Guthrie interivew

Part of the Guthrie interview is up...here. Enjoy!

Cassilly makes up his mind...

In this blogs debut post, I mentioned Councilman Robert Cassilly's reluctance to choose one way or another. In an article in today's Baltimore Sun, he officially says that he will not resign. I do not condone this willful neglect of his district.

However, he makes a point or two about not resigning: he was going to vote against the rezoning and in-district voting elimination anyway, so he feels the results were teh best in the county. He also hints at a disapproval of the candidates that may replace him, none of them named, of course...

"I am concerned that my resignation might result in a significant shift of the current balance of interests on the Council in a manner that would not be favorable to the citizens,"

This still leaves his seat unoccupied. The two tied votes were luck on his part. What if a bill comes the Council's way that he doesn't approve of that his vote would have made a difference. My great-grandmother always said that showing up makes all the difference.

People listen to others (in a more perfect union) and when hearing counter-arguments, would change their opinion. Keeping his seat when he's going to be away for a long time is negligent on his part. And before you pull his quote about how someone else being appointed to a post isn't fair to the voters, think about this: we didn't vote in David Craig, either.

to my readers

I recently removed the option for anonymous posts. This wasn't to keep people from posting, but rather a name attached to a message?

Let's say a debate started in the messages section of a post. I would like an open discourse among people. This is difficult when both people are 'Anonymous'.

I've posted my email on my profile. This will stay up until next monday (5/1/06). I'm willing to meet people both ways on this (possibly moving the blog to livejournal or some other blog, not sure).

Please let me know; I wish to cater to my readers.

2006 elections, Part II

District A has a nice election coming up!

Dion Guthrie (whom I have scheduled a tenative interview with) is running for re-election. His last four years has been quite inspiring and he fought for businesses and employees. He supports public health and education.

Opponents?

We have two!
Paula R. Mullis announced her candidacy first. Totting stronger police enforcement, immigration laws, the "blighted conditions" of the Edgewood area, and stronger faith-based initiatives.

She's running against...

... Christopher J. Biggs for the Republican primary. Biggs wants property tax cuts, gang training and an "increased presence" in the community. You can read more here.

I'm not going to tell the GOP who to vote for. My recommendation, obviously, will be for Guthrie. I will be interviewing him sometime in May. When I do, I'll put the transcript up as quickly as possible.

2006 Elections, Part I

GOPerative was more than willing to give his two cents on who he hopes wins in the fall. Problem: He doesn't give a darn reason why. If you're going to give a synopsis on who's running for what in the county, for the love of all that's intelligent in this world, please back yourself up with fact, not fangs.

Todays focus is on the County Executive race.

David Craig was appointed to his position after James Harkin resigned to take a job as director of Maryland Environmental Services. Craig, along with a few other county members, haven't seen a development bill they haven't liked, and will forsake all common sense in the name of commercial expansion. Craig's cronyism is also familiar to a certain Chief Executive I know, giving his wife and sister-in-law some jobs. Yay. This guy needs to go. All he has is experience is Havre De Grace, which is a nice area, but is by no means an excuse to say, "Hey, I can run the county!"

Ann Helton has announced her candidacy a little while ago. Her campaign newsletter clearly drove the message home with "intelligent growth". Helton has had experience with organisations that affect the whole state of Maryland, not just one municipality. She has a pretty comprehensive plan to revitalize a good portion of the Rt.40 corridor, smart move, actually. Have you ever driven down Rt. 40? With the swampish areas aside, the corridor is an eyesore of unfettered growth.

Make your own choice. I'm going with Helton in the fall.

MD Assembly 2006

The Maryland General Assembly session for 2006 has been over for almost a week now. In at least The Aegis, there are editorials blasting the Democratic members for blatant partisanship. The arguments fail to look at the source of the problem and instead blame the effect and not the cause.Lets take a look at a few, shall we?

1. The Assembly started out the session by overriding Gov. Ehrlich's vetoes of the "WalMart bill". That's a blatant slap in the face of the Governor's office.

*cough* Huh? Blatant? I'm sorry, did we forget something here? The Governor made a big show about how he was going to veto that bill. No real suprises when he did. It was an anti-worker veto. This was made apparant by the huge ceremony and the fundraiser Walmart held for Ehrlich in 2004. This veto was a slap in the face for the people of Maryland, and taunted the Assembly to override it.

Speaking of anti-worker, we have...

2. The Assembly overturned a veto to the proposed minimum wage bill sent to him last year.

Again, anti-worker. Let's do some math real quick. $5.15/hour*40 hours/week=$206/week x 52 weeks/year= $10,712. That number is way below the cost of living (this is before we even talk about the BGE rate hikes). $6.15/hour is not much better (comes out to $12K+), but its a good compromise. An extra $2k allows a person to pay rent on time. This is certainly not ideal, but the low-income workers have needed this for a long time.

3. All the vetoes the Assembly overturned kept them from the BGE deal.

Woah, pull the bus of overpretentiousness over right now! This would be the nine bills Ehrlich vetoed within a few days of the Assembly's end. The bills were...

• Stop a restructuring of Baltimore schools. (1)
• Mandate legislative oversight ofConstellation Energy-FPL Group merger. (2)
• Force Constellation to return $528 million in deregulation transition costs. (3)
• Replace the Public Service Commission members.
• Establish an arbiter in state employee collective bargaining.
• Require renomination of cabinet appointees by a second-term governor. (4)
• Establish early-voting polling places. (5)
• Ban political fundraising by University System of Maryland regents. (6)
• Establishes a limit on copayments the state drug benefit plan may charge.

I placed numbers by each bill for each one I'm going to comment on.

1. I'd love to hear from the Governor's mouth as to why he thought a veto on this bill would stand up against the majority that voted for it. This was a ridiculous attempt to bog down a legislative session that already had too much on its plate with BGE to deal with.
2. When Ehrlich wants to get something done, he gets it done quickly. He was dragging his feet because he knew this was a hot button issue that, if vetoed, would keep the Assembly from the BGE issue.
3. Constellation got over $500 million when energy became regulated. E.J. Pipkin, an Eastern Shore Republican was one of, if not the, biggest proponents of this bill. No residential competition arrived, and BGE's plants grew in value. There is no logical reason this bill was vetoed.
4. I'd like you to think as a legislator real quick. A bus/rail system is vital for many of your constituents, and the Transportation Secretary is poorly restructuring the bus system and holding money back from highway construction. The people from your district would rather have the "old system" back and really dislike the people in charge of the changes. Now that you've entertained this...do you really think that the legislators won't attempt to get someone else to take the helm?
5. Whether you're for or against this, a Democratic majority will sweep this through an override. To veto this, even if you think you have a legit reason for doing so, is only an attempt (yes, I'm saying this again) to keep the Assembly from doing something on the BGE rate hike.
6. Wow, a guy you personally put on the University of Maryland Board of Regents is helping you raise funds. Well this would be cool if this weren't a gross conflict of interests.

Argue my points all you wish, but this all boils down to election year politics. Ehrlich is cutting himself on the double-edged sword of politics and is trying to bring down as many people down as humanly possible.

District B election

Valerie Twanmoh has announced her candidacy for Harford County Council. This will be her third attempt to unseat incumbant Councilwoman Veronica L. "Roni" Chenowith. Its time Chenowith goes, too. Remember that she's the same Councilwoman who decided she didn't like business development and changed her vote on a rezoning issue that would have allowed a building owner to revitalize part of Rt.22. Most of this has been covered by GOPerative

Everyone in Harford County, Democrat and Republican alike should see that smart growth can keep the sites of HarCo beautiful and prosperous at the same time.