Wednesday, June 09, 2010

An Evening with Dennis Schrader

Dennis Schrader held a fundraiser last night at the offices of Davis Agnor Rapaport & Skalny in Town Center for his bid to reclaim the District 3 county council seat he last held in 1998. The event was well attended by his GOP colleagues including Senator Allan Kittleman, Delegates Gail Bates and Warren Miller, and County Councilman Greg Fox.

I attended this event because I happen to like Dennis and support his candidacy. It is also a good chance to talk local politics with both incumbents and challengers. I spent some time talking to school board candidate Robert Ballinger about the ongoing soil conservation district dust up and with Greg Fox about the influence of local blogs in the elections. Robert was curious as to what I thought about the ongoing tug of war between the county and the district over funding. I told him that I believed that the soil district has outlived its Depression era mission. Greg says he advises candidates to not get caught up in what is being posted in the blogs because the readership represents a small portion of the electorate.

Alan Kittleman and I also got into a little soil conservation district debate. He supports the district and insists that county needs an “independent voice” in reviewing development plans. I suggested that the county planning department is an independent voice and he suggested otherwise. He told me that he has heard of developers being shaken down by the county executive for campaign contributions in exchange for receiving favorable reviews of their plans. I told him that in my own experience in developing property in HoCo I have never had that happen nor heard of it happening from my development colleagues.

I was also able to revisit the “chicken house” issue with Alan. He believes that the environmental concerns over chicken waste are overstated. I told him I disagreed and suggested that perhaps we could have him back on our podcast to revisit this topic.

There were also people at the event enlisting signatures for the petition drive to put the Taxpayer Protection Initiative on the ballot this fall. The party faithful I spoke with last night were somewhat divided on the wisdom of this effort.

I spoke with some young Republicans who were not happy with Anthony Jordan’s position on Town Center redevelopment. I had always thought that Anthony was lukewarm to GGP’s plan to remake HoCo’s urban center but last night I learned that he might be more opposed to the plans than I thought. Anthony did not attend the event so he didn’t get to hear Dennis give the makeover his wholehearted endorsement.

8 comments:

Sarah said...

I am still trying to figure out who Dennis Schrader is... his website is useless in this regard. It's clear he has a lot of experience, but I don't really know anything about where he stands on anything. I also checked out the Howard County GOP website where he is listed as a candidate, clicked "What We Believe" and was led to a bunch of Reagan quotes.

I live in District 3 and have had the pleasure of speaking with Jen Terrasa. She helped me solve a small issue in my neighborhood. Right now my vote would be with Jen.

Granted, it's still very early and all. The onus is on Dennis to show me how he can represent me better than what I've got right now.

FreeMarket said...

WB, I completely agree with you about the soil conservation district. I like Alan Kittleman but he is hardly unbiased with respect to Ulman. If Kittleman or anyone else has information about Ulman shaking down developers for contributions in exchange for favorable reviews, they should take that info to the county auditor. That is a very serious accusation.

Tom Coale (HCR) said...

WB,
I wouldn't listen to Young Republicans who are starting out talking negative about Anthony, yet also represent that they know what he believes. Those are the same "Young Republicans" who send me love notes about "party unity."

(Could someone check to see if they sell Brugal rum in Maryland? Muchas Gracias!)

PZGURU said...

HCR - yes, Brugal Rum is available. I know that the HUGE liquor wine store on Route 198 in Laurel (right by the 295 junction) has it. I think that's the Corridor Liquor Store(?). BRUGAL is my favorite rum - my brother got me hooked on it.

FM - I tried on several ocassions to report issues and misdoings that I was aware of and was told "it will go nowhere" and "you're going to ruin your career". That came from a person in HR who was supposed to help employees with such issues. What a great feeling to know that if you blow the whistle on corruption, you will be demolished by the politicos in charge. Hell, I even called Larry Carson several times and he flat out didn't want to look into anything!!! Why? Because he has a HUGE bias in support of democrats.

Sarah said...

Corridor Wine and Spirits. God, I love that place.

Bob O said...

Corridor is great, but if you want to keep your business local, the wine shop in the old firehouse in downtown Ellicott City will special order anything you want, and they are very responsive. I recently ordered some esoteric adult beverages from Lebanon and Denmark through them, and they had it in days at a reasonable price. Next I'm going to try to get some Bundaberg Rum through them, from Australia. This will be a real test, because I think it is illegal in the U.S.

Wow, you can see what this blogger and these commentators are really interested in....

WB, nice post, I'd have like to attended this event, but chose to have part of my ongoing root canal instead (seriously, and it was finally completed tonight). Thanks for the coverage.

I agree with you on the chicken waste, and disagree with you on the soil conservation district. Exercise for the readers: what particulate matter does the chicken waste attach itself to in order to run downstream as a non-point-source pollutant and impact The Bay? Answers in five words or less.

Tom Coale (HCR) said...

You guys rock! Thank you!

Michael Ratcliffe said...

Sarah,

If you're looking for what Dennis has done in the past, visit High Ridge Park in North Laurel. Plans for the park had basically stalled back in the 1990s. Dennis, working with the North Laurel-Savage Planning Committee (which he helped organize), pushed for the money for planning, which eventually led to development of the park (which occurred when Guy Guzzone was our council member). Work is also starting on North Laurel Park and community center-- Dennis was instrumental in pushing for acquisition of land and funding for the park/community center.

Dennis took a very active interest in the North Laurel area, which had long been neglected by folks up in Ellicott City. He was adept at building broad consensus; sought practical solutions to issues; and laid the groundwork for improvements that are finally coming to fruition.