Just a few minutes ago I received this on my Facebook page:
I’m Running for Maryland’s 38A Delegate Seat (Southern Wicomico and Somerset) I hope I can count on your support!
The author of this Facebook post: Julie Brewington, spouse of Mike Brewington. Mike is running as a Democrat for Wicomico County Council at-large, while Julie will file as a Republican for the seat previously held by Page Elmore.
(continued on my Examiner.com page…)
According to a published report, Wicomico County at-large councilman John Cannon will enter the race for Delegate for District 38A, becoming the second Republican to seek the seat held by the late Delegate Page Elmore. He’ll face Crisfield attorney John Phoebus for the GOP primary nod. With just a few days to go before the filing deadline only one Democrat, Somerset County Commission President Mike McCready, has filed for his party’s nomination.
Cannon’s entry into the House of Delegates race also means that neither at-large County Council member will return for another term, as Democrat Bill McCain announced previously he would not run again. It also leaves the GOP without a candidate to fill either of the two at-large slots on the ballot as Ryan Hohman announced his withdrawal from the race last month. Two Democrats, former councilman Ed Taylor and political activist Mike Brewington, are already set for the ballot.
(continued on my Examiner.com page…but come back for the enhanced article.)
As I noted in my Facebook posting of the original article, I’m not sure I agree with the move in a tactical sense.
First of all, love him or hate him, there wasn’t much doubt that John Cannon would’ve kept his County Council seat had he ran again. In fact, a best-case scenario among those in the running may have maintained or enhanced the GOP’s 4-3 advantage but with even more fiscal hawks placed on County Council – for example, even though he’s a Democrat, Mike Brewington would likely be much more fiscally conservative than Bill McCain.
Yet now the possibility exists of a Democratic takeover of County Council, with the spendthrift likes of Ed Taylor being returned to County Council. Combine that with another term of Rick Pollitt and you better hold on to your wallets.
On the flip side, it’s obvious the Democrats would like to get the District 38A seat to make up for a possible loss in neighboring District 38B. They have a relatively strong Somerset-based candidate in Mike McCready and it’s my belief that a Somerset-based Republican is the better choice to counter McCready’s effect. As I pointed out in the Examiner piece, while Wicomico Republicans made up a majority of the GOP vote, Somerset voters have a majority in the district. And if you think the Republican voter registration numbers are bad here, the situation for the GOP is much worse in Somerset County. (It’s another classic case of the “Daddy was a Democrat so I’m one” syndrome common on the Eastern Shore.)
I don’t mind the contested primary, but I think in a strategical sense things would have been better if Cannon had decided to stay put. I think Page tried to put the bravest face possible on his condition hoping that it would work out best for the party, but word spreads just as quickly here as anywhere else and I think Democrats smelled an opportunity this time around.
Frankly, I was less than pleased with Page Elmore’s voting record on a number of key issues but it’s not very likely a Democrat will do any better. Hopefully Cannon’s move won’t end up losing Republicans a much-needed seat in Annapolis.
This afternoon the field for at-large County Council on the Democratic side will be filled with a second aspirant. But Mike Brewington, who revealed to me he’s making his first run for elective office, is not your typical Democrat.
For the remainder of the story, see my Examiner.com page.
I also have an exclusive audio interview with Brewington here.
I’ll have another new development in Wicomico County politics later today. (Nope, later this week.)
It was a tough decision, but today I decided for space reasons to drop the links to Delaware political races.
Not counting party offices, in Wicomico County we are affected by four statewide races (governor, comptroller, attorney general, and U.S. Senator), two State Senate races, four races for Delegate, and contests for seven County Council seats, County Executive, Sheriff, State’s Attorney, Register of Wills, Clerk of the Courts, and three Orphan’s Court posts. It’s over 20 races for which to post candidates and links so something had to give.
Perhaps a blogger across the line like Chris Slavens or Elbert Collins can take up my slack and try to keep my Delaware readers informed. (Lord knows Salisbury blogger Joe Albero – who actually lives in Delaware – won’t do so.) Similarly, there should be a blogger or two in each county who aggregates the links for their home county and tries to keep readers informed about the political races. It could even be a job for the local hometown newspaper given the power of the internet and their presence there.
I don’t know how many local politicians read my site (my guess is most GOP officeholders do – Democrats, not so much) but if you have an event for my upcoming Political Calendar I’d appreciate a shout out – e-mail me or leave a message on my Facebook page. The better my calendar is the more readers, and the more readers there are the more people know about the event. And I won’t bury it among press releases, old jokes, and stories which are disproved by Snopes.com. Hey, I’ll even take advertising from the right people.
So again, I apologize for disappointing my First State readers for needing to be more Maryland-centric but this is the year to change Maryland’s policies. Your chance comes in two years.
Originally I was going to make this a simple comment to Julie’s post but figured I’d rather have the forum to myself – she can feel free to link to my reaction.
I look at it this way, as a logical manner. The County Council meets twice a month and we have five months remaining until the general election – in other words, ten meetings.
Under the rules in place, two of these meetings (July 6 and October 5) would be held at night, with the other eight being morning meetings.
With the compromise measure, five meetings would be night meetings and five would be daytime. Right now, the difference is three meetings. Certainly that would be a better situation for some, but for me it wouldn’t be the ideal hill to die on. Even Prettyman is quoted as saying she has nothing against night meetings despite the fact she voted against the latest effort, which lost in a 3-3 tie because John Cannon was away tending to family matters.
My point is that we have a ready-made issue for the next election, and the dynamics are interesting.
The loudest opponents of going to a totally evening schedule have been Bill McCain and David MacLeod, both Democrats. We already know McCain isn’t running again, so presumably we can pick up a vote there.
Meanwhile, the Republicans on County Council have generally favored the switch. We all know Stevie Prettyman is running again as is Gail Bartkovich and presumably Joe Holloway. It leaves John Cannon and Sheree Sample-Hughes as swing votes; however, Sheree’s affirmative vote on the last proposal may be in some part because she is the first County Council member to draw an opponent in Dave Goslee, Jr.
Former Councilman Ed Taylor and newcomer Ryan Hohman are in the race for at-large County Council positions (one of which will open up with McCain’s departure) and their stance on the night meetings can be made into an issue as well.
So, I suppose my thought is not to sweat the small stuff but make it into an issue of good government where leadership on the concept can be rewarded this November at the ballot box.
Perhaps this was an exercise in civility or people are just resigned to their fate. But tonight’s public hearing concerning both the constant yield rate and FY2011 budget drew only about 70 people and little if any fireworks.
Let’s begin with the constant yield hearing, where Director of Finance Patricia Petersen carefully explained the legalese which in essence told us that the county was choosing not to lower the property tax rate to that where the revenue yielded would be the same (constant yield) but instead maintaining the same rate as last year. Instead of lowering the rate to 74.91 cents per $100, the rate will stay at 75.9 cents per $100 – that extra penny gained by keeping a stable rate will net Wicomico County $683,364 in additional revenue, yet no one commented. That state-mandated hearing was over in about three minutes. So while Rick Pollitt can say he didn’t increase the tax rate, it proves the old adage that “your results may vary.”
The remainder of the meeting was conducted by Council Administrator Matt Creamer. In essence, Creamer went through each department heading and solicited comments on each, saving the school budget for last. He also reminded us the budget process allows County Council to either pass the budget as is or pass it with cuts. They also can change allocations to increase the share for education (per state law) but the total budget has to remain the same by making cuts elsewhere.
Aside from education, the largest reaction came to the library budget. Library head Tom Heyman noted that 40 percent of the public relies on the library for government information, and that social media was even having an impact on the budget – a Facebook petition to save Pittsville’s library branch had garnered over 750 signatures.
Perhaps the most self-serving portion of Heyman’s remarks was his bringing up the videos being made at library locations to beg for sparing from the budget axe. By encouraging “victims” of library cuts to make this sort of scene they’re playing for emotion rather than hard facts.
On the other hand, local observer Kim Trenka used a car analogy of a Lexus versus a Honda to make her point about funding for a new library – however, there’s no money in this operating budget for a new library. (The capital budget may be a different story.) Yet Michael Calpino, another local resident, mentioned that branch hours aren’t being cut equally – the Bivalve library branch is proposed to be open just 12 hours a week. Taking 4 hours from the Centre branch and the Pittsville branch would bring the Bivalve branch back to 20 hours, a number Calpino would be “happy with.” He also suggested a fee could be charged for those out-of-county residents who use their services, particularly at the mall-based Centre branch.
After the rest of the budget was brought up, the floor was opened to general comments and Matt Trenka stepped up. His message was that the county needed to do more with less just as the Strategic Air Command did once the BRAC Commission made its recommendations. He also chided the County Executive for having a budget which was “worthless” in its lack of specificity and documentation and warned County Council not to “drink the (executive branch) Kool-Aid.”
While she didn’t dispute the lack of budget documentation, which was the subject of what she termed an “honest article” in the Daily Times last week, County Council president Gail Bartkovich mentioned that information was now more forthcoming.
In what seemed to be a much more conciliatory tone, both Board of Education president Mark Thompson and superintendent Dr. John Fredericksen pledged to help out as they could. Thompson noted the BoE was “working diligently” on addressing the budget needs while Fredericksen added, “we’re in this together.” Both were mindful of trying to minimize the effect on what Dr. Fredericksen called the “teacher-learner interaction.” Fortunately, thanks to a number of retirements the BoE was confident they could avoid layoffs.
Even local citizen Kay Gibson, a frequent critic of the BoE, was “impressed” with the board’s willingness to make painful cuts.
But not every citizen was pleased. Local political blogger and gadfly Joe Albero was disappointed that Delmar’s experiment with year-round school would come to an end as kids didn’t tend to retain knowledge over a long summer. John Palmer repeated his call that the two at-large County Council positions be eliminated.
Despite the best efforts of Creamer to close out the hearing before I had my say, I wasn’t denied. (I think he didn’t notice I was standing in the back patiently waiting my turn.)
The points I wanted to make were regarding two things: the lack of foresight I see in the budget presentation and the idea that, if this were to be considered a rock-bottom budget, perhaps now would be a good time to adopt TABOR rules. This would limit future spending increases to a factor comprising the growth of population plus the rate of inflation, computed as a percentage – for example, if population grew 1% and inflation was 2% spending could jump no more than 3 percent. It’s a legacy I believe we can live with.
Even with my closing comments, the meeting only ran 70 minutes – compare that to previous budget hearings and I think the people know that the die is now pretty much cast. There were only a dozen speakers, including myself.
As is usual practice, County Executive Pollitt did not attend the meeting but Public Information Officer Jim Fineran did represent the office.
Tomorrow the Wicomico County Council discusses the FY2011 county budget (as part of legislative session 2010-05.) Obviously a significant chunk of that budget will go to the county’s education funding and County Executive Richard Pollitt conceded “there’s no way” that Wicomico County will meet the state Maintenance of Effort requirements next year. It’s beyond questioning that money is going to be a contentious issue for those who were elected to take care of the budget.
However, the Wicomico County Board of Education (WCBOE) has come under some withering fire lately regarding the travel budget allotted to school personnel. Spearheaded by County Councilman Joe Holloway, this effort found the taxpayers were occasionally footing the bill for everything from meals at Hooters and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse to the morning coffee at Wawa. While most of the expenditures were on the up-and-up, the attitude reflected by those who abused the process (and paid for the previously-charged expenditures out of their own pocket once it was learned Holloway was on the case) was that of an entitlement mentality.
As mentioned before on my website, the present FY2010 budget has been revised, but in essence only 54% of the budget was at stake – the 46% belonging to the WCBOE was practically untouchable due to state mandates.
It is my belief – a belief shared by a growing number of people – that Wicomico County is not well served by having an appointed school board in charge of holding the schools accountable to the taxpayers. All but a handful of Maryland counties have gone to an elected school board, and I think its long past time to adopt the same here.
As the system stands now, the seven appointed members of the WCBOE come into office via a process rife with the prospect of patronage. Until a change is made, there will always be at least three Republicans and three Democrats on the board, with the pivotal seventh vote awarded to the party whose candidate won the last race for governor. Thus, the first Democratic vacancy which occurred after Bob Ehrlich was sworn in back in 2003 was filled by a Republican and the first GOP vacancy after Martin O’Malley came into office in 2007 was filled by a Democrat. To be more proper, vacancies were filled from a list provided by the local Central Committee of the respective party (so as a member of the Central Committee I had influence on any board member replacing Republicans, except the first GOP vacancy became a Democrat seat.)
If you look at things on that level, it’s clear that Wicomico County may have preferred a 4-3 GOP split based on who they selected as governor since Bob Ehrlich carried Wicomico handily. But the decision was taken out of their hands based on the statewide vote.
While I take my job seriously as a member of the Central Committee, it seems to me that the input of selecting those who are responsible for running our schools should be at a much higher level than a seven- or nine-member body. And looking at things from a strictly partisan basis I understand there’s a risk the voters could select an even more partisan mix of 5-2 or 6-1 Democrats based on voter registration numbers. (While it’s likely the BOE would be a “non-partisan” race, certainly the Democrats will be recommending a slate of candidates as would the GOP.) Yet this also provides an opportunity for those who are politically unaffiliated to have a greater say in affairs as well.
People who are passionate about education tend to be the ones who want to see more local control of their schools. They join the PTA or volunteer in the classroom in order to do their part for the school community.
But the process as it stands now doesn’t necessarily reward these attributes. The folks in Annapolis don’t have much of a body of work to judge would-be BOE members on – usually it’s just a curriculum vitae and application. An electoral system could be set up to allow district representation, giving a person who’s known to the parents of a particular school a better opportunity to serve at a higher level.
In the end, though, it comes down to accountability. The system we have now doesn’t provide for enough, and moving to an elected school board would give the people of Wicomico County the final say on just how a board member is doing.
We can get the process started with leadership on County Council. They can pass a measure to put a referendum on the ballot this fall showing the amount of support there is for an elected school board. Once that passes (as I’m confident it would) then the General Assembly could act accordingly and pass the law allowing BOE elections to occur beginning with the next general election in 2012.
That’s the easy road. If County Council refuses to act, the ballot measure would have to be achieved via petition and getting signatures is a time-consuming process. We could also be at the mercy of outside events, as a 2001 petition drive was shelved in the wake of 9-11.
Joe Holloway is already on record as supporting an elected school board, so I call on his fellow Republicans to lead the way and allow thoughtful Democrats to follow behind if a veto override is needed. Once we get this on the ballot, at that point we can work on just how the transition would be achieved, the question of staggering board members’ terms, and the like. That’s actually fairly easy since we have a number of counties to view as models.
The hard part is getting there, so I encourage the County Council to start the process soon.
In a hardly surprising move, the Wicomico County Council voted to accept the $300,000 per acre price for five acres across to the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center, spending $1.5 million in state money to purchase the land and put up a parking lot. The land had been used for years as supplemental parking for the WYCC anyway, but developers threatened to charge the county monthly rent and County Council chose not to call their bluff.
The vote was 4-3 to accept the offer, with Council President Gail Bartkovich and Councilmen Joe Holloway and Stevie Prettyman objecting. Previous to this vote, the Council did approve an amendment to make the purchase contingent on securing the promised Program Open Space money.
During the discussion preceding the vote, John Cannon asked whether the land was needed, but voted for it anyway based on the business interests behind it. Fellow Councilman Sheree Sample-Hughes termed her support as a “quality of life” issue. For his part, Bill McCain added the “stars are just right” for purchasing the land and spoke about the effort to secure the POS dollars – it was a “great deal.” David MacLeod cited a 3:1 ratio of e-mails in support vs. opposition.
On the other hand, “this is not a win-win situation for the county,” said Prettyman. Joe Holloway cited current economic condidtions as the reason for his opposition. Similarly, Bartkovich noted she could support this in “a better time and place” but for the public “the problem is the price.”
So now we’ve allocated the money to park near a white elephant with several weaknesses – the building is showing its age (built in the late 1970’s after its predecessor burned down in a spectacular fire), its capacity is too small to attract major sporting events and big-name concerts, and due to a legal covenant no alcohol sales are allowed on the site. In a decade or so, once regional economic fortunes turn around, the building will be a relic and the county will have this land – possibly along with another 15 acres adjacent to the newly purchased site at another $250,000 per acre.
Nor is the cost of converting the land from parking to parking factored in – the new purchase means the property needs to be compliant with new state regulations for storm drainage. Overall, the newly renovated site will provide parking for about 500 cars.
Perhaps the lot can be dedicated when it’s finished, and I have the perfect name to adopt for the new additional parking which will be used maybe 50 days a year: how about “Pollitt’s Folly?”
