Check out the latest from The Frederick Extra. Looks like some not so on the up and up behavior from Kathy Afzali.
“Our local fire and rescue heroes should NEVER be caught in the crosshairs of politics.” Thought bubble: Hold my beer.
If you’ve got two hours to devote to last night’s workshop, please have at it. If not, we are here to bring y’all up to speed!
The majority of the meeting was devoted to solid waste. Mainly the subject of composting was brought up. The suggestion from the consulting company hired to help us sort out our looming solid waste problem was to make legislation requiring people to compost their food and yard waste. This would be done slowly, with pilot programs in certain areas, before being implemented throughout the whole county. Read the story in the FNP that goes into more detail or peruse these fine slides we screenshot for you:
The next part of the workshop was to vote on some changes to county council rules and procedures.
Things are going pretty well until we get to Billy’s two amendments. He wants this added:
To promote discussion, three (3) Council members may vote, at any time, to discuss an item with the Council. The item for discussion is not required to be in writing.
Tony goes into a separate discussion about engaging the public when they are giving comment and makes makes everyone LOL when he states:
I want to have intercourse with these people.
He quickly corrects himself and says discourse, but not before almost everyone is lost in a fit of giggles! It’s decided that it is not the best course of action to engage the public in any and every issue they may bring before the council.
His next and final amendment reads:
Council members may ask questions of any one testifying or other Council members at any time the Council is meeting as a group, including workshops, public hearings, and legislative days.
Jerry immediately asks, “Can’t we do this already?” Jessica answers, “Yes, we can.” Tony asks if this is clarifying language, to which Billy replies yes. M.C. then states that it is “superfluous” and not needed. She adds, “To spell it out again makes us look a little silly.”
So here we are again, watching Billy waste everyone’s time with nonsense!!! If he truly understood the charter he wouldn’t have put forth this amendment! If you didn’t hear the news, Billy told The Frederick Extra that he is going to run for Ron Young’s Maryland Senate seat. He’s super optimistic that he will win:
Of his opposition in the primary, Shreve said his name recognition gives him an advantage.
Earlier Shreve said that as co-chair of Frederick County Republicans for Trump campaign in 2016, will serve him well in 2018 if Trump is still viewed favorably by area Republicans.
Yeah, we all recognize the name Billy, but not in the way you may want us to! ICYMI, here’s some more reasons why we shouldn’t let Mr. Shreve go to Annapolis!
Kirby’s CE campaign is also off and running. He’s got some fine shirts for little girls women, for you ladies who want to wear his name all over town. And we are really looking forward to the day when he appears in front of the council with a snowball to show us all that climate change isn’t a real thing:
There is so much to point out to you this week, we thought it was best to do one Friday post to wrap it all up for y’all!
Let’s start with the FNP’s snazzy photo, which you may or may not have seen flying around the intertubes. Definitely check out the link to the interview below if you missed it, because our very own Sheriff talks about his meeting with Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard “I ain’t answering none of your questions” Sessions! Sessions is wearing a yellow tie, and according to some nouveau Victorian tie custom (we guess) this means Sessions is a coward! Wow, don’t y’all feel so much safer with these two in charge? You can read the write up of the FNP”s interview with Jenkins, but not Sessions! Because he don’t have no time for y’all’s inquiries!
On the subject of Jenkins and his immigration stance, there was a brilliant LTE from a nice fella that was in attendance during last week’s 287 (g) meeting.
While we are on the subject of LTE’s. Let us direct you to this one regarding the festering dead horse beating of Jessica and Jerry voting for their own salaries and this one regarding Kathy Afzali’s legislative style! Keep up the good work fellow citizens of Frederick County!
Speaking of Kathy, she sent out a little note letting us all know that she is not running for her Delegate seat, but she’s got some plans! Plans that will be revealed AFTER Labor Day!
Well, some of those who have the same “plans” have officially filed their paperwork. Check out The Frederick Extra’s story on Blaine’s former flame, Regina Williams.
Let’s move on to the city of Frederick. Two stories out of there. First of all, Randy McClement has filed for re-election. Putting him in the ring with Alderman Michael O’Connor and former mayor, Jennifer Doughtery.
The only Republican on the Frederick City board of Alderman, Phil Dacey, has announced that he will not seek re-election to that post. However, he is interested in pursuing the At-Large County Council seat. If he didn’t have the wherewithal to fulfill his duties as an alderman, how can he expect us to vote him onto the council?
This Tuesday, the county council will have a workshop. We don’t do drinking games for workshops, but don’t worry we won’t judge! Whatever works peeps!
There is so much to point out to you today. It seems the lazy days of summer don’t apply in these here parts.
First let’s give kudos to the Frederick County Board of Education for passing policy 443 last night! It is so wonderful that our little yokels are in a school system that values each child. Which is more than we can say for some members of our community:
And we don’t know whether to laugh or cry at her other post regarding this issue:
On the other side of town from the BOE meeting, Sheriff Jenkins was holding court at Winchester Hall. He was having himself a little shindig about 287 (g). Kirby was a little confused as to what side he was supposed to be on:
And look! Angry lady from public comment the other night was out not looking so angry:
And speaking of public commenters, our new fave, Matt Seubert, wrote a very informative piece about the Monocacy River Board in today’s edition of The Frederick Extra. If you missed our piece, that goes along nicely with what he had to say, on what is going on in Carroll County click on over.
The dreary weather yesterday got us hunkered down and brooding, especially after reading a couple of things about media bubbles having been created out of the decline of the local papers. There’s a problem with how people find out about what’s important if they don’t live in a big city. This all seemed poignant, living in a small city where the hometown, local-family-owned paper just got swallowed up by a company nobody seems to think much of (oh great gravy, they published a headline last week with the word “tree” misspelled)! THESE are the times that try mens’ souls.
After we pointed and laughed about Delegate Afzali going all Girls Gone Wild (via email) on her NyQuil, this leapt out from the AV Club. The piece focuses on the lasting effects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which brought us Clear Channel hell on the radio, offensively mindless crap on the television news, and is (party bonus!) also the reason that either Comcast or Verizon is taking actual years from people’s lives as hostages of their monopolistic services. All the good news that’s fit to print, eh?
…once corporations realized they could make money off the news—rather than just viewing it as a public service—they started “making that a joke, too.” As he notes, the move made it so “they could still put on what’s called a news show, but it’s mostly just fluff and trivia and 23-year-olds spewing out talking points that they read on a teleprompter, having no idea what the [redacted!] they’re talking about, fortunately for them.”
-Communications scholar Robert McChesney (AV Club, August 11, 2016)
Furthermore…AV Club goes on to provide this explanation:
That kind of mindless newsreading has real consequences, too. As Common Cause notes in its position paper, “In 2002, more than half of TV stations in the nation’s top 50 markets completely ignored state and congressional elections in their highest rated local news programs in the weeks leading up to those elections, with large station owners offering the least election coverage of all.” McChesney takes it further, saying, “What little coverage there is, is mostly gossip, spin, and speculation, or basically what’s spoon-fed to them by party elites and insiders and big shots accepting all their biases as the appropriate way to view the world. It’s impossible to exaggerate just how nutritionless this so-called journalism is.” In other words, viewers of most stations get lots of Donald Trump news, but almost nothing about city council elections or even state representatives.
The mention of gossip and spoon feeding from party elites seemed so stinkin’ much like what we were just roasting Afzali for in her silly email. Y’all know we are the first to acknowledge that we are A.) not journalists and B.) not unbiased. We have concerns about where the flow information is coming from. We did before the troll news revolution, but looking at all this we hope people will expand their number of reasons to be skeptical about the quality of their information.
As for Local Yokel’s role in the scene, we were delighted by a fantastic discussion on 1A yesterday about censorship and speech on college campuses. The 1A topic also has local pertinence just at the moment since the Hood College Republicans made a story board of the least sophisticated conservative talking points they could brainstorm, allegedly as some sort of PR misfire. Fly your freak flags, we always say! Better the devil you know… However, the highlight from 1A that made our little Local Yokel hearts swell was when Frederick Douglass’s thinking was cited on how to best attack terrible ideas:
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Well, we’re on board with that. And we are grateful that The Frederick Extra is up and running to keep us informed.
By now we’re sure that you’re aware of the controversy surrounding the display that the Hood College Republicans put up last week. If you haven’t seen the display, please click on over to The Frederick Extra and take a peek. Included in this display, which they entitled “Conservative Cultural Center”, there are quotes from such luminaries as Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro and Abraham Lincoln. (Side laugh: If you want to see some good stuff on how Alex Jones is trying to pretend “the guy” on his radio show is just a “character” read some of the Wonkette’s coverage of his child custody hearing.) The quotes chosen liken abortion to genocide and claim that trans people suffer from mental illness. Hood decided to leave the display up, and last night the Hood College Republicans had a forum to talk about this display.
In The Frederick Extra’s report, Hood College Republican President Chris Gardner had this to say about the display:
“We did it to make people think. Not to make people angry,” Gardner said.
That statement is at its worst disingenuous and, at its least, incredibly naive. Most people realize that if you call a group of people mentally ill, or label a legal medical procedure genocide, thereby calling people who have had an abortion “murderers,” there isn’t much room left for discussion. Transsexuality is in and of itself is not a mental illness. Abortion was deemed legal in 1973, and we really hope that people who feel strongly about this issue have actually read through Roe v. Wade to understand how the justices came to the conclusion that they did. To equate abortion with a genocide is both ignorant and disgusting. Studies do indicate that abortion rates are higher in the African American community. However, it is believed this is due to disparities in sex education and birth control. A discussion that IS worth having. Words matter. And the words the Hood College Republicans chose to display are certainly not conducive to generating a productive discussion.
However, instead of getting angry at these folks, let’s just appreciate the fact that they’ve shown us exactly who they are. As the quote above states, we should always believe people when they tell us who they are. Therefore, the Hood College Republicans have gifted us with a lesson in what they believe in and how they feel about certain groups of people. You know like when a former school board candidate’s PIA requests showed her thinking pattern, or when #kirbydelauter took his anger over the county ethics law out on a high school football team, or perhaps you prefer the time when Billy enlightened us to the reasons why he abstains. We should believe people when they show us who or what they really are.
As reported by The Frederick Extra, our coverage of this week’s meeting and today’s edition of Political Notes, Kirby is irate over the county’s reimbursement to the Chamber of Commerce for a lobbyist. In both The Frederick Extra and the FNP, it is reported that Kirby was only sharing part of an email to show everyone how corrupt our County Executive really is. And you know what people? Just because you are against the public funding of the hotel (which is curious from Kirby’s point of view since in 2014 the BOCC was all for it!) doesn’t mean it’s corrupt to advocate for it! Both the city and the county used a lobbyist to advocate for funding because they believe it would be beneficial to the city and county’s economy to have a conference center and hotel. In addition, the County Executive, per the charter, is allowed to write checks without council approval up to $20,000. So whether or not you agree with the use of public funds is a SEPARATE issue from it being a corrupt and nefarious act!
What’s even more curious to us, besides the many times that the old BOCC used funds for a lobbyist for causes THEY believed in, is that for the past two years Kirby was advocating that the council spend up to $25,000 to send a lobbyist to Annapolis. Leaping back through the old Yokel archives we found this post from 2015 and this one from 2016 in which Kirby was trying to get money to secure this lobbyist. Since he didn’t couldn’t identify a clear purpose for this lobbyist, his fellow council members did not think this was a sound use of money. And we have trouble listening to someone who thought it was fine and dandy to send $25,000 to a firm to investigate how to privatize our county services get irate over a check for over less that half of that amount that advocates for a conference center and hotel.
We won’t listen to comments for three bills and the budget. We just can’t. However, if you would like to click here, or read this nice summary in the Frederick News Post. We already reported on the first half of the meeting, and now we will bring you what we know you’ve been sitting on the edge of your seats for: Council Member Comments.
Tony’s got nothing to say so we are off to Kirby, and oh dear Sappho. According to Kirby taxes have gone up 10%, and since he doesn’t know anyone whose income has gone up 10% the money doesn’t match up and everyone should move out of Frederick County. Because 10% of one number is always equal to 10% of another number, right?
Then there was a long winded diatribe, after he shuffled through his papers for awhile, about how he was lied to about payment to a lobbyist. He even referred to our pal Katherine Heerbrandt’s blog. And we encourage you to read the post he was referring to here. Instead of going through Kirby’s rant about how he was lied to and told things were none of his business, you be the judge of what really happened. All told, we really don’t think Kirby has a very good understanding of the charter and the powers allotted to the different branches of county government. We know, durh.
Jerry informs us that every member of the council was sent an email to make an appointment with the County Executive to discuss budget priorities. Shall we take wagers on who didn’t make an appointment, or is that too easy?
Billy, oh dear Mother Earth, Billy. He enlightens us to the fact that budget time is really interesting because taxes never go down. (Is that the only reason, pal?) He then asks some really deep rhetorical questions:
“Where does it stop?”
“Where does it end?”
“Where does it end?”
“In Frederick County it looks like it never ends.”
Jessica also reiterates the fact that on January 24th all council members received an email from the County Executive asking for a meeting regarding the budget. She also tells us about some very interesting things she learned on a tour of Ft. Detrick. We like science and knowledge and stuff so all of this was very fun to listen to.
M.C. is the gold star winner of the council member comments!
M.C. finds it concerning, as do we, that after two years of going through the budget process that is explicitly put forth in the charter, there are still questions about how it works! While she appreciates the effort in coming up with an alternative budget (we don’t!), according to the charter the council can’t do anything with it!! So, she encourages her fellow council members to put their efforts into making amendments to the CE’s budget AS IT IS SPELLED OUT IN THE CHARTER! She also reminds some of her fellow public servants that the charter states that when money is moved from one category to another it must come before the council. The County Executive, per the charter, is allowed to issue checks up to $20,000 without council approval. She then encourages Shrelauter her fellow council members, that if they don’t like these parts of the charter, then they should put some amendments forth next Spring. Until then, thems the rules! Stop wasting everyone’s precious time!
Next week there are a series of hearings and workshops on the budget. Stay tuned!
You’ve probably heard the rumors of Kirby’s intention to run for County Executive in 2018. Yesterday, The Frederick Extra ran a piece in which our old pal Billy had this to say about Kirby:
“Should Trump supporters stay true, he predicts a similar outcome for his buddy, Council Member Kirby Delauter (R) in his quest to become county executive in 2018. “He’s just like Trump,” Shreve said of Delauter.”
Wow! What an endorsement! Let’s pause for a minute and envision what our fair county would look like if our new County Executive was “just like Trump.”
After a contentious campaign season, in which Mr. Delauter referred to county council members having their heads up Mrs. Gardner’s skirt, (you know, “locker room talk”), he manages to squeak a win with the support of the most Northern and Southern parts of the county. A win that horrifies the most populous areas of the county who didn’t think it was important to vote in a local election. His swearing in ceremony is #YUGE! He claims that large screens had to be set up at Baker Park for the crowd that was spilling out of the Weinberg. A claim that is refuted by the Frederick City Parks Department when they release pictures of a couple of people walking their dogs. Kirby’s team claims that the parks department is super biased, and how can you trust a bunch of government bloodsuckers anyway?
His first day is spent signing a flurry of Executive Orders. Orders that were previously so very evil and over-stepping, but are now a completely reasonable way of governing. His son will resume operations of his business, but no fear, family members can now do business with the county. ‘Tis the free market, people! Fifty people are sent to the hospital due to the food poisoning contracted at Kirby’s celebration party. All those “out of control” health inspectors were the first to go!
Speaking of the county health department, it will be headed by a former snakes oil salesman. There will be no more programs to promote healthy behaviors in this county! People need the freedom to eat their BBQ, drink their Fireballs, and vape without the government telling them they are going to drop dead!
County parks will be sold to the highest bidder and you will be charged admission to enter. Swings will now be equipped with coin machines, 50 cents for every 10 minutes, and you better keep an eye on that timer, because when your time is up the swing freezes. If junior happens to be stuck in mid-air, well, don’t you take any personal responsibility for your kid’s life?
All county government correspondence must be in the shape of a teardrop:
FCPS’s budget will be stripped to the bare minimum. High schools will be closed and teenagers will be forced to buy access to their own online programs in order to achieve their dreams. No more frills either! Kids can eat in the hallway and the history curriculum will now be provided by the Heritage Foundation. All school staff will now be outsourced with part time workers making minimum wage.
All business and zoning regulations will be stripped. Frederick will look something like this:
Libraries will be shuttered because we have a Barnes and Noble and reading is for wussies anyway. CE Delauter will spit on any and all environmental regulations. Mysteriously, we’ll be in severe debt at the end of #’s realm. All those tax cuts really made a mark. Our graduation rate has also plummeted, crime is up, thousands are dead due to water borne illnesses, and there is a general feeling of malaise throughout the land. Who could have foreseen it? More importantly, who could have prevented it?
This is not the first time your Local Yokels have harped on the importance of being a media locavore. Even if you don’t care for the flavor of what’s available here, if you don’t buy then it will disappear. Then we will really be in the dark. Do you think the Washington Post is going to tell you what Shrelauter has been cooking up with any regularity? (Hint: they are not gonna.)
Local reporter and start-up media maestro Katherine Heerbrandt of The Frederick Extra is an excellent resource. She also shared her experience as the invited guest of Rockville United Church to talk to the congregation after the service. They wanted to discuss the importance of the press and how to ensure that their media diet was nutritious and free of toxins. It sounds like a recipe club many people could benefit from.
We have always been up front that our information comes heavily seasoned with our point of view. It is certainly valuable to look to other sources to achieve a balanced diet. There is no way to get a “Fair and Balanced” perspective from a single source. The fact that a source would tell you such a thing should make you immediately suspicious; news is not like candy, you can consume all you want. If they are threatened that you may sample another source there’s reason to think it is a very serious problem. This is why, much as it pains us, we are willing to look at something we expect to be of no more substance than dried out marshmallows (say WHUT?) or noodley appendages.
Just like nutrition science, what you learned in science has value here. Look at your sources and see if there is peer review in evidence. If you see a headline that stands out in particular, find out what the other sources are saying. Do they corroborate one another or refute one another? Chances are if something sounds like an outlier preposterous, (EX: President Obama gives “Hanoi Jane” Presidential Medal of Freedom) it probably is. You will want to verify that before running with it. This is getting decidedly trickier, the more like satire our reality becomes, so it means we must be even more cautious with our data. If the same source is always an outlier, chances are there is a problem with their research they are a liar, paid by the fossil fuel industry (oh yes, just like in science, it can help to know who is funding the report).
This should go without saying: stop taking a bunk source into account when you identify it. If you look around, and all of the links you find seem to rely on a single source and you are unsure of its reputation, form a hypothesis and test your hypothesis about the reliability of that source. You will come to a valuable conclusion. Scientific thinking. It’s not just for scientists.
Also, good journalists are heroes! Stop taking them for granted!
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