November.

Three bills are introduced:

  1. Jerry is working on a bill that steps up the requirements for a zoning change. This will make sure that the neighbors of a property that is asking to be re-zoned are aware of what is going on.
  2. M.C. wants to try out a medical cannabis pilot program in agricultural areas.
  3. Bud introduces a bill from the County Executive concerning changes to the hotel tax.

We’ll let ya know how the public hearing turns out!