Tag: Tony Chmelik
What a week it’s been!!!
So much has happened this past week in Ye Olde Fredericktowne that your friendly Yokels have decided to do a weekly roundup. Let’s start with the County Council and happy budget fun time.
We’ve written two posts this week about budget talk. Read it here and here. However, we were very interested to find this in the Political Notes section of the paper this morning:
County Executive Jan Gardner’s budget announcement last Friday included a new little nugget. Well, five of them.
Gardner said she extended an invitation to all seven Frederick County Council members to talk about the budget, including a list of their priorities. Five members took her up on the offer: Democrats Jerry Donald, M.C. Keegan-Ayer and Jessica Fitzwater and Republicans Bud Otis and Tony Chmelik.
Gardner said she couldn’t meet all of their requests, but each was considered in her proposal.
Councilmen Billy Shreve and Kirby Delauter, also Republicans, didn’t take Gardner up on the offer, apparently.
It seems they have other plans.
Shreve, who is still upset the council doesn’t have a dedicated budget officer, gave handouts to his colleagues, showing that they are the only council in the state without such help. Nevertheless, Shreve said he was going to dig into the numbers.
“I’m going to work on this budget. Look at it. See if we can make some changes,” he said Tuesday. One major change he pitched included scrapping a plan to keep the county’s property tax rate steady — which will yield increased revenue — and instead lower the rate and cut spending.
“The easiest solution … is if you have the same amount of revenue as you did last year, you adopt the same budget you did last year,” Shreve said.
So not only are they refusing the County Executive’s invitation to come discuss the budget, which really is a dereliction of their duty, but Billy is all fine and dandy with keeping everything the same. Why should we strive to improve? A real brain stumper!
Next on our wrap up is Sheriff Jenkins. As we are sure you all know our Sheriff testified in front of Congress this week about illegal immigration. Last night, Sean Hannity had the Sheriff and two other guests on for four minutes of the most exquisite fear mongering we have ever seen.
Look, we here at the Yokel do not want anyone, be it citizens, immigrants, or illegal immigrants, committing crimes. And if someone had hurt our kids, we cannot say that we wouldn’t feel the same way that poor woman who testified with the Sheriff does. However, this kind of sensational talk does nothing to bring about meaningful immigration change. What it does do is incite fear and discrimination against the Latino community. Not one of us wants criminals running around our community. Building a wall is not a realistic solution towards that goal. Also, it is a known truth that huge numbers of “illegals” arrive by plane and overstay an expired, once-valid visa, so wasteful government spending on a stupid wall is stupid and wasteful. But now we totally get why Fox News watchers are so angry and paranoid all the time. Jeeze O’Flip that channel! And we also didn’t realize how scary a place Frederick is to live, the internets must be wrong about us.
Last on our roundup: You may have heard that a certain Presidential Contender was in town yesterday. Another nugget from the Political Notes section was this:
Apparently, that relationship stuck. Ahead of Cruz’s rally on Thursday, Hough picked Afzali to pick up the candidate from the airport. And if Cruz’s camp was impressed with Folden’s driving skills, they may have had a different review of the Afzali Cab Service. “My husband went slow, because I needed to talk to Ted,” Afzali said. “We had a lot to talk about.”
If you missed our tweets about his speech head on over to @fclocalyokel and take a looky look. The most disturbing story to come out of that mess was the transgender student who was thrown out of rally. You can read the story here. But James, we would be remiss if we did not officially give you a Yokel tip of the hat:
We really don’t get all this fervor over public bathrooms. Whether you like it or not transgender people have been using public bathrooms for years. And has society crumbled as a result? No! Because nothing bad has happened! You really should be more afraid of former Republican Speakers of the House and U.S. Senators. But if you can’t get past it, Kirby has a solution:
Billy says his world is great, and has Kirby been audited? Your April 19th roundup-Part 1!
Thank Zeus on his high mountain that tonight’s meeting has been divided into two parts! We need the break! Now on to our fine reporting.
Billy’s no where to be found, ran in late. So Kirby had the sole job of objecting to budget transfers. His issue? We have no proof that the bay can be saved by trees and stuff. We’ve heard this before. Science isn’t his thing. Passes and we moved on.
Installment Purchase Program Easements get no objections. Even talk to what a fine program it is. Protecting our agricultural land!
It seems like the budget season gets the tempers a flarin’! We are going to go back to our budget posts of a year ago to see how much of the rhetoric is the same. We predict A LOT. Tony, Billy and Kirby want the constant yield to be called a tax raise, all M.C. wants to do is take a vote to have a hearing on this issue so the public can discuss. How dare she interrupt their grandstanding? Billy informs us that we should all come into his world, it’s nice there he says.
Tony wants an answer as to whether or not the hearing equates to increasing the constant yield. Exasperated lawyer says this question should have been asked before the meeting so they could research the answer. Jerry then points out two of the members were on the BOCC, so shouldn’t they know the answer to that? What’s that Kirby and Billy?:
The hearing will be on May 3 for those of you who are interested.
Now, fellow Yokels, in all seriousness we are concerned about Kirby. Has he been audited? Because we remember commending him for voting against the Trout Run historical designation way back when. But tonight he’s singing a different tune. When the resolution, which is essentially the answer to Social Betterment’s lawsuit, was presented he voted no. No explanation just no. Billy wanted to know if he really had to vote for it at all since he was the lone wolf on the original vote, to which he was informed he in fact did.
We do really hope this hasn’t happened to Kirby:
We end with a nice presentation on a Maryland Development Block Grant. Meeting reconvenes at 7:00 for a public hearing on the budget.
New fun time: Council meeting bingo
We thought we’d mix it up a little this week. Here’s your agenda. In case you do feel compelled to drink at any point, we’ll recommend you toss back an Alien Secretion and encourage Xenu to scamper on outta here.
Can we have a positive track in Frederick County?
Well, we’re off the rails here. Some of our council members threw us for a loop at the April 5th council meeting. For the most part, the theme of the meeting was, “All Aboard!” Most notably, Tony Chmelik was so agreeable (as we discussed in our other post about the weirdness of the meeting) that he just couldn’t wait to vote in favor of things he has been railing against for months. Not just that, though. He actually seemed jovial. Not sure what’s going on with him. To be fair, he has never had Billy and Kirby’s combative style or disrespectful tone, he just gets oddly passionate about stuff that seems very much at odds with his constituency.
Which leads us to our further astonishment. Usually the portion of the meeting in which council members make comment leads us into the dark tunnels of their minds. This is especially true when Billy and Kirby have something gnawing at them. Nothing happened! Our brains wrestled around hard with the fact that Billy seemed to have some thoughtful and interesting comments about handling our county’s pressing drug addiction problems, and highlighted first responders’ use of Narcan inhalers. Just recalling it, our jaws begin to hang slack in amazement. Nary a crazy train in sight. If they keep this up, we won’t have anything to say. We, ladies and gentlemen of the county, are not really sure what to hope for! We’ve become kinda fond of our little blogging hobby based on the wacko birds.
We continue to be grateful to Bud Otis. It was no surprise that he was thoughtful and used his position to give voice to the issues members of our community are dealing with. He has proven time and again to be the picture of dignity and positivity. His comments regarding the struggles of servers relying on tips for their income were thoughtful and inspiring. He also spoke eloquently of the needs of FCPS school students who are experiencing homelessness. He highlighted the work of a partnership running the New Horizons program so that these students have constructive activities and a good environment throughout the summer months. There is a gofundme campaign to help meet the financial needs of the program, if you are able to lend a hand.
What the hell happened? Your April 5th council meeting roundup!
Life is all about change. Humans, in order to survive and thrive, must be adaptable to change. If not, you end up denying indisputable climate data and supporting a candidate that promises to make everything great again. So we here at the Yokel want to be adaptable. We don’t want to end up stockpiling canned goods and squatting on National Wildlife preserves. We really don’t! That’s why we want to accept all of the changes we saw at the meeting last night no matter how hard that may be.
First we’ll start with someone who could use a bit of change.
We’ve done a few posts about Billy’s oppositional defiance disorder.When he can bring himself to vote he never, ever says Aye. Everyone else can do it, but Billy likes to be a trailblazer. Nobody is going to tell him how to talk, no sirree Bob. Until Billy sends us a message explaining why he does this we’re going to refer to him as a:
Next on the agenda is some sewer talk. The two amendments to the code and one out of sequence item concerning sewer hookup to Lewistown were passed with little to no fanfare. Then came the third reading section of the evening.
First off, Jessica tables the bill concerning the changes that can be made to historical designations. Of course Xenu is playing a hand in this. And the FNP article on it acknowledges as much. We here at the Yokel agree with Mark Long’s public comments concerning the Scientologists turning the land over to the park service. Enough is enough. We don’t want a bizarre cult recruitment center thinly disguised as a very ineffective drug treatment center in our neck of the woods.
The next bill was also tabled. This time it was medical cannabis that landed on the cutting room floor. In a separate FNP article we learn:
Keegan-Ayer said after Tuesday’s County Council meeting she didn’t have four votes among the seven council members to approve the bill. In early March, she told The Frederick News-Post she believed a majority of the council supported the legislation.
She said Tuesday that she was aware of concerns among some council members, but declined to elaborate what they were.
“In my opinion, they were not based on fact,” Keegan-Ayer said of the concerns.
What’s that you say?! Some council members hold opinions that aren’t based on facts? When did this start? Oh that’s right December 1, 2014. Come on people, enough craziness about marijuana. There’s even been research suggesting that we may not have the opioid/heroine addiction problems if Nixon hadn’t made everyone so cuckoo over marijuana and let it be researched as a pain management drug. Let’s all operate in the real world..please!!!
Now we come to the part of the meeting that still has us scratching our watches and winding our butts. Remember a few weeks back when Councilman Chemlik was all so against the impact fees? We recall a long soliloquy in defense of our poor, downtrodden developers. Fast forward to last night and oh how things have changed. We like the change, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want an explanation! Tony is now for both of these fees! He was so very excited to vote for them that he screamed Aye into his microphone before the vote had even been taken. We would like to accept his vote and move on, but we can’t. What the hell happened?
Item EFF on the agenda
The dreaded budget analyst conversation. The sole acceptable, qualified candidate for the job withdrew his name from consideration. One can only speculate why being at Billy (and Kirby)’s beck and call was unappealing. We didn’t apply for the job ourselves, that’s for dang sure.
A brief rundown of the discussion:
Right out of the gate Billy starts the sniping tone. Blah blah blah woof woof woof. Petulant child. You know the drill.
M.C. says they have endeavored to find out what is done elsewhere, looking at similar counties in Maryland. Turns out Wicomico, Cecil and Harford’s county councils don’t have budget analysts because they are legislative bodies. Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard’s have a county auditor, but that doesn’t make sense for Frederick because the council isn’t responsible for that function.
Jerry throws out a novel idea. Specifically ask the departments what they have, what they need, if things have been working out in the past, etc, etc, etc. As for these personal visits with county staff, “A number of us went to a number of things.” Jerry, ever the educator, charmingly refers to this as “the budget education process.” We are left to speculate about who amongst them made up the education seeking numbers. And also, based on the historical record, who probably didn’t.
M.C. reiterates this concept of communicating with the staff. Hiring someone takes time and money, and she points out the irony that she is taking the conservative position here (she didn’t say, “guess who isn’t,” but we’ve pointed that out before). Summing up her position, she (can do math?) doesn’t need someone to say, “Yup, those numbers balance.”
Tony: I agree with that.
M.C.: I have a little wax in my ears…
Local Yokel: hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa
Seems like nobody’s on poor Billy’s side anymore.
Let’s take a break from the hard stuff-Your March 8th drinking game.
Whew! With all of the meetings lately and St. Patrick’s Day coming up,we are going to go with an non-alcoholic version this week. Before you revolt, remember you can always add some Fireball, Vodka or whatever your poison happens to be. We’re just trying to look out for y’all. Grab your agenda and follow along.
This is soooo boring we know. But if Billy abstains from the consent agenda, again, mix yourself up a Banana Bonkers.
The next item is to just change around some dates for the bargaining for the Fire and Rescue union. Our First Responders’ unions are rarely met with the same vitriol that other unions face. But if someone uses this as an opportunity to go all anti-union on us slam back The Ghoul’s Green Drink.
Now it’s time for the public hearing on medical cannabis. We here at the yokel are for this. If there’s any talk about everyone turning into pot heads, sip gently on your Lean Green Smoothie.
All that’s left is public and council member comments. It’s the part of the evening where we usually get into trouble. So if you feel the need to pull out the booze we won’t judge.
Ethics Night: better late than never
It’s hard to muster any sense of urgency here, folks. Like congress, thanks to the local obstruction, we remain mired in the same ol’, same ol’.
Tony Chmelik (R-odeo Clown) showed up last evening with a series of just in under the wire amendments to put forth on behalf of his buddy #KirbyDelauter, likely meant to turn the evening’s process to quicksand and possibly drum up some loopholes for the developer class that he represents. His latest hand wringing by proxy over the ethics ordinance (which passed, by the way) on top of his constant agonizing over the alleged persecution of builders who only want to build where schools are too crowded are awfully revealing. Obviously if a mitigation fee that may add $3 a month to a mortgage of several hundred thousand is such a burden, he could not make it more obvious that he is not representing his constituents. At least, not any who have school kids or drive on roads. It seems logical that six amendments should not be randomly appearing moments before third readings instead of during legislative workshops. We’ve been (as we have bored ourselves to tears saying) beating this same dead horse for a year now. sheesh.
Last minute shenanigans. We hope this is not going to be the new normal round these parts. At the last of these bake sales it was Kirby Delauter with his constitutional law farce. Kirby, as previously noted by your Local Yokel correspondents, was nowhere to be seen yestereve, in spite of us listening to him bellyache about the ethics ordinance for the past year. He’s busy vacationing in Floriduh. Let’s hope he is house hunting. Maybe they want him.
Hate snow days? Let Kirby think outside the box and fix that for ya!
Every few weeks Kirby pens some propaganda for the Emmitsburg News Journal. (Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?)Predictably, Kirby focuses his “column” on the poor persecuted developers of our county. Read what we’ve had to say about this privatization idea here. He cries foul over Councilman Donald’s email that suggests that letting students eat lunch in the hallway rather than making developers pay their share is pathetic. Then there’s this:
Council Member Chmelik and I met with the Superintendent of Schools Dr. Terry Alban and we mentioned putting a task force together to have the school system lease schools from private entities, a true public, private partnership. One thing I said to Dr. Alban that I think resonated with her was that during the recent snow storm I asked her how she spent her time? She said she was busy coordinating efforts to see when schools could be open. I replied that if she leased the schools from a private entity, she could make a simple phone call and state what day she wanted the schools open, and if they were not open, the entity would pay a penalty, pre-determined within their contract. This way she can concentrate on what she does best, educating students and not worrying about snow removal. I mentioned also that it’s her job to produce students that enter college, vocational school, the military or the workforce that are educated and prepared for this highly competitive world we live in. We all agree on that.
Folks, this hurts our brains. Is this private entity going to be in charge of clearing all the roads to and from the school. Because, if not, how the hell are the students going to get there? And what about all the other schools in the county? This logic truly boggles the mind. It sounds simple and reasonable, until you actually think about it for more than two minutes. No other new information was obtained from this letter. Other than he’ll have it all worked out in the next “6-12 months”.
frederick local yokel 