Funny Numbers

David Gertler should be on the school board. He is funny, smart and has a passion for mathematics yet twice now HoCo voters have chosen lesser candidates over him. As far as I’m concerned it’s a loss for our students.

Then again, we really haven’t lost him. Despite his electoral loss, David has remained engaged with the system by organizing the first countywide STEM Festival to be held Sunday, June 9^th at HCC.

He also does stand up comedy which distinguishes him from your stereotypical math geek.

David was one of those guests we felt we could jump right in with since he’s pretty well versed in HoCo issues. In fact, our freewheeling chat about HoCo loco stories almost didn't leave us enough time to talk about his upcoming festival.

We had plenty of news items to fill the show, particularly on the political front with the announced retirements of Senator Jim Robey and delegates Jim Malone and Steve DeBoy and Ken Ulmans budget.

You can listen to 88^th episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Brian the Blogger

It’s been awhile since I've picked on school board member Brian Meshkin. Lest anyone misconstrue this as being due to his threats of legal action, the fact is I've just been waiting for the right opportunity.

My wait is over. Recently Brian joined the HoCo Blogs community with his blog “Big Ideas,” which, written in the third person, describes its mission as reporting “on activities before the Board of Education of Howard County and other civic issues.”

“Anyone who knows Brian understands that Brian believes that Big Ideas can make the world a better place.”

Wordbones thinks that is nobly stated.

The difference with Brian's blog is that, unlike the majority of the other members of the HoCo Blogs community, he does not allow comments to his big idea blog posts. I find this a bit curious for someone who professes to believe in ideas. Not allowing readers to comment gives the impression that Brian only believes in big ideas that he puts forward. That seems to be rather small thinking for a big ideas blog.

On the other hand, commenter’s can be a bit irascible at times, particularly when they disagree with you. Dialogue about ideas isn't always pretty. Still, I believe that nasty comments are the exception rather than the norm and you can always delete any that go too far.

I guess I’m not really all that surprised though. In the past Brian has demonstrated that he doesn't like his notions to be challenged. For example, after commenting on a To2C post  about his business ventures he wrote that he’d be “happy to come on your show” to talk about it and then backed out the day before the podcast.

Then again, he didn't exactly show up at the HoCo Blogs party either.

Vanishing Postcards

A friend in Cleveland recently asked me to help out her fifth grader with a school project. The students were tasked with soliciting postcards from around the country. The postcards were to be mailed to the classroom and include a few pertinent local facts. It wasn't all that long ago that my own fifth grader received a similar assignment and I appreciated the response she received from friends and family so I readily agreed to help out.

It never occurred to me that I’d have difficulty finding a loco postcard. My resultant, albeit unscientific, research would seem to indicate that the business of picture postcards is going the way of Saturday mail delivery. There was a time that local picture postcards were easily found in any drug store. The once ubiquitous five foot carousel racks were commonly found near the registers.

They are not so easily found these days. On a recent visit to Walgreens I had to ask a clerk for help.

“Do you carry postcards?”

“I think we do.”

She led me to an aisle but we didn't immediately see them.

“Ah, here there are,” she said, somewhat surprised by her own discovery, "I thought we had them."

On the end cap of the aisle, on a portion of the top shelf, next to refrigerator magnets, sat a small carousel with a meager offering of cards.

Judging from this product placement I suspect it won’t long until they vanish from the shelves completely.

Two Hour Delay

A ripple effect is inevitable. When the school system declares a two hour retreat from the regular start time, the weekday rhythm for homes with school children is upended. At 10:30 this morning there was still a back up on Route 29.

For high school students it always welcome reprieve. Instead of rising before the sun on a cold winter day they get to linger in bed a bit longer, something that most teenagers I know seem to relish as much as anything.

For the rest of us it’s a scramble of rescheduling morning meetings and clearing off cars and driveways. A two hour delay is not a snow day where events are canceled and the there is a real possibility of working from home. A two hour delay day means arriving at work and already being two hours behind.

Dyer Consequences

It’s a been a week now since Judge Koteen upheld the impeachment of former school board member Allen Dyer and the ripple effect of that action is beginning to be felt. Prior to the ruling, Allen’s allies on the board openly defended him. Since the ruling they have been noticeably quiet.

Brian Meshkin and Cindy Vaillaincourt voted against the impeachment. In this article by Brandi Jefferson in Elkridge Patch, Cindy told the reporter “The very existence of this removal action ... constitutes a threat against me and chills my exercise of speech on behalf of myself and my constituents.” 

This past August Brian even sought to have Allen’s seat on the audit committee restored.

After hearing extensive testimony and weighing all the evidence, here are a couple of highlights from the judges's conclusion about Allen's service on the board:

"The Respondent's repeated efforts to act unilaterally without authority from the full Board, and contrary to positions adopted by the Board, interfered with the Board's efficient operations, and the Board's ability to conduct business and serve the best interests of the students of HCPSS."

"Although the Respondent was elected to his position, the statute relied upon by the County Board authorizes removal from office for misconduct in office even for elected Board members. I conclude that the County Board has established that the Respondent is responsible for misconduct in office under the Education Article, even though the Board did not prove that each of the allegations it raised constituted misconduct in office.  The Board did prove that the Respondent was responsible for repeated violations of important rules and policies that were sufficiently serious to establish misconduct in office and render the Respondent unfit to serve as a member of the County Board." 

The entire 100 page decision is a scathing indictment of Allen’s behavior. Those who openly supported him and allied with his causes are similarly guilty by association.

Or, as my mother used to say, when you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.

More on Dyer Decision

Last night former school board member Allen Dyer posted Judge Koteens' ruling on his dismissal on the howardpubliced discussion board.

In the 99 page decision, the judge levels several broadsides at Allen’s conduct as a school board member. A few of the highlights were:

“I have also concluded that the Respondent blatantly violated the confidentiality provisions of the Ethics Regulations and Policies after receiving unambiguous notice from the Ethics Panel 82 regarding his obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the Ethics proceedings.  His mass disclosure of the ethics materials was not justified by an anonymous and partially inaccurate leak of limited information or by erroneous advice from his private attorney.  The Respondent also disclosed other confidential information regarding the ethics investigation and invited Board members to attend the closed hearing even before the leak occurred.”

“I conclude that the Respondent's misconduct was substantial and harmful to the operations of the County Board and the school system.  The Respondent's blatant disregard of the confidentiality requirements of the ethics process demonstrated that the Respondent failed to accept that the Ethics Regulations and Policies applied equally to him as to everyone else.  He demonstrated disdain for the ethics process, the Ethics Panel, and its counsel, put his own interests above the confidentiality of other participants, jeopardized the Board's neutral role in handling ethics matters, and undermined the willingness of individuals to use the ethics process to resolve future ethics complaints by obliterating the confidentiality provisions.”

“The Respondent contends that his removal is improper because the County Board has violated his right to free speech.  The evidence does not support this claim.”

To2C was actually mentioned in the document under Findings of Fact items 99, 101, and 108. I am honored to be included in this document, even though in #108 the judge referred to me as Woodbones. 

Dyer Impeachment Upheld

Administrative Law Judge Douglas Koteen has ruled in favor of the HoCo Board of Education in their impeachment of former board member Allen Dyer. The judges’ ruling vindicates the actions of the school board members who voted for impeachment by finding Dyer guilty of most, if not all counts against him.

Janet Siddiqui, Sandra French, Ellen Flynn Giles, and Frank Aquino all voted in favor of impeachment. Brian Meshkin and Cindy Vaillancourt voted against the action. Alexis Adams, the student member of the board at the time, also voted in favor of removing Allen.

Count me as one of those who thought that continuing with these proceedings after Dyer was defeated in the primaries as a waste of time and money. I may have been wrong about that. This ruling sends a a pretty clear message to all current and future board members that behavior like this is unacceptable. That alone would seem to validate the effort.

No Room at the Inn

Two separate sources have recently informed me that new school board member Ann De Lacy showed up at the Board of Education headquarters the day after winning her seat on the board asking to be shown her office.

Apparently she didn't get the memo. Board members don’t get offices but I do understand they get a locker of some sort. Maybe that’s where she can store her rocks.

Fun with Numbers

The story about the county’s plan to build a new apartment complex for the homeless provided a surprisingly target rich environment for us this week. Preparing for the show earlier in the day both Paul and lamented that our selection of local stories for this news cycle were a little weak. As we talking I received an email from George Berkheimer, a colleague at The Business Monthly. He pointed out that in order to build this new complex the county would be replacing an existing 38 unit mobile home community called Beechcrest. The new development would have 33 individual apartments.

“That’s five in the hole, the way I count it,” he wrote.

Or more. Consider that most of those 38 units house more than one person. It seems as if the county housing department is just creating more work for our guest, Bita Dayhoff, the president of the Community ActionCouncil.

Bita is a gem and we are lucky to have her. She’s smart and incredibly charming. Three years ago I had the opportunity to work with Bita on renewing the lease for the Food Bank in Columbia. I found her to be a tough negotiator and a constant advocate for the less fortunate in HoCo. She sits on the front line of HoCo hard times.

We also talked a bit about Courtney Watson's anti bullying initiative. Courtney had proposed a resolution to “Encourage the General Assembly to provide the necessary resources to appropriate agencies to implement the use of multidisciplinary teams to address bullying, harassment, and intimidation among students.”

She has since tabled the bill. At best it had lukewarm support. The school board didn't even endorse it and it is questionable whether she had the votes on the council to get it passed. It was widely criticized as lacking any substance. As one of her colleagues on the council pointed out to me, even the people who testified at the public hearing in support testified more about the problem of bullying than about supporting the actual resolution. For example, Brian Meshkin spent his most of three minutes giving a campaign speech telling the council about everything he’s done about bullying. Courtney’s resolution merely provided him a jumping off point for another self promotion pitch.

You can listen to the 79^th episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Redistricting Humor

A To2C reader named Anna sent me this cartoon today. She said she “ is affected (effected?) by the BOE's new redistricting plan.”

“I asked my neighbor David Justice who is an illustrator to create a cartoon that was living in my head that sums up life in HoCo for parents with kids in the HCPSS.”

Thanks for sharing.

Teacher on Special Assignment

After pointing out that she was at the helm of an operation with a budget approaching a billion dollars, 50,000 students, 8,000 employees and 82 buildings, Renee Foose responded that she “is just a teacher on special assignment.”

She probably knows a thing or two about special assignments. She’s a former state trooper too.

Dr. Renee A. Foose is the first female superintendent of the Howard County Public School System and if I had to pick one word to describe her I’d go with genuine. There is something that seems very grounded and honest with her and that made conversation and discussion easy.

We talked about redistricting, grant monies, testing and the apology that the system made for promoting segregation ten years after the Supreme Court outlawed the practice in public schools. HCPSS may be the first school system in the country to apologize for what was then a pretty widespread practice. According to this story by Joe Burris in The Sun, “a historian with the Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, said he recalls many apologies for slavery and segregation, but he could not think of one that specifically addressed segregated schools.”

Dr. Foose told us that school board member Allen Dyer was particularly passionate about this. Is it just me or does anyone else notice that Allen is becoming more agreeable now that his board days are numbered?

In the loco news recap we discussed speed cams, zoning issues, parking and Twinkies.

So if you are looking for something to listen while driving to Alice's Restaurant for a Thanksgiving dinner, you can download the 78^th episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Voting Early...Or Not

I didn't vote early today. I didn't really need to do it today, but I thought I’d check out the scene anyway. I had heard that there were long lines and I wanted to see that for myself. The last time I voted early I breezed in and out.

There was no breezing in and out this afternoon at the Ellicott City Senior Center. The line snaked out the door and into the parking lot. Even on a bad day at my regular polling site the line has never gone outside. I’ll wait and vote in my hood next Tuesday.

If I had voted this afternoon I had intended to share my votes here. Even though I didn't vote, I decided to share with you how I intended to, on some of the loco stuff anyway.  After all, it's not like I'm going to change my mind before Tuesday.  On the other hand, the presidential race is so divisive I’m not so sure I want to share that vote. I will say that won't vote for Santa Claus. The line between politics and fantasy is blurry enough already.

Here’s the local stuff.

Board of Education

David Gertler

Ellen Flynn Giles

Jackie Scott

Question 3: For the Constitutional Amendment

Question 4: For the Constitutional Amendment

Question 5: Against the Referred Law

Question 6: For the Referred Law

Question 7:  Against the Additional Forms and Expansion of Commercial Gaming

Question A: For the Charter Amendment

Question B: For the Charter Amendment

Question C: For the Charter Amendment

Question D: For the Charter Amendment

Question E: For the Charter Amendment

If you’d like to educate yourself about the local charter amendments (A,B,C,D, & E) I recommend this excellent post by Tom Coale on HoCo Rising and, of course, this helpful guide from the Howard County Leaque of Women Voters.

Since I’m not voting on the big picture stuff today maybe I’ll drop into the Mobbies and put in a vote or two for a fellow HoCo blogger.

Sign Bandits

HoCo’s tolerance for illegal campaign signs has broken. Last week independent senate candidate Rob Sobhani blanketed HoCo roadways with multiple campaign signs in single locations. That apparently was the straw that broke the camels back. Up until now the county had tolerated campaign signs placed illegally in county right of ways and a few school board candidates took advantage of this. Last week all illegal campaign signs were caught up in a sweep by HoCo road crews. Loco candidates can thank Rob Sobhani for this change of heart.

Yesterday Mr. Sobhani made a brief campaign appearance at the Bain Senior Center early voting location accompanied by his own film crew. Council chair Mary Kay Sigaty was working the polling site on behalf of school board candidate EllenFlynn Giles when Rob, with crew in tow, approached her. After introducing herself, Mary Kay took the opportunity to upbraid the candidate for his illegal HoCo loco sign saturation. Rob tried brushing off the criticism by laying the blame on “overzealous” campaign workers.

Mary Kay wasn't having any of that. “"That's the excuse we all use,” she responded, “but ultimately, those illegal signs are your responsibility."

Well said.

A witness tells me that at this point the camera crew stopped filming.

Early Voting Begins Saturday

It’s finally time to begin making your choices. Early voting in HoCo begins this Saturday at three locations; The Bain Center in Columbia, Ellicott City Senior Center and Ridgely’s Run Community Center in Jessup.

By now all registered voters should have received their sample ballots from the Board of Elections. With all the questions being placed before voters in this election cycle it would probably be a good idea to fill out the sample in advance after reading up on the questions here, here and here.

For those who need a little help with the school board race, here’s my recommendation, if you skip the first two names and pick any three of the remaining four, you can’t go wrong. They are all excellent candidates.

Like Minds Pick Great Candidates

In an earlier post I singled out four of the six school board candidates as the best choices for our schools. Yesterday, Explore Howard endorsed three of them. In this editorial, the paper named David Gertler, Ellen Flynn Giles and Jackie Scott as their top picks.

I applaud their very wise choices.

Bandit Signs

New home builders refer to them as bandit signs; those signs that pop up every weekend in the right of ways promoting new housing developments. By local sign code they are allowed to remain up over the weekend but must be taken down by Monday or the county will take matters into their own hands.

In election season they are simply illegal signs yet seemingly every candidate, is guilty of this transgression. It’s okay to place signs on private property, with the property owners permission, but not in the public right of way. Enforcement is lax however, which only further serves to encourage  the practice.

Today I spotted a certain school board candidate who is really thumbing her nose at the regulations. Passing by Oakland Mills High School this morning I saw a line of her signs all along the road directly in front of the school.

While I think this says a good deal about the behavior of the candidate, I also think the school system should be ashamed for tolerating it.

Brain Food

Instead of watching the debate Tuesday night we headed into Baltimore for the first lecture in the Baltimore Speaker Series. I've often described these evenings as brain food. It’s not as if we escaped an evening of politics either, the featured speaker was Bill Clinton.

It is not all that uncommon for protesters to show up at some of these lectures. A few years ago when we went to hear Pervez Musharraf, a sizable group of protesters in the park across the street from the Meyerhoff greeted attendees. Tuesday night a handful of protesters were on hand for the 42^nd presidents appearance but their cause was much more benign. The signs they held read “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Hillary.”

Even if you don’t agree with the mans politics or find his presidential behavior to be abhorrent, you probably would have enjoyed his lecture. He spoke at length about the work of his foundation but also offered his perspective on current affairs, um, I mean events.

As reported in this story by John Fritze in The Sun, the former president told the audience “he is confident Washington will work quickly through the nation's looming fiscal crisis after the election despite predictions that partisanship will continue to leave the federal government gridlocked next year.”

It’s easy to forget that before the impeachment mess he actually enjoyed a pretty good relationship with Congress, much better than Obama has. That being said, he was hopeful that things would soon improve.

“He reiterated calls for Congress to adopt a 10-year budget plan front-loaded with new spending to boost the economy that would then begin to impose cuts to reduce the nation's debt in the out-years. He said the Nov. 6 election would be a defining event that would force Republicans and Democrats to work more cooperatively.

"I think you'll be surprised after this election," he said.”

Next up in the speaker series is Jeanette Walls, author of The Glass Castle. I doubt there will be any protesters for her but we’ll still enjoy another healthy serving of brain food.

Brian Backs Out

Last month, in a lively exchange on this post, school board member Brian Meshkin agreed to come on "and then there's that..." to refute some of the things I've written about him. After offering Brian three different dates he settled on our October 5^th show. Yesterday I sent him an email requesting a copy of his CV in advance of the show so Paul and I could learn a little more of his background. We did not consider this to be an unusual request. We've asked it of other guests over the three years we've been doing this and no one ever had a problem with it.

Until now.

This afternoon I received the following email from Brian:

“In light of your request for my CV yesterday, I spoke with our corporate legal counsel at Whiteford, Taylor, and Preston.  

In reviewing the written record on Dennis' blog posts, he has instructed me to "cancel" my appearance on the show based on what legal counsel has concluded to be "damaging defamatory attacks coming from Dennis Lane".   

Really?

I seriously question whether this unnamed attorney used the phrase “damaging defamatory.” As a member of the school board he should at least know that “damaging defamatory” is redundant. That's not the kind of thing you usually see from an attorney at a large firm like Whiteford Taylor.

I also like how he blames the last minute cancellation on this attorney. This podcast appearance has been scheduled since August 31st. Perhaps his attorney thinks he’s said too much already. There are lots of holes in Brian’s story about Salugen that Paul and I were hoping to explore with him. I suspect that this is somewhere that Brian would really prefer not to go.

To be honest, more than a few people told us that Brian would find some excuse to bag out at the last minute. It’s okay, the show will go on, only now it will be with an empty seat.

You Can’t Judge a Book by It’s Civility

This evening, while waiting for a friend at local watering hole, I struck up a conversation with the person sitting next to me at the bar. In relatively short order I found out that she was a teacher in the HoCo loco school system.

“I’d be interested to know what you think of the current school board race,” I probed.

“Well,” she said, “there’s at least one candidate I don’t think very highly of and would never vote for.”

“And who would that would be?”

“I prefer not to say,” she responded. “I’d prefer to keep that to myself.”

Fair enough. I was just about to compliment her for her civil political discourse when she added, “I do like that Dyer fellow though.”

And to think I  had  almost considered her to be a rational person…

HoCo Digital Divide

The Bright Minds Foundation has teamed up with the Howard County Public School System to help bridge the digital divide in the county. According to Paul Brown, a Bright Minds board member, approximately 2,000 students in HoCo do not access to a computer at home.

That’s a real impediment to learning, not mention parental involvement the process. The HoCo schools Aspen system allows parents to check academic progress on a daily basis, including homework assignments and test results. Without a computer in the home these families are at a distinct disadvantage.

Paul pointed out that use of the free computers in the library is limited to fifteen minutes, hardly enough time to conduct serious research. For some of these students even getting to the library is a problem.

The foundation accepts used computers but Paul pointed out that it costs, on average, three hundred bucks to refurbish a donated computer. In other words, monetary donations are preferred.

To date, Bright Minds has provided 400 computers to HoCo families. Their goal is to close the digital divide in three years.