When the Chief of Police agreed to come on our show I was prepared for a rather dull interchange with a lot of “Yes sirs” and “No sirs.” Obviously, I didn’t know Bill McMahon. Our HoCo top cop is a very engaging guy who gives as good as he gets in an interview. It was an unexpectedly fun show.
His appearance was pretty timely too given the police shooting last week of Jeffrey Nichols in Elkridge, the school bus incident in North Laurel and the expiration of the new speed camera warning period this week. We also got a chance to hear Bills thoughts on police technology, local police priorities and what is like to come to come up through the ranks to the top job in HoCo.
It was also a loaded news week. We talked about the controversy over the pilot program for women only swim times at the Columbia Swim Center, the MDOT / CSX public workshop for the proposed intermodal terminal, school redistricting and the charter review commission. Paul also talked about an article in the Baltimore Business Journal that found Ellicott City and Columbia to be among the top 25 of smartest communities in the U.S.
We also debuted a new feature we call our “Rants.” This is a short segment at the end of the show where each us shares something that we want to rant about. Paul focused on a new requirement for Small Business Administration loans for borrowers to certify that they have never been convicted of or pleaded no contest to sexual molestation of a minor while I ranted about the desecration of the Thanksgiving holiday by some major retailers.
You can listen to the latest episode of “and then there’s that…” here.
