Joe Albero – Page 2

After all the shouting

We’re just about through the last weekend of the 2012 campaign, and hopefully by late Tuesday night we will have a good idea of where the country will be heading over the next four years (or perhaps four decades, should the incumbent win.) Of course that’s assuming we have no protracted recounts such as we endured 12 years ago – the prospect of two such occurrences in a lifetime boggles the mind.

Yet regardless of what happens Tuesday life will go on, and the sun will come up Wednesday. I’ll still have my work to do as will most of the rest of us who don’t toil for candidates.

I’ve always been about thinking two to three steps ahead where possible, which is why I’m writing this postmortem of sorts on the Sunday before the election. (It’s also why I wrote my book and eschewed the normal publishing process to get it to market prior to the campaign season hitting high gear. Did it cost me some sales? Perhaps, but readers can remedy that situation easily enough as I link to the sales sites from monoblogue.)

Just in the next three months there are a lot of political stories still to be written, from the local to the national. Here in my adopted hometown of Salisbury, the mayoral race will take center stage. No one has formally declared for the office yet, but it’s highly likely we’ll have at least two (and possibly three) candidates: incumbent Mayor Jim Ireton will go for a second term, realtor Adam Roop made it known almost a year ago he was seeking some unspecified office – his two choices are a City Council district seat or mayor – and recent transplant and blogger Joe Albero has made his own overtures. At least he’s invested in the shirts:

That will probably begin to play out in the next couple weeks.

After that we begin the holiday season, which may be politicized to a certain extent as well. My thought is that if Barack Obama wins, the early predictions of a modest year-over-year growth will hold true or end up slightly lower than imagined. I seem to recall last year started out like gangbusters on Black Friday but tailed off once those big sales came to an end. On the other hand, a Mitt Romney win may open up the purse strings and result in an increase twice of what was predicted. I think seeing him win with a GOP Congress will boost consumer confidence overnight as they figure the long national nightmare is over.

Once the holidays are over, it’s then time for both the 113th Congress to get started and, more importantly for local matters, the “90 days of terror” better known as the Maryland General Assembly session to begin. In the next few weeks I will finally wrap up my annual monoblogue Accountability Project for 2012 in order to hold our General Assembly members accountable for all the good and bad votes they made in the three 2012 sessions. With so much written about in 2012 on my part, I had to put that project on the back burner for most of the fall.

At the same time, state races for 2014 will begin to take shape. Unlike the last three gubernatorial elections we do not have the prospect of a candidate named Ehrlich in the race, which leaves the field wide open. While the three who have made overtures toward running on the GOP side have already made their presence known, only one (Blaine Young) has formally announced and the conventional wisdom (such that there is for Maryland GOP politics) labels him as the longest shot of the three most-rumored candidates, the other two being early 2010 candidate Larry Hogan and outgoing Harford County Executive David Craig.

But there are also down-ticket statewide races to consider as well, and there’s a decent chance that both Attorney General and Comptroller may become open seats as Doug Gansler and Peter Franchot, respectively, consider a race for Governor. (While there are three hopefuls so far for governor on the GOP side, there may be at least five on the Democratic side: Gansler, Franchot, current Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, and Delegate Heather Mizeur.)

The GOP bench is a little shorter for the downticket positions at this time, but I believe William Campbell is willing to reprise his 2010 Comptroller run and wouldn’t be surprised if Jim Shalleck doesn’t make sure he’s on the ballot this time for Attorney General. Another intriguing name for the AG position would be 2010 U.S. Senate candidate (and attorney) Jim Rutledge, who obviously has the advantage of having already run statewide. On the other side, I’m hearing that State Senator Brian Frosh (who generally serves as a dictatorial Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee) is one name in the mix for AG, but another intriguing one is former First District Congressman Frank Kratovil, who is now a judge in Queen Anne’s County.

So the beat will go on after this year’s election is over. It’s not surprising to me that I’ve had some great readership numbers over the last few weeks, but the last couple weeks in particular have blown me away. The trick, though, will be maintaining the audience through a period where fewer discuss politics and more concentrate on friends and family during the holiday season. I won’t be so presumptuous to believe that my humble little site should be uppermost on everyone’s mind, but I hope to roll into year number 8 of monoblogue in grand style.

New entry or publicity hound?

Originally I was going to use this item yesterday as part of the headquarters story, but on second thought I decided it deserved its own headline and post.

In five months beyond the November election, Salisbury voters will decide the fate of three of their leaders: District 1 Councilwoman Shanie Shields, District 2 Councilwoman Debbie Campbell, and Mayor Jim Ireton. I’m under the impression Shields won’t run again; the other two are presumably going to seek another four-year term.

You may recall that earlier this year I profiled a campaign kickoff by local realtor Adam Roop, for a yet-to-be-determined city elected office. But I hadn’t mentioned this effort by political gadfly and blogger Joe Albero – until today.

Joe Albero and his rack 'o shirts.

Now I understand my political advice is generally worth the price paid for it, but it seems to me that having shirts and bumper stickers will build name recognition but not give someone a reason to vote for you. As it stands right now, the website listed on the shirt simply redirects to his Salisbury News website, not a separate campaign site.

I can already see the comment now should Joe deign to add his two cents to this conversation, something along the line of “it’s my campaign, I know what I’m doing, you simply fail to understand my master plan to win this race.” Whatever – as I said, my advice is sometimes worth the price paid for it.

But if he’s as popular as his rhetoric makes him out to be, why would he be wheeling out a nearly full rack of shirts (presumably as a giveaway to supporters?) The shot was taken as he was leaving to go to another event, as Joe said to me.

I have a hard time taking Albero seriously as a candidate until I see a formal announcement and (as a Salisbury voter myself) his ideas on how to improve the city. Several of those I spoke with this afternoon felt similarly, preferring to keep their distance for the time being.

That didn’t have anything to do with the headquarters, nor will the local GOP be actively involved in the Salisbury city races because they’re non-partisan elections. Hence the reason I decided this should be a separate post. But I took the picture since Albero’s space was placed next to the GOP’s at the Farm and Home Show; aside from that, the Wicomico GOP has no official connection to the Albero mayoral campaign – or any other Salisbury one, for that matter.

As I made clear on my comments on the Roop event, the current mayor didn’t kick off his spring 2009 campaign until November, 2008 – after the election of Barack Obama. Aside from perhaps trying to build name identification (and as a fellow blogger who HAS run for office in this county twice, I am quite aware that simply having a website doesn’t necessarily translate into lot of people knowing who you are – that’s why I barely hung on to my seat in 2010) I’m not sure what Albero’s point is, aside from perhaps a publicity gimmick to promote his site. If that’s the case, give him an A for marketing but an F for being taken seriously for future political endeavors.

A response on Station 16

It took a few days to come to fruition, but the Station 16 controversy isn’t dead yet – at least not herein. This was a comment (and response) that deserves a post since it would otherwise be buried – and it comes from Joe Albero:

Michael, I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible. It should be known that my original offer of $250,000.00 was well before they created a RFP. In fact, it was because of my offer that they came up with the RFP to assure Joe Albero couldn’t purchase the property, even as a highest bidder. They did the same thing wien they dismantled the Horse Patrol and I offered to buy the horses, if you’ll recall. I offered to buy a fire truck for $5,000.00 with a blown engine, they sold it to a dealer for $2,500.00 instead. Nevertheless, when they created the RFP I stood in front of the Mayor and Council and asked, does this sale INCLUDE the other two lots going to the river. Gary Comegys immediately said, no, are you crazy. He then, (at a different council meeting) said, I wouldn’t sell Joe a damn thing, meaning the Fire Station. Considering the other lots weren’t going with the sale and Comegys stating he wouldn’t sell me the building, there was no reason for me to move forward with a RFP to purchase a piece of property the City was refusing to sell me. Each one of my offers was with no contingency and each check could be cashed immediately. We had already known that Gillis didn’t have an agreement with UMES and that is why he exposed such the night of the meeting, we were on to him and he knew it. My challenge to sue the City is real. The taxpayers are being screwed out of a very valuable piece of property/properties. As you mentioned, I do own a building outright on the Downtown Plaza. If I purchased this property, it too, (along with 18 other properties I own in Wicomico County) would be owned outright. My original proposal, (again, before there was ever a RFP) was explained to the City Council to be an exact replica of Station 7 in Pittsville with the exception of it being an All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Restaurant. Kitchen in the basement, dining on the first floor and a bar on the upper floor. I still to this day have numerous local Doctors who would dive into investing along with me to make this a reality as partners. The restaurant would employ some 70 people and the impact economic wise on the Downtown area would be incredible, while not really competing with the other restaurants Downtown. I say that in the sense that it would not challenge their menu. So please recognize my offer as good clean business. It would not sit empty and it would go under construction immediately. I’d like to say this as well. I like Palmer Gillis and like Palmer, I’m all about getting a really good real estate deal. If he gets the property, well, I hope he does exactly what he says he’s going to do but before they even get started it has been proven his original proposal has failed and the City Council should immediately drop the deal until they see him under contracts with someone willing to do what they proposed. However, that’s not how the City of Salisbury politics works. One final comment. The City should keep the property and forget my offer or Palmer’s. Louise Smith making remarks about how the building will fall apart, PLEASE! Perhaps she should take a walk down the Plaza and look at at least a half dozen properties sitting vacant for the past ten years, there’s nothing wrong with them and if there was Code & Compliance would be all over them. Some of us bought our properties for a great price and we’re sitting on them until the real estate market has a come back. Until then, who cares if the building sits empty, that’s our problem, not theirs or anyone else’s. Since when is everyone else so worried about my investment or anyone else’s anyway. Thanks for letting me share my side of this story and Merry Christmas Michael.

Yes, it was all one paragraph; I didn’t change a thing. Here’s my response.

Well, since this is your side of the story the questions I have are thus:

First, if you had the money and “numerous local Doctors who would dive into investing along with me to make this a reality as partners” why didn’t you come in as a silent partner in an LLC? If you had a good RFP proposal that Council then rejected it simply because you were involved, then perhaps you would have a leg to stand on in court. Now, I’m no lawyer (far from it) but it would seem to me that you couldn’t prove discrimination simply based on an out-of-context remark by one Council member. If your proposal was properly submitted and that good then Comegys gets outvoted 4-1.

As it stands, the original proposal you outlined and the one Coastal Venture Properties presented are essentially the same aside from the usage of the upper floor (CVP proposes apartments while you propose a bar) and the exception of CVP following through the process where you did not. Your newer proposal would involve office space, which brings me to my other question.

You claim you own almost 20 properties in Wicomico County, a couple of which I’m familiar with – besides the occasional travel by 300 W. Main, I patronize Station 7 on a semi-regular basis so that adjacent property is most familiar to me. I would hope that isn’t representative of the state of your properties as a whole, but the ones which are most ‘famous’ are unoccupied. Seems to me you could use your existing downtown building for the office space for your ‘media empire.’ (I guess you already do since some of your videos were taped there.)

If you had a more successful record in refurbishing and getting tenants for your buildings, perhaps Council would look more favorably upon your ideas.

As for the Station 16 property, it will obviously be up to the citizens and City Council to hold them accountable for what they do. Granted, we don’t have a very good track record but there was a process in disposing of the property and it was done by the book, unless you wish to attempt to prove otherwise in a legal venue.

Merry Christmas to you and yours as well.

I suppose Joe is one of those occasional drive-by visitors so it took him a few days to comment. While I’m glad he gave his side of the story, my common-sense advice is to hope Palmer Gillis and the CVP group can get right to work on restoring the building and perhaps bringing some life to an otherwise moribund downtown. Save your lawsuit money, Joe.

And perhaps I’m opening a giant can of worms by bringing this further into the light, but I thought the response deserved more attention than it probably would have had being buried under nearly a week’s worth of posts. If he’s going to get involved in the discussion I’d welcome comments on what he has to say in this forum.