Category: Delmarva items

One casualty of my recent focus (bordering on obsession) to the baseball playoff picture was a visit I made Tuesday last to a community forum held at the Holly Center. For those of you not from Salisbury, the Holly Center is a facility that houses severely to profoundly mentally retarded individuals. I suppose this was a case of rank having its privileges – the sole reason I was invited is because I’m soon to be a politician. In fact, out of perhaps 50 to 75 that attended this breakfast I’d have to say at least half were political candidates, and the reason for the breakfast (to put it bluntly) was to justify the Holly Center’s very existence. In their word, they wanted these elected officials to “confront” the state’s bureaucracy.

The actual sponsor of this gettogether was Holly Community, which is a group dedicated to serving what I’d call the ancilliary needs of the Holly Center population and benefit their quality of life. The overriding goals of Holly Community are to improve the lives of those who reside at Holly Center, provide options for private caregivers, and utilize the facility as a whole more fully; in essence making it a “one-stop shop” for individuals in need of their services.

At this continental breakfast, we were given a Powerpoint presentation that included a short history of the Holly Center facility. The site along Snow Hill Road was deeded to the state back in 1969, and 6 years later the Holly Center opened. As originally built there were nine residential cottages and buildings for recreation, education, administration, and an infirmary. Basically it was built to be its own little community with a target population of 225. The population has never gotten to that point though, at its peak in 1991 there were 205 residents and now there’s about 100. Because of this population shortfall, 3 of the buildings (including the original infirmary) have been converted to other uses, while one cottage was converted into a new infirmary. Groups that use former Holly Center buildings include Healthy U, the Child Advocacy Center, Wor-Wic Community College, and the Eastern Shore Laboratory.

A goal of the Holly Community group is to build up the population by giving those who have dependents in need of their services the ability to choose care at the center. Currently the state of Maryland has a preference for integrating those who would’ve been the target population of the Holly Center into the community at large as part of group homes. (My stepdaughter works in a similar group home in Ohio, she is one of the caregivers to five adult individuals whose mental ages range from infancy to age 12.) In 1981, claimed the presenters, there were 11 facilities similar to theirs in Maryland, now there’s just four and Holly Center is the lone one on the Eastern Shore (there’s state-run facilities in Hagerstown, Cumberland, and Owings Mills as well.) The Holly Community group argues that because the facility is there and already on the state’s budget, it should be one of the choices available to those in need; however, the state discourages admissions and only a few have occurred in the last decade. Currently the state has money in its budget for what’s called “respite care” (allowing temporary admissions to avoid family caregiver burnout) but that program will sunset in September of 2007. The Holly Community group chided Governor Ehrlich for wishing to shift the focus of caring for the severely mentally disabled to community-based services, but admissions to state-run facilities were practically ceased in 2001 before he took office. They also noted that a bill allowing the choice of using state-run facilities for care didn’t make it out of committee in the last General Assembly session.

The Holly Community group also talked about the loss of employees in the last decade; at one time there were 374 employees and now the number is about 285. They asserted that payroll is about $15 million (of a budgeted $18 million) and the economic impact to the region is over $90 million. Additionally, the group complained that other state agencies who advocate community-based care get 90% of the budget targeted for those individuals who have severe to profound mental retardation.

One asset the Holly Center does enjoy is a large parcel of land. The site is 75 acres and stretches back from Snow Hill Road all the way back to the apartments at the end of Onley Road. At one time it was planned to sell the “back 40” as state surplus land, but that was shelved in part by Delegate Conway, or at least that was what was said. (I’d have to say that the Holly Community folks are pretty strong backers of Norm, they frequently referred to him doing things for the center including the respite care funding.) A portion of that land is going to be developed soon as a new senior center, the 30,000 square foot facility is on target for a mid-2007 groundbreaking.

What the Holly Community advocated to those of us in attendance was a model that is being used in the commonwealth of Virginia, that of a “community resource center”, or, the “one-stop shop” I called it earlier. And to me that actually seemed fairly logical. With an estimated 700 families on the Eastern Shore in need of these services, it makes sense to have this concept become reality.

Let’s face it, there’s a large NIMBY factor that comes into play when word gets out that a group home for the profoundly retarded is plopped into the community at large. To a large extent, that’s fear of the unknown, but just as there’s communities that are tailored to “active seniors” and are age restricted enclaves, maybe here’s an opportunity to have a community of individuals who are in various states of mental retardation have the care they need in one facility. Perhaps the entities who run group homes in various areas could have a parcel leased to them by the state on the Holly Center grounds and locate the group homes there. With a senior center coming on site, there’s the possibility of interaction between these two distinct communities as well. This would also allow the current facilities to be used for their intended purposes more fully and also allow for better training opportunities for the personnel in the privately-run group homes.

Until mankind figures out a way to magically cure the condition of severe to profound mental retardedness, there’s going to be a need for someone to take care of these less fortunate individuals. While families of those afflicted and privately-run entities take up an increasing portion of the slack, it’s still been dictated by the citizens of Maryland (as is their right as one of the “several states” under the Constitution) that the state assist to one extent or another with seeing to the needs of that population. Given that, I think that this care should be given as efficiently (yet effectively) as possible and to me the Holly Center has some underused assets in that quest that should be taken advantage of. Let’s allow people more choice in the matter.

While we didn’t quite have the throngs we did pre-primary, it was still a pretty respectable gathering tonight at the September WCRC meeting, my guess is that we had about 50-55 people there. And a lot was accomplished tonight as we settled several business items for the upcoming election.

As always, we got ourselves started with the Pledge of Allegiance, then did the Lord’s Prayer and went through the August minutes. There was actually a attendance count within the minutes, and when I said 65 or so I was off by one – we had 64. Maybe I forgot to sign the sheet? No, I’m sure I did. But I was pretty close, so I guess that explains my success at predictions (for all you Central Committee folks out there.)

Also, we had our treasurer’s report. It was about this time last year that we started building up the war chest we have, between last year and this year it’s only about 60% higher rather than double like we were running. But the Crab Feast was quite a financial success, I believe the totals worked out to about $8,000. I did underestimate the proceeds on the silent auction, it came out to $1,430. That’s all right, I had no money invested in that result so I can miss on that prediction.

Anyway, inside jokes aside, we quickly disposed of old business. Bob Miller thanked all those who helped with the Crab Feast and Woody Willing called for even more silent auction items next year, along with letting the members in on the ballot language for Question A, which would allow the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Department collective bargaining rights with binding arbitration. The binding arbitration portion is what Willing stressed voters be most aware of.

At that point we got to what would be several items of new business. On one, I’m reserving my right as the author to make additional comments so that will be covered after I go through the remainder of the meeting.

But the first item was comments by M.J. Caldwell about encouraging people to switch parties if you find they’re in agreement with you on most issues. Instead of Democrats voting for Democrats because that’s the party they’re aligned with (even if they’re in agreement with the GOP on most issues), changing their perception of identity by getting them to switch parties generally results in more votes downticket. People are more likely to cross over for big races but then stay with the party line farther down.

Ellen Andrews of the county’s Ehrlich campaign was looking for volunteers, as campaigns are known to do. Unfortunately, I dropped the ball on one item. There was a list of accomplishments that Governor Ehrlich had done for Wicomico County at the meeting and I forgot to pick one up! These could be the basis for a letter-writing campaign, or talking points if you will. She also was looking for phone bank volunteers, one upcoming opportunity is Wednesday night from 5:30 to 8:30 at M.J. Caldwell’s office here in Salisbury. Andrews also informed us about a fashion show up in Baltimore on October 12th (I believe First Lady Kendal Ehrlich puts this together) and introduced intern Josh Wick, who’s working on the Ehrlich campaign with Andrews.

Most importantly, she emphasized getting out the vote, particularly in this area where the governor is strongest. The only area of the state where opponent Martin O’Malley is winning big is the MoCo/PG area, even Baltimore is a tossup (this according to the Sun, so given that source I’m sure Ehrlich’s leading by a few points in Baltimore then.)

Next, we heard a representative from the Maryland Public Policy Institute (who I met and shook hands with, then promptly forgot his name. Sorry.) But more importantly, they are hosting a Town Hall meeting here on the SU campus on Wednesday, October 25. The purpose of the meeting is to introduce their new book, Maryland 2006-2007: A Guide to the Issues and solicit public input. Something tells me monoblogue will be represented.

The last issue (after the one I’m reserving comment on) was that of spending some of the “war chest” we have collected during this cycle. It was resolved that we should spend as much as we legally can on local candidates (as needed) while leaving a cushion of a few thousand dollars in the bank to begin the next cycle with. As John Bartkovich would comment on later, some of that funding would go to advertising for the Republican team.

With that, we had our first speaker, County Council at-large candidate John Cannon. The native of Wicomico County stated that he was “no stranger to community service or the political arena” and did go through a pretty impressive laundry list of organizations he’d served with and political posts he’d held, including some time on the Republican Central Committee.

John focused on two main issues during his address, growth and education. He used the analogy of cutting a diamond to express his thoughts on growth, saying that you only have one chance to get it right. Growth, he continued, should be managed and kept within the metro core and close to other county municipalities. Cannon also cited a need to “take advantage of the developer’s ideas” where possible, as the best ones would take initiatives and help to take the burden of cost off the taxpayers. Above all on the growth issue, Cannon stressed a “no surprises”, consistent approach.

Cannon told the group that he’d looked through the education budgets for both administrative and capital expenditures and, while there was a little bit of pudginess on the administrative side, the report he cited said that Wicomico County’s BOE delivers “good value for the dollar” overall. But he wanted to work on finding creative and efficient solutions to some budget areas and sought more state money to help the 12% of students that he claimed used 20% of the budget.

In response to a question from our assembled regarding the revenue cap, Cannon asserted that the county had an $18 million surplus with the cap, and while it could be said that the government never has enough money, John prudently said that the county simply needs to “set priorities” and that it would be up to the voters to create a groundswell of support for removing the cap. (Fat chance of that happening.)

Then, for a second time, it was M.J. Caldwell’s time to speak. This time he had the candidate hat on as opposed to club officer. Caldwell is a Maryland native, but not an Eastern Shore native. (As he put it, he came here by choice.) I found it quite analogous to the experience on the Eastern Shore though as he related how his once-staunch Democrat family (including himself) slowly switched over to the GOP column as the Democrats moved away from the values his family held closest. M.J. also alluded to his personal persistence as he recited the story of how he came back from law school (at Tulane University) and couldn’t get a bite on the resumes he’d sent to various Eastern Shore law firms, so he took a day and drove the stretch from Ocean City to Easton along Route 50, meeting people face-to-face. Coming home, his wife told him she’d lined up four interviews for him from phone calls he’d gotten back and the rest is history. (I can vouch for that approach, I got my last job in Ohio via a similar method within a day after being laid off by my previous employer because of a slow workload.)

One asset Caldwell claimed would be helpful on County Council was having the law school background because there he was trained to listen and analyze. He also claimed to have a hand in job creation as a minority shareholder in two local companies which had grown from startup to a combined 300 employees. Other items he used to buttress his argument were his efforts to rewrite the Wicomico County charter a few years back and then, after being against it at first, how research into the matter persuaded him that a County Executive would be a good step to take for Wicomico County. Another little-known but important task he’s done is to serve on the committee that decides legislative compensation. While it may not seem like a lot of money to give a raise to 188 members in the General Assembly, the dirty little secret is that all of the retirees get a raise as well because their pension is tied to the salaries. Caldwell and the committee were successful in holding the line on raises this time around.

While M.J. agreed with John Cannon on the growth issue, he did amplify one aspect in talking about the farmers and their role. With a moratorium on growth, the average farmer wouldn’t have the ability to recover from a bad season by splitting off a small parcel or two to sell for extra income. He also chided the county’s planning and zoning department for not always operating in a “timely” fashion. Caldwell also stayed pretty much in lockstep with John on education, although M.J. did advocate more “neighborhood-type” schools rather than the centralized setup we have now where kids from outlying parts of the county are bussed all the way into Salisbury to attend school. (Three of the four local high schools are in or close to Salisbury.) M.J. also noted that since now the majority of the Board of Education is Republican, there’s a better chance for a good relationship between the two if the County Council is likewise GOP-controlled.

Caldwell continued on from these points of agreement though, saying that the “number one priority (for the county) is the safety and security of citizens” and calling for the budget money to be made available to improve the disability plan of the Sheriff’s Department. He also vowed that he “will not vote for tax increases” including an excise tax, calling taxes “government’s legal right to pickpocket” the public. In his message, Caldwell called on the county to make priorities and choices first, and stated the budget was still increasing at a 12.5% annual rate even with the revenue cap in place. In summary, he spoke for himself and John Cannon saying that they “weren’t afraid of being Republicans.”

M.J. also answered a post-speech question regarding the aforementioned Question A, which he was against only because of of the binding arbitration factor. If it were simply a question of collective bargaining, he had no problem with it.

With the speakers concluded, we got our Central Committee report from John Bartkovich. First he thanked the volunteers who helped at Riverfest (you’re welcome) and the Women of Steele event last Saturday. He also was on the hunt for future volunteers, first for the Winefest on October 21-22 and also for the headquarters. The GOP headquarters will be at the corner of Route 13 and Northwood Avenue in Bob Lawrence’s building. The “media opening” is Friday at noon and staffing will begin on Monday, October 2nd. I signed up for two Friday shifts and encourage other Republicans here to do so. And as mentioned before, Bartkovich spoke about the advertising campaign the party would fund for local candidates. These ads would tout the Republican Party as the party of leadership and fiscal responsibility.

This brings me back to one piece of new business that came up. A motion was made from the floor regarding the current situation where local blogs (including monoblogue) are linked from the WCRC website. The motion was made to remove these local links from the site if they were deemed harmful to the GOP cause. (Note to my readers who also partake of the other local blogs: the motion was not made by Mr. Alessi, Mr. Ollinger, or Mr. Bellachico.) After amendment, local candidate websites were exempted as well as generally recognized national conservative websites. As amended the motion passed with one dissenter (three guesses who, first two don’t count.)

I was told afterward that the ban was obviously not pointed at me, but then again there could be cause sometime to do so. It’s not that I’m going to change political stripes or anything like that, but following links from monoblogue one can access almost any Delmarva political website, including those of minor parties. And regular readers know that I’d like to see more choices on the ballot, despite the fact that could cut into the number of Republicans out there someday. (I doubt at the moment too many would switch from GOP to Populist or Greens, but a Conservative Party – maybe.)

But let’s face facts here. The ONLY reason this came up was because the other three major players on the local blogging scene have found fault with County Executive candidate Ron Alessi. Even so, this still may not have come up had Charles Jannace (a.k.a. Hadley V. Baxendale) not began a write-in campaign for County Executive because Alessi won the GOP primary by a handful of votes.

If you go back through the entire body of work of these other three local blogs you’ll find that they are all on the relatively conservative side. I’ve been reading Duvafiles for about the last year and a half (since the “wetback” controversy) and Justice For All? since before the Blogger crash last winter. National Joe-A-Graphic is newer on the scene, it’s only been around since the spring. To me these are good background sources of information mainly because I’m the newcomer of this group, the others have been here for years.

And this so-called “feud” has escalated to this point, a point where bloggers like myself (even though I’m not who he meant, I get tarred by association) are called a “cancer” and one blogger decides that he’s going to make a statement by getting into the race as a last-minute dark horse candidate. I know that Dr. Bartkovich wants unity among Republicans, but in this case events aren’t going to dictate that and it seems to me that this action may make the WCRC look closed-minded.

I operate on the principle that I’m not afraid of competing views because I believe I have the better argument on the issues. This is why I link to all the websites I do and ask the questions I ask. I’d like people to compare the stances and platforms because it’s become apparent to me that people who have any sort of common sense will see that government that governs best governs least. Sometimes that puts me at odds with my adopted party, but my goal is to bring about change from within by enabling a tide of support for a conservative and Constitutional point of view – to me it’s too late for that sea change to occur within my Gen X’ers so I’m placing my hopes on the Millennial Generation (born after 1975 or so). And where do they get their news? It sure ain’t from the newspaper or the 6:30 nightly network broadcast.

On that principle, I voiced my opposition to the proposal when it was voted on. But after the November election when things have cooled down, a motion to reconsider will be in order because it’s time for me to speak up. I’m not afraid of checking out all of the corners of the “big tent”, neither should the WCRC be.

As one would expect since I’m a member of the Wicomico County Republican Club, I was at their Crab Feast yesterday. And also as one would expect since I do monoblogue, I took some pictures. First of all, it was pretty obvious for those driving along Schumaker Drive who was renting the pavilion.

The weather didn’t start out too well, when I arrived it was pouring down rain – this seems to be usual for an outdoor GOP event. But about an hour into the picnic the skies brightened and by the end it was a gorgeous sunny afternoon. The rain didn’t stop the crowd from showing up, that’s for sure.

And as always at these events, we had the silent auction tables going. I put in a couple bids for the guitar pictured at left. Otherwise, the timing of this was bad for me – I’m trying to make myself have LESS stuff to move not more!! The auction did reasonably well; I didn’t tally it up as they went but the club made several hundred dollars from it. I think the largest dollar item (a years’ membership at the midshore Y) went for $175.

After enough time had passed for most of the patrons to partake of some of Maryland’s finest homecaught fare, party chair Dr. John Bartkovich introduced many of the politicians in attendance. Now they each were supposed to take 30 seconds, I don’t think one of them actually took that little time. But it was over in about 20 minutes or so.

District 38B Delegate candidates Bonnie Luna and Michael James (pictured speaking above and below) were among those. In the above picture from left to right is incoming Central Committee member Dave Parker, District 38 State Senator J. Lowell Stoltzfus, District 37 State Senator Rich Colburn (in the pink shirt, obscured by Sen. Stoltzfus), James, House of Delegates District 38A Delegate Page Elmore, Dr. Bartkovich, Mary Beth Carozzo (representing Governor Ehrlich’s office), Wicomico County District 3 Councilwoman Gail Bartkovich (in the background), and Luna.

We also heard from the local Wicomico County hopefuls, including two of our highest priority ones (from left), James Gillespie (Clerk of the Courts) and Mike Lewis (Sheriff).

We didn’t hear from Ron Alessi, though, and I know he was present for at least some amount of time because he and I exchanged greetings. In fact, I really didn’t see too many of the unsuccessful candidates, either. But I did get to talk to most of the remaining ones, including introducing myself to District 5 hopeful Joe Holloway, who I hadn’t met previously. Soon I’ll be a resident of his district.

Among those making remarks that I didn’t photograph was Orphans Court Judge aspirant George Ossman, who had an interesting companion. He made a plug for one of his Democrat opponents, Melissa Pollitt Bright, who does deserve credit for being bipartisan and hanging out with the Republicans for an afternoon. (Who knows, maybe she’ll come over to the dark side after all is said and done like Hunter Nelms did.) The only problem I have with that theory is because the D’s hold the registration advantage, loyal D’s will vote for all three of theirs and we don’t need to add to one’s total. But vote as you wish, I’m just making an observation and we do appreciate Judge Pollitt Bright for supporting our club yesterday.

I have one other item that definitely deserves comment. I’m not a Maryland native so eating crab doesn’t come to me second nature, nor do I like seafood all that much anyhow. But I do know corn, and I really wish I’d been paying attention when they thanked some of the farms who supplied the corn and tomatoes (for the burgers that were also on the menu) because whoever brought the corn on the cob brought some seriously Grade A stuff like I haven’t had in many moons. THAT was awesome sweet corn, a little butter and pepper and man was that good. Seeing it in the “cooler” that was serving as a warmer make me think that all we needed was some good kielbasa, potatoes, and cabbage, and voila! hobo dinner. (That’s the Polish roots in me.)

Next week I’ll be at a similar event, the Stoltzfus “picnic” (can an indoor event be a picnic?) at the Civic Center. (We may as well use it for something, Lord knows we can’t get good concerts there!) Our honored guest that afternoon will be Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. I’ll have my camera along again although I won’t vouch for how well indoor pictures come out. It reminds me that tonight will be the return of my Election Calendar, so I’ll peruse the websites for nuggets and see whose mailing lists I need to get on to be notified of events upcoming on the lower Eastern Shore.