As the primary election gets closer, the number of folks attending our little gettogethers increases as well. Tonight we had over 40 people packed into our room to have some very good food and hear our main guest speaker, County Executive candidate Bob Culver.
First things first, we took care of business. I’m not sure if it was a highlight or not, probably not, but they asked me to read the minutes of last month’s meeting. Didn’t think I wrote that much! But I wrote the minutes and my blog post at the same time, and normally I don’t have to read my writing aloud. Oh well, they were accepted as written.
We did get the treasurer’s report, and again it was a profitable month for the club, the balance is deep into five figures.
There wasn’t much else in the way of club matters to discuss, so we went right to our featured speaker. Bob Culver is a native of Wicomico County and has spend nearly his entire life living here, with the exception of a brief stint of college in North Carolina. However, he returned here to finish at SU and went into a long string of different businesses – most notably being onetime owner of the Market Street Inn and operating the paddleboat concession at the local park, in addition to being a farmer and an owner of storage facilities. At this point in his life he’s beginning to turn over some of these enterprises to his sons, so he’s decided to seek the county executive post because, in his words, Wicomico County “needs to be run like a business.”
A point he stressed early on was that the county’s citizens had shown frustration with their government, citing the passage of the 2% revenue cap a few years ago and the creation of the county executive post in the 2004 election as examples of voter displeasure. In regard to the revenue cap, Culver vowed that he “would not touch” the cap, and put his trust in the voters rescinding it when they feel the county’s government is moving in a satisfactory direction. More importantly to him, Bob felt that the county needed “a leader who can say no.”
His other pet topic on the evening was the state of the county schools. With the board of education taking over half the county budget, he questioned the ability of possible Democrat opponent Rick Pollitt to stand up to the Board of Education when necessary since Pollitt is currently on the board. Culver also wondered what good a new $80 million Bennett High School would be if the listed capacity of the school was just 150 students more than the capacity of the school it replaces. To him, working on the issues inside the school such as discipline made much more sense. In what was probably his most humorous quote, he deadpanned that we need to “add onto the alternative schools so that no child’s left behind.”
When questioned later about Pollitt’s “two budget” plan (with and without the revenue cap) Culver stated that he wasn’t going to make a great fuss about that, he’d let the residents of Fruitland (where Pollitt is the city manager) talk about Pollitt themselves. Bob did claim that Fruitland, while doubling in size over the last few years, also has among the highest tax and utility rates in the county. Culver also touched on another growth issue as he spoke, saying that he had no problem with the package water treatment plants, and in some respects they were helpful to reduce growth – “sprawl for sprawl itself is wrong”, he concluded. A figure of 1/2 to 2% growth per year was acceptable to him.
While upbeat about the long-term future of Wicomico County, Bob also conceded that things in the county will “get tighter before they get better,” so a final goal of his was to make government simple, explaining it in the terms of a savings account and a checking account. He wanted to have a savings account of about 10% in case Wicomico County was hit with a unexpected large expense like this weekend’s flooding just to our north. It also tied in with a statement that, in touring the county, he’d seen more and more that different communities have different concerns and the interaction with each town and hamlet was educational.
At that point, Culver finished his speech and we heard from John Bartkovich, who was “excited” to see a lot of Republicans running this time around. He did warn about the 45 day rule regarding signs along state highways – even on private property some signs were being removed. Another rule he spoke about was one I didn’t know. The Central Committee has about 15 days after the July 3rd filing deadline to fill posts that are still open on the ballot. That puts some interesting power in their hands, talk about your “stealth” candidates!
Dr. John also expressed his disappointment in the turnout for the Lincoln Day dinner. I can’t say I blame him a lot for that though I recall some pretty light attendance at LD dinners I attended in Ohio. Personally, I think the date is too late in the year – there’s too much going on in June anyway and the nice weather hurts attendance.
After he exhorted us to work hard for our candidates who survived the primary (and sought lots of turnout for it) we heard briefly from Wicomico County’s Ehrlich camapign coordinator, Ellen Andrews. She does still have a few tickets left for the Shorebirds game on Saturday, with over 200 sold. And the petition drive is still ongoing, despite reports that the drive was short on signatures. Somehow a few hundred signatures were “un-counted” by Linda Lamone’s office. Finally, Andrews told us about Governor Ehrlich’s formal candidacy announcement on Wednesday and Sonny Bloxom chimed in that the LG announcement would come Friday. (One speculation I saw tonight was that the head of the Governor’s Office on Disabilities, Kristen Cox, would get the nod.)
We also heard briefly from most of the candidates in attendance. The list included District 38B hopefuls Bloxom, Bonnie Luna, and Jack Lord along with Michael James’s surrogate Dustin Mills. Sonny Bloxom had some passionate comments on those who would support Democrat incumbent Norm Conway because of his Appropriations chairmanship, asking about the real cost of the “table scraps” we receive after the “Western Shore liberals” get theirs. In particular, he railed about the 800 jobs (and spinoffs) possibly lost because of the Wal-Mart vote and the veto override of the latest BG&E rate “relief” that carried by just two votes, both Conway and recent Democrat appointee Jim Mathias voting to override. Since Conway was claiming he would retire after the upcoming term anyway, Bloxom wanted the voters to retire Norm a little earlier. I know I certainly don’t want Norm Conway retiring feet first like his late cohort Bennett Bozman.
Then it was the county hopefuls, including at-large County Council candidate John Cannon, a new entry for the post. Cannon spoke for a few moments about his pet issue, which was growth needing to be managed and having consistency in zoning. We also heard briefly from the two Sheriff candidates in attendance, Mike Lewis (who’s in his final days with the MSP as he retires June 30) and Doris Schonbrunner.
The last person to have the floor was elections official Woody Willing. What he and his board needs most (from both parties) are election workers, they are 20 Republicans short and I’m sure a fair number of Democrats as well. He also noted that, while the two main parties are treading water or slowly sinking in terms of registered voters, the number of nonaffiliated voters is swelling. There are about 41,500 voters registered by party, but almost 7,000 who are not. With the closeness of the two parties’ numbers, a swing one way or the other by the independents will decide the election.
I’m going to work out of order here as my closing, but John Bartkovich had one interesting piece of advice. He said that there’s going to be a certain number of people who may be leaning GOP, but may have a hard time supporting them because they don’t understand (my words) the War on Terror. In that case, it’s best not to get caught in national items – there’s really much more on our plate locally in terms of issues.
And this is true. I happen to support our troops and the idea that we need to fight terrorists in their back yard as we can. But here in Wicomico County we have so much more to discuss – schools, crime, the environment, and what seems to be my new adopted pet issue of development (thanks to Duvafiles.) I think the Republicans on a local level have good common sense ideas to address these, and given the fact that state and national GOP candidates have carried Wicomico County regularly for the last 20 years, maybe it’s time to place us in charge of local affairs and see how we do. I know I was impressed tonight with what seemed like a sensible set of ideas from Bob Culver.
Hi michael. Just wanted to drop a line and say hello. I need to catch up on your blog post.. but i wont have time this morning. Calebs fixing to wake up and we are going to Cedar Point all day w/ some friends.
Talk 2 u later!