Lt. Governor Ulman

My friend, and HoCo loco political operative, Roger Caplan has generally dismissed the notion of Ken Ulman playing backup quarterback to the guv. “I can’t see Ken carrying a clipboard,” he likes to say.

Maybe he can’t but apparently Ken can. The prospect of a Brown-Ulman gubernatorial ticket is beginning to look like a done deal.

According to this story by John Wagner in The Washington Post “several people familiar with talks between Brown and Ulman described the Howard executive as the clear front-runner for the No. 2 spot on Brown’s ticket.”

“Ulman’s interest in the job has been prompted in part, the sources said, by a growing realization of the challenges he would face in winning the nomination and a sense that he is young enough that he could run for governor later in his career.”

It would be a pretty formidable ticket.

"Brown, a former delegate for Prince George’s County who served a tour of duty in Iraq as an Army reservist, is the handpicked successor of O’Malley (D), who is term-limited and weighing a 2016 presidential bid. If elected, Brown, 51, would be Maryland’s first black governor and only the third African American elected governor in the country since Reconstruction.

Ulman has gained recognition for expanding access to health care in his county, among other initiatives. Now 38, Ulman was 32 when first elected, making him the youngest county executive in Maryland’s history."

Those aren't my words. Those are a real reporters perspective and provides a great story line for a campaign.

A narrative like this coupled with the support of the incumbent guv immediately makes Brown-Ulman the front runners.

Piling On

The twenty seven second video of an after school altercation at Long Reach High School in Columbia has become a lightning rod for caustic commentary on Columbia Patch. Predictably, a couple of school board candidates attempted to fan the flames of the viral video hysteria in order to further their own political ambitions. 

I’m not so sure that this is a great strategy. The comments are more about schoolyard taunts than they are a thoughtful discussion of school violence. Andrew Metcalf, the Patch reporter who wrote the story, has deleted at least five comments that he apparently felt went little too far. You can only imagine how bad those comments must have been when you consider that the following ones were deemed acceptable:

  

“You're not a concerned parent, you're psychotic.”

"I'm sure that there are still SOME good teachers left, but in general, a POX on the teachers and their greedy union bosses!

We live in one of the top counties in the nation and you are all acting like we're a bunch of misbehaved ignorant kids. You're the ignorant ones"

"shutup"

Fighting at Long Reach is as frequent as heroin at River Hill

"First of all, I'm not a drug addict and I do not go out every night. I am an AP student. But the fact is that when I do go out to have a good time I get all my illegal shit from people that go to Centennial, Mt. Hebron, and River Hill HS."

"Everyone is stupid. Long Reach is Stupid. Howard County is Stupid. Let's move on"

"I deserve to be world star hip hop. I woulda punched the foo in the mouth. See me in baseball"

"Most of you are pathetic. From an unbiased view, most of you seem like out of touch snobs"

Choose civility indeed…

The Disciples of Wind Power

Despite a preponderance of data that suggests the guvs proposed wind farm is a bad idea, its proponents are waging an aggressive campaign to get it passed. According to this story by Aaron C. Davis and Greg Masters in The Washington Post, a coalition of “steelworkers’ union members, health-care providers and religious groups,” are rallying behind Governor O’Malleys plan.

“If Gov. Martin O’Malley’s controversial plan to require ratepayers to subsidize development of an offshore wind farm passes, the calls, e-mails and visits from members of this unique coalition will have played no small part.”

Some members of this coalition are approaching the issue with a certain religious fervor.

One of them was activist Lise Van Susteren, a Bethesda psychiatrist who staged a brief run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland as a Democrat in 2005.

“I now know enough about what’s happening to people’s health to say anybody who doesn’t support this legislation has blood on their hands,” Van Susteren said.

Really?

I guess I'd better go wash.

Word of the Year

On NPR’s Morning Edition this morning, Linquist Ben Zimmer talked with Renee Montagne about the American Dialect Society “Word of the Year” competition. Last year the society choose “app” as its word, the year before that it was “tweet” and in 2008 it was “bailout.”

The front runner for this year is “occupy.”

If you think another word from popular American culture is worthy of consideration this year, you can send in your own nomination.

“Nominations can be sent by email to woty@americandialect.org, tweeted to the Twitter user name @americandialect or using the hashtag #woty11, or they can be posted on our Facebook page.”

My nominee is “unfriend.”

HoCo Housing Holds Up

Home values in HoCo have weathered the housing recession better than the rest of the Baltimore Metro area. According to this post on Jamie Smith Hopkins Real Estate Wonk blog in The Sun, as of June, HoCo home prices were only “7 percent less expensive than the typical sale in 2007, when prices peaked, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems data. Harford, the next closest, saw double the drop.”

“The reputation of its school system and its location between Baltimore and Washington have worked to Howard County's advantage for years, so it's not a complete shock that it might fare relatively better in rough times. But goodness, prices are still double what they were in 2000. In June, at least, Howard's median sale price was up about half a percent over the year before, which in turn was up over the year before that.”

Then again this is only the overall picture. In certain price points the value drop has been considerably higher. In my Ellicott City neighborhood, where new homes sold in the $700K to $800K range in 2007, the average value has declined by approximately 20%.

...and we are not even near a proposed intermodal site!

Bifurcated Elkridge

HoCo loco blogger TJ Mayotte recently wrote a column for Elkridge Patch where he lamented how I-95 divides his community.

“Our sense of community should not be split by a mere highway, and we should not allow our self-perception (or deception) to create a town divided. There are many outside forces working against a solidified Elkridge; we should not be one of them. Our elected officials represent portions of our town, none the whole, dividing their attention with other communities. Major roads run against us, and the sway of our neighbors (Columbia, Ellicott City, and Baltimore and Anne Arundel Counties) seeks to pull us apart.”

And yet that is almost certainly the reality on the ground. Even the state sees it as such. In the most recent “Brief Economic Facts” for HoCo prepared by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, the Maryland Department of Planning separated Ilchester from Elkridge, showing Elkridge as having a population of 15,593 and Ilchester with 23,476.

I believe many folks living in “Ilchester” feel more aligned with Ellicott City than with Elkridge. Market researchers have long acknowledged that major barriers like rivers and highways create both real and perceived separation in communities. Even in Columbia there are those who feel the difference between the east and west sides of Route 29.

TJ thinks this house divided is unhealthy for Elkridge.

“Secession is not an option. Upper, Lower, Harwood Park or Rockburn, we are one community with shared concerns. We would do well to remember that.”

He faces an uphill battle with this notion. I am not convinced that the east side of I-95 shares the same concerns with the west side.

The Sun Shines on 317am.net

HoCo loco arts blogger, George Clack, was featured in this story by Janene Holzberg in The Sun today. The Columbia resident is the co-author of 317am.net with longtime colleague Steve Altman. He also teaches a course at HCC entitled “So You Want to Blog.”

I liked what he had to say about blogging too.

"The most fundamental reason why I blog is to find out what I'm thinking," he said. "And that exercise forces my mind to work at a higher level."

Nicely put.

Parting with Patch

The original editor of Columbia Patch has departed with the online community news site. David Greisman, who in less than a year became a very familiar HoCo loco face, resigned last week.

I got to know David during his brief run with Patch and he asked if I’d put his parting message on Tales of Two Cities. As he put it “I just figured I'd say a goodbye in lieu of writing one on the Patch website itself.”

I’m more than happy to oblige a fellow HoCo chronicler.

David’s Patch Parting Message

“As Tom referenced earlier this week, I’m no longer with Columbia Patch, the local news website I’d headed since August 2010 and launched in October; my last day was July 5. In the days before and after, I’ve reflected on the value of these past months – not just with the company, but with the community, too.

Like many who grew up in Columbia, I wanted to spend some time away from my hometown. And I did, spending two years finishing my education in Carroll County, then going much, much farther away, cutting my teeth as a news reporter for three years in a somewhat quiet corner of New Hampshire.

I arrived back in Columbia in July 2010. I didn’t have a job. And I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to work in journalism anymore. 

I fell back in love with Columbia. Because of that, I truly loved the work I did as a journalist here.

I’ve been fortunate to be part of an exciting, challenging venture, becoming part of this rich mosaic of information here in Howard County, from the quality coverage from The Baltimore Sun and the Columbia Flier/Howard County Times, to the many dedicated bloggers whose voices add so much, to my colleagues at Patch and the valuable work they’ve put in.

I sought to write both the stories that nobody knew about that deserved to be told and the stories that everybody knew about that deserved to be told right. I was able to work with professional freelancers who gave more depth to the local news coverage. I took special joy in mentoring some younger writers, in particular a crew of eager sports reporters who never minded spending the extra time.

There is a lot that goes into being a local editor for Patch. The company had initially recruited me for Westminster, where I went to college and where I had interned and freelanced for The Baltimore Sun. I held out for Columbia.

My hometown is where I had more insight into what stories needed to be told and why. My hometown is where I could see on a friend’s Facebook status that Michael’s Pub was closing, and where I would immediately know how much that story would resonate with readers.

I loved what I did here until the very end. So why did I leave? Because I was no longer the right fit for Patch’s direction.

It was a difficult decision, and I felt such heartbreak in making it. So many of you in this community have supported me, whether it was through your coming to the website, sending out links to articles we’d written, telling others about Patch, contacting us with story ideas, or even just saying hello when you saw me around town.

I didn’t want to let you down by leaving. But I am wholly confident that whomever ends up replacing me (the competent, friendly assistant editor and Columbia resident Lisa Rossi is temporarily filling in) will work hard to pick up where I left off.

I’ll still be rooting for Patch, just as I do for the newspapers, blogs and others whose work makes this community a better one.

And I’m still looking to be involved with Columbia and Howard County. I left Patch in the same way I left New Hampshire, giving myself time to hunt for jobs and figure out what the next step should be.

I arrived back in Columbia in July 2010 not sure what I’d end up doing and where I’d end up living.

I’m confident now that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Defending the Indefensible

Not everyone in HoCo is pleased with the impeachment of Allen Dyer from the school board. Some of his supporters have even gone so far as to suggest that his removal from the board will actually hurt the school system.

That is to be expected. Democracy isn’t always pretty.

What I find interesting though is that even Allen’s allies on the school board used words like “obnoxious” and “jerk” to describe their friend.

In his defense of Allen during the impeachment proceeding, Brian Meshkin, twice referred to Dyer as a “rogue board member.” Cindy Vaillancourt cited his “obnoxious behavior” and even admitted that though she was voting against the impeachment this time she “believes it might come to this at some point.”

She believes!

Brian Meshkin told his fellow board members that he was “torn by this issue” even though “he finds it morally wrong for a sitting board member to have decimated the integrity of the ethics panel process by breaking the confidentiality the process.”

He called Allen’s methods “insanity.”

Yet still, he voted to support him.

The deliberations make for great HoCo loco political theatre. At one point Allen even stated that student council leaders are “public figures.”

Seriously?

You can watch the entire proceeding here.

It is actually great fun to watch Brian and Cindy squirm in their seats as they attempt to defend the indefensible. I think Brian says “um” about a hundred times.

New Look @ Explore Howard

Patuxent Publishing has totally revamped their web presence with a new website that debuted today. In the process, the community paper appears to have purged it’s comments section. Many will say that this was long overdue as the commenting on Explore Howard had made HoCo loco blog comments actually look tame by comparison.

I wonder how “long reach david”, “citizen taxpayer jane” and the rest of the Explore Howard commenting regulars feel this morning now that their previous diatribes have been deleted. It will be interesting to see if the new format  includes actual comment moderation. The posted policy shows some hint of that they will. 

"COMMENTING POLICY: Readers are encouraged to post comments that are germane to the article. We reserve the right to remove any user, and to delete comments that contain abusive language or personal threats, as well as those that are racist or demeaning. Readers may report comments by clicking "Report Abuse." Once a comment has been flagged, a Baltimore Sun staffer will investigate. Click here for more information on commenting."

Maybe they’ll just have to start their own blogs now.

Checking Out Other Peoples Houses

Basically that’s what a home tour is, you get to go and check out other peoples houses without appearing to be too nosy. This Sunday you can do that at the Second Annual Columbia Home Tour. In one of those rare but wonderful moments of total Columbia cohesion, the ten villages of Columbia collectively put this together which insures that you get a pretty good representation of Columbia's varied housing. Last year the tour included homes in Wilde Lake, Harper's Choice, Long Reach and Oakland Mills. This year the tour visits homes in Owen Brown, Kings Contrivance, Hickory Ridge, Town Center and Dorsey's Search.

Of course not just any home gets to be on the home tour. You need to be selected. Joan Lancos, the Special Events Coordinator for the Village of Hickory Ridge, is the home tour czar. She has the final say in who’s home is in and which homeowners are left with a list of things to work on.

Just kidding about the list.

Anyway, Joan tells me its her “job to find the homes. I get suggestions from people, we advertise for volunteers, and I literally cruise the streets looking for promising homes.”

“We try to find a variety of homes styles: single family, townhouses, maybe a "WOW" home. This year's wow is the historic home in Kings. Last year we had a 6000 square foot home in Hobbits Glen! I also try to find interesting or unique locations. Both years we have had lake homes. Last year a home had a really interesting art collection. Most homes have had some kind of renovation to the traditional tract style home so popular in Columbia. Finding the homes and then convincing the homeowner to allow 400 people through on a Sunday afternoon is lots of fun!”

I bet. I don’t think Mama Wordbones would be very receptive to the notion of four hundred strangers walzing through our house on a Sunday afternoon. Then again we'd probably be one of those who get the list.

The tour is this Sunday from 11 AM to 5 PM. Tickets are twenty bucks and available at all Columbia village center offices. It’s for a good cause too. Proceeds will benefit “One Month’s Rent Initiative,” a non-profit that helps Howard County residents who are threatened with losing their housing.”

Memorial Day 2011

Because it isn't just about picnics and pools....

HoCo Rules High School Lax

Two HoCo high schools came out on top in the state lacrosse championships this past week. On Tuesday night the Marriotts Ridge Mustangs girls lacrosse squad dominated the Knights from Century High School in Sykesville 8 to 4 while the Glenelg Gladiators survived a nail biter against the Huskies from Patterson Mill High School in Belair.

Carol Gralia reported on the girls win in this story in the Columbia Flier noting that, “The play Tuesday wasn’t always pretty for two teams that combined for nearly 600 goals this season, but that’s a mark of the intensity that each team brought to UMBC.”

“Wow!” said Marriotts Ridge coach Natalie Gaieski, summing up her team’s newly minted state title. It is the first girls team championship at Marriotts Ridge, and comes in the school’s fifth year as a varsity program."


Impressive.

Additional coverage of the Mustangs victory can be found here and here.

The Glenelg boys had a big night Tuesday too. The Gladiators took the boys 2A/1A state lacrosse title in a closely fought contest with Patterson Mill.

According to this story by Brent Kennedy, also in The Columbia Flier, the game was “often sloppy, with both teams struggling with turnovers and going through lengthy stretches without a goal. The Gladiators committed 19 turnovers and were held to their lowest offensive output of the season.”

“But Glenelg (18-1) came up with enough defense and timely offense to hold off a Patterson Mill (12-7) team playing in its first state title game.”

This is the Gladiators third state championship in five years.

More on the Gladiators triumph can be found here and here.

Congratulations to both schools, and their parents, teachers and fans.

Al Jazeera in EC

Today, while I was in downtown Ellicott City, I spotted a camera crew filming on Main Street. My curiosity got the best of me so I crossed over and asked what they were doing. There were two guys, a casually dressed camera guy and a reporter type sporting a dark wool overcoat with a red scarf.

“We’ve come out to Main Street to see what people outside of the centers of power think about the incoming Congress and the specter of impending budget cuts,” the guy in the overcoat told me. He had a British accent. He then asked if he could ask me a few questions on camera.

“Who are you with?” I wondered.

“We’re actually with AJE, it’s associated with Reuters,” he answered. He seemed a bit reticent about disclosing much.

“Do you have a card?”

“No actually I don’t,” he replied. He told me his name was John, or was it Jon?

Anyway…

I was up to having having a little fun so I told him he could go ahead and interview me on camera.

“What do people on Main Street think of the specter of government spending cuts from the new Congress?”

I joked that I had only been elected as the official spokesperson for Main Street America last night so I really hadn’t had a chance to get a consensus from my peeps yet. I then went on to say that, in general, everyone thinks that government should be cut, except of course those tax breaks and programs that they rely on.

When we finished I again asked where they were from. Jon (or John) told me that they work out of DC.

“What was the name of the company again?” I asked.

“AJE” he said.

Back at the office I checked out AJE on Google.  

There goes any chance I ever had of getting a security clearance.

Babs is Fed Up

Having failed to stop the Columbia Town Center redevelopment plans, Columbia’s self proclaimed first mother, Barbara Russell is now “fed up.” In this letter to the editor in The Columbia Flier she takes issue the members of the county council, particularly her Oakland Mills neighbor Dr. Calvin Ball who insinuate “that any citizens who don't totally support every single developer proposal concerning downtown Columbia "... have been against redevelopment from the beginning.”

Uh, I believe Barbara actually has been against redevelopment since the beginning. Of course she would counter that she isn’t against redevelopment, she’s just against this redevelopment…from the beginning.

The battle has taken it’s toll on Babs though. She is now throwing up her hands and advocating for a casino in Town Center.

“I am so enthusiastic about the possibility of a casino that I am thinking about starting a support group. I think a support group is needed because there are so many other Columbia groups supporting the environment and such and they probably would oppose a casino. I am thinking of calling the group "Columbia Today."

I suppose that having failed using scare tactics to swing public opinion, she’s now decided to try sarcasm.

Good luck with that Babs.

Wine Whine

My HoCo blogging brethren have been weighing in on the latest developments in the direct shipment of wine issue lately. 53 Beers on Tap wrote that the “Maryland Wineries Association LOVES this report, giving it a 9.5 out of 10.”

Sarah cautions that this issue is far from settled and that we should “stay tuned, I suppose, for further developments”

HoCo Rising sees a glass half full in the Comptroller Peter Franchots recently released report pointing out that “the consumer options have only been marginally expanded.”

I agree with Tom. The Comptroller appears reluctant to encourage any further marginalization of Maryland's three-tier system of liquor distribution. The Comptroller still doesn’t want us to be able to buy alcohol from an out of state retailer. According to this story by Scott Calvert in The Sun, “the report frowned on the idea of letting out-of-state retailers — as opposed to wineries — ship wine directly to consumers.”

“At a news conference in Annapolis, Franchot said, "It's crucial to the passage of this bill that we not open up all of our wonderful Maryland retail establishments to just incredibly aggressive marketing by out-of-state retailers that are undercutting them on price. That is not a good component."

That is just so wrong. Why can’t our retailers use this as an opportunity to build a larger business for themselves?

The hero of Scott Calverts story is Mitch Pressman, owner of Chesapeake Wine Company. Mitch welcomes competition.

"While a lot of retailers are afraid of the competition, I welcome the competition," Pressman said. "More availability creates more interest in wine drinkers."

More Renter Bashing

In yet another affront to renters, Max Read reports in Gawker that Judson Phillips,,the president of a “prominent Tea Party group” believes that that renters should not be allowed to vote.

“The Founding Fathers... put certain restrictions on... the right to vote... you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense."

Of course those same founding fathers felt the same way about blacks and women.

The Prince Georges Handshake

When your county political culture is shrouded by a federal investigation of bribery and corruption, you tend to make some adjustments to your interactions with your colleagues. According to this story by Paul Schwartzman in The Washington Post the recent arrest of the outgoing county executive and his wife and three members of the county police force has “fueled speculation about who will be next - whose home and office will be raided and whose records will be subpoenaed.”

"Tom Hendershot, a former Prince George's County Council member, ran into a buddy the other day, a zoning lawyer he has known for years, and gave him what he likes to refer to as the "Prince George's handshake."

"You know," Hendershot said with a throaty chuckle, "you rub each other all over and make sure there's no one wired." 

And just like that, our loco political lexicon gains a new phrase...

It’s Always the Other Guy, Not Me

In listening to the Ron Smith Show on WBAL this morning I was struck by an exchange between Ron and his guest, Matthew Olshan. Ron had just finished railing about the bias of the so called “mainstream media” when Matthew called him on it.

“But aren’t you the mainstream media?”

“No, I’m just a talk show host.”

and then there's that...

Back Home

We wrapped up our Thanksgiving trip yesterday and arrived back in Baltimore at eight o’clock last night. After five days of warm and sunny weather the blast of cold air that hit us as we stepped off the plane was a fitting reminder of our return to reality.

Once again, our journey through the security checkpoint at the Jacksonville airport was smooth and unremarkable. The body scan machines were in place but weren’t being used. I did not see any pat-downs.

It turns out that the travelling public opted out of the National Opt-Out Day as well. According to this story by Jeffrey Rosen in The Washington Post, “many appeared to have opted out of opting out. The TSA reported that few of the 2 million people flying Wednesday chose pat-downs over the scanners, with few resulting delays.”

I suspect that the TSA may have gotten the message anyhow.

Since all of my sisters Thanksgiving guests had flown in for the feast, the subject of airport screening was a topic of conversation. No one reported any issues with their own screening. A few suggested that the TSA should use profiling like the Israelis. I think that is easy to say for a group that likely wouldn’t fit any threat profile, but it is an idea that seems to be gaining some popular support. The dust up over Juan Williams firing from NPR after his comment to Bill O’ Reilly on Fox News about profiling has only added to the debate.

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Rosen also reported that the current use of full body scans and pat-downs may actually violate our constitutional rights.

“Although the Supreme Court hasn't evaluated airport screening technology, lower courts have emphasized, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in 2007, that "a particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it 'is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives.' "

And therein lies the problem. The full body scan technology hasn’t proven to be that effective in detecting explosives.

“A member of Britain's Parliament who evaluated the scanners in his former capacity as a defense technology company director concluded that they wouldn't have stopped the bomber who concealed the chemical powder PETN in his underwear last Christmas.”

I wonder if they would have noticed it had they touched his junk.