We had very good turnout for our meeting this month as nearly three dozen members came to see our featured speaker, District 5 County Councilman (and definite fiscal conservative) Joe Holloway.
But as always we put God before country by reciting the Lord’s Prayer prior to the Pledge of Allegiance, and once the minutes were approved and treasurer’s report uttered – including the fact we’ve already paid for reserving Schumaker Park for our Crab Feast August 28th – we heard from our guest speaker.
Since Joe also spoke at last month’s Americans for Prosperity meeting I had already heard many of the points he had made. But some were worth repeating and we now knew how the vote on the Pollitt’s Folly parking lot had turned out. Joe said that he thought the county needed more land for parking, just not at $300,000 per acre – closer to a half-million per acre once construction costs were included. (Works out to about $5,000 per space by my own estimation.) Yet no one had thought to study the existing parking and grounds to see if things could be done more efficiently, said Holloway.
And then there was the prospect of the county buying more land nearby – not just 10 acres for an 8,000 seat stadium which Rick Pollitt apparently wants but possibly for a new main library. Holloway opined that this Old Mall land purchase may affect the price we pay for those pieces of property should the other projects come to pass. He was in the process of asking County Council about drafting a letter to local legislators to find out whether Open Space money could be diverted to take care of the roads.
Turning to another sore subject of his, Joe recounted the lengthy process of getting the school administration to comply with his request for travel expense records – the process took about four months from start to finish. What it revealed was a pattern of expenses which weren’t generally extravagant (for example, none of the money was spent on alcohol and Joe was pleased to find that) but perhaps not necessary – should the morning coffee at Wawa be charged to the taxpayer?
While “a lot” of the expenses were justified, noted Holloway, it was time to adopt a line-item budget for the county board of education. Since they couldn’t truly cut the funding for education because of state maintenance of effort restrictions, the education dollars needed to stretch farther. One observer noted he couldn’t get advanced reading materials for his classroom and another pointed out the situations where teachers needed to go out-of-pocket for supplies while others used the taxpayers’ dime for their dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. The problem, one observer said later, was that county employees “feel entitled” to do these things.
One other observation about the board of education fiasco was that it got little coverage in the local media because “the newspaper will not step on the toes” of Wicomico’s BOE. Yet the BOE was “out of control” according to Joe.
Another financial misstep was much smaller but it was one which still upset Joe because of the reaction. In bringing up the perhaps excessive cost of refurnishing some of the county courthouse, Holloway found he got “one of the most disappointing reactions” from County Executive Rick Pollitt. To Joe, his job was oversight and “tell it to the judge” was not what he wanted to hear.
One thing Joe was “proud of” was ending the prospect of those county employees convicted of stealing county property getting their full pension as legislation he helped push through allowed the county to withhold their share of pensions for future scofflaws.
Regarding those he’d worked with over the last three years, Holloway thought “we’ve been a good council” because they work well together even when they disagree.
At this point, the session turned to more of a question-and-answer one, with one club member asking simply, “what can we do?”
One of the most frustrating parts of his job, Joe noted, was the “different money aspect.” I took this to mean that the strings attached to some of the money we get from higher levels of government or county restrictions make it difficult to react when required.
Joe also was critical of how our land deals were negotiated, as someone asked that question of him. Apparently the department heads involved do the negotiation, and Joe pondered whether this shouldn’t be done through the County Executive or a designee with a background in these sorts of negotiations. “Our method of acquiring land is wrong,” said Joe. (Personally, I’d like to see a little bit of divestment rather than acquisition – but that’s just me.)
Holloway also told us the county’s budget had increased 39% despite the revenue cap, but now “every revenue source in Wicomico County is down” and “the state is cutting the devil out of the county(‘s share of revenues.)”
So things may be tough ahead, and there are many (myself included) who think Joe would be a good County Executive. Holloway was “very honored” that people were asking him to run, and if he did it would be an “unorthodox” campaign and tenure in office – “things would change.” But as far as his decision, the “jury is out” on it.
We appreciated Joe’s remarks, and it was tough to cut off the questions. But we had other business to get through, most importantly electing new officers. Since no nominations came from the floor, we had no need for elections and the officer slate remained nearly unchanged – the only substitution was at the Third Vice-President where Carl Kurten, Jr. took the place of Ryan Hohman.
Mark Biehl gave a quick update on the Young Republicans, who had finalized the date and venue for hosting the state convention (June 18 and 19 at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center) and their canned food drive, which is slated for Saturday, March 27.
The only item of business reported by Central Committee Vice-Chair Dave Parker was that we were still in the process of rescheduling our Lincoln Day Dinner based on Bob and Kendal Ehrlichs’ availability.
Matt Teffeau gave an abbreviated College Republican report, noting that state party Chair Audrey Scott would speak at their March 24 meeting, they are working on a fundraiser to be held at Uno’s, and their membership is up to 35 people.
With that, WCRC president Marc Kilmer announced next month’s speaker would be the rescheduled U.S. Senate candidate Corrogan Vaughn and the meeting will be March 22. As always, we enjoyed the get-together and look forward to hearing from Vaughn and any other GOP hopefuls who wish to speak before us. After March we have five meetings left before the primary so secure your speaking slots now.
