It was double-barrel speaker action at the meeting this month. Our scheduled speaker Jack Lord, candidate for Delegate in District 38B, was joined by county executive hopeful Ron Alessi. Each table had a few flyers advertising Alessi’s campaign kickoff, and I received one afterward (more on that later.)
The business portion of the meeting was pretty brief. We have $10,000 more in the treasury this year than we did at the comparable time in 2005. Signup sheets were passed out for our booth at the Salisbury Festival next month (the club will be along Market Street). I didn’t sign up yet because I think there’s something else I have planned that day, needed to check my calendar.
Also, the date for our Lincoln Day dinner (in cooperation with Worcester and Somerset counties) is Friday, June 9, at Salisbury University. I thought they mentioned a speaker but I’ll be damned if I caught the name of the person. Yeah, poor reporting on my part. We’ll see how this blog post compares with what the Daily Times says because James Fisher, one of their staff writers, was also present at the meeting to catch the remarks of Lord and Alessi. But one theme of the dinner speakers will be the anti-business climate that Maryland currently is saddled with (read: Fair Share.)
Jack Lord was the first speaker. A brief biography: he is an Eastern Shore native, but has lived in several places. Married for the second time, his wife was also present at the meeting. After graduating high school 40 years ago, he briefly worked for DuPont before being laid off. At that time, he got involved in law enforcement, first as a cadet, then as a State Trooper for 25 years before retiring in the early 1990’s. Now he has a small farm in Worcester County.
He’s termed himself as a “stealth candidate”. This isn’t the first time he’s ran for office, he also ran for the same seat in 2002. What got him involved in politics was the negative attitude toward farmers and agriculture in general of our former governor, Parris Glendening. Glendening blamed agricultural runoff as a major source of bay pollution, and one measure passed under his administration was the “nutrient management plan.” Basically it’s red tape for farmers to deal with. Since both of his delegates, Bennett Bozman and Norm Conway, voted in favor of the bill mandating the plan, Jack decided to make a bid to replace one of them in the House of Delegates. That bid got him through the primary (second of three GOP candidates) but fourth of the four in the general election with just under 10,000 votes, or 19 percent.
In his view, our current delegates “are not representing the area”, basically they’re “voting for whatever (House of Delegates Speaker Michael) Busch wants.” Jack also mentioned the veto overrides that Bozman and Conway voted for (such as the Wal-Mart bill), lack of a solution for the medical malpractice problem, and cited their support of the now ill-fated electrical deregulation, all items he wanted to change if he was sent to Annapolis. Jack made special mention about being able to work with Governor Ehrlich and possibly having the region benefit more with having a representative friendly to the governor’s interests.
Basically, his question that he encouraged people to ask Bozman/Conway voters from 2002 was “what have they done for you the last four years?”
A few questions were raised from the meeting attendees. Key among those had to do with crime (‘there’s not much a state delegate can do” with local crime issues); social issues (unlike the questioner, Lord doesn’t think the incumbents are vulnerable on social issues); and education. While acknowledging education is a problem, Jack also conceded he’s not likely to get much support from them through their union, “I don’t even mess with the teachers.”
One final point he made was that, despite being chair of the Appropriations Committee, Norman Conway has not brought home much in the way of bacon, or in Jack’s term, the Eastern Shore “gets the crumbs.” However, some of the money we do get through our current Delegates is for dubious purposes that can be described as “feel-good, pork projects.” The hopeful stated that it was a question of “pork vs. priorities” for the “common good.”
Ron Alessi then took to the podium for some brief remarks, mostly touching on issues he felt were most important to the county: schools, growth, and jobs.
He stressed that some of the problems with our schools stemmed from a lack of local control, and another root cause of their troubles was a lack of safety within. More community involvement was one part of the solution.
In Ron’s opinion, you “can’t cut growth off.” But you can place it in areas with the proper infrastructure for it. He did note that one advantage to the growth in retirees moving here was that they use fewer services than the average family would. But one other item he pointed out was a need to bring some sort of job creation to the area. Part of that would be saving our economic backbone, the poultry industry, insofar as possible, but the other piece of the puzzle would have to be enticing some sort of business or industry that could keep our college graduates here. A commenter noted that many students come here from the western shore, like the Eastern Shore area, but can’t find a decent job here so they go back to the Baltimore/DC metroplex where good jobs await at high salaries.
Another item Alessi pointed out was Wicomico County’s revenue cap. In his view, we need to work within the money that we have. It’s been pointed out elsewhere that one of his opponents wants to do a “phantom” budget which would be the budget if the revenue cap didn’t exist.
That was pretty much the extent of Alessi’s remarks and the meeting. I did get a chance to speak with Ron Alessi briefly afterward and I did ask him about more concrete job-producing steps, since that’s my pet issue in the November elections. Ron did note something about trying to get more research grants, since I pointed out that technology jobs are not as dependent on transportation issues we have here on the Eastern Shore.
While he may feel we have a pretty good transportation network, I beg to differ. Part of it was my experience living in a city that sits at the junction of major north-south (I-75) and east-west (I-80/90) interstates, lying along the main rail line between New York and Chicago, and right by one of the Great Lakes, where oceangoing ships are commonplace at the port. Toledo has all that convenient transportation yet is still in an economic slump. They still have the same problem with local college graduates leaving town for other opportunities.
But, since I got the flyer, I assume it’s public information that Ron Alessi is having a campaign kickoff on Friday, April 7th at 5:15 p.m. at the City Center Atrium in the City Bistro. I can’t attend myself since I have a prior commitment to my bowling team. But if you have a question for him, go on out and ask him yourself – that’s what I did.
Update: Actually, the DT article wasn’t too bad, although they messed up the district number in the online headline.
The speaker at the Lincoln Day Dinner June 9th, 6 PM, at Salisbury University “The Commons”
will be Aris Melisseratos, Secretary of the Maryland Dept. of Business and Economic Development.
Tickets can be purchased from members of the central committee.