Broadband and Ballinger

Even after spending twenty minutes talking to the guy behind HoCo’s latest broadband initiative, I am still having difficulty grasping the full implication of this new federal grant. Ira Levy, the HoCo Director of Technology and Communications Serviceswas our guest on “and then there’s that…” yesterday. On the one hand it was nice to take a partial break from the loco politico stuff that has dominated our recent shows yet I found the topic a little hard to wrap my arms around. Perhaps it is because the possibilities of linking primary schools, community colleges, libraries, government and healthcare institutions in ten Maryland jurisdictions together in a broadband network are limited only to the imagination.

I will say that at least I know more now than I did before the show.

It was only a partial break from loco politico stuff because school board candidate Bob Ballinger had joined us for the two minute segment (which usually exceeds two minutes but we’re working on that). At the HoCo Blogtail party the night before I learned that Bob was involved in a sign war battle where he was accused of improperly removing David Proudfoots signs. The police were called but in the end no charges were pressed. Bob defended his actions by saying that he was only removing signs that didn’t have the property owners permission to be there. He said he had been followed around recently by someone in an "Obama car," whatever that is, who was recording his every move and they were the one who eventually called the police. I’m not sure who is right in this little dust up but it is indicative of the heightened emotions as we head into the final weeks of the silly season.

You can listen the 26^th epipisode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Green Light for Green Development

Don Reuwer has secured financing to move HoCo’s first “Green Neighborhood” forward. Back in March he received preliminary sketch plan approval for the development from HoCo. According to the most recent issue of the Howard/Arundel Report, Reuwers firm, Land Design & Development has now secured an $8.6 million loan from Eagle Bank to begin work on the development near the intersection of Beechwood and Ilchester Roads in Elkridge.

The project known as Locust Chapel will include 64 single homes on 36.5 acres. Ryan Homes, the builder for the development, is developing a green house for the new community.

Site work is expected to begin within the next 60 days.

HoCo 27th in Sex

In this month's issue of Men’s Health magazine, the editors ranked 100 American cities for levels of sexual activity. Using data derived from condom sales, birth rates, sex toy sales, and cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, to determine “national nookie rates’ they ranked Baltimore at number 28 and Washington, DC as number 26. That would put HoCo right about 27.

The top ranked city was Austin, Texas while Portland, Maine came in dead last. I knew Portland was cold but I didn’t know it was that cold!

Blogtails

The only problem with a local gathering of bloggers is that all the attendees will eventualy want to blog about it and last night’s blogtail party was no exception. This morning you can read posts from HoCo Rising, 53 Beers on Tap, and Frank Hecker, as well as a Twitter thingy from JessieX about the evening at Kloby’s Smokehouse.

I can’t resist the urge to comment either. This is actually the first blogtail party I’ve attended in awhile. In fact, until the last minute I didn’t think I’d be able to make this one. I’m glad I did. These gatherings have come a long way since the inaugural one at Clyde’s four years ago. Four years ago the gathering was small, maybe six or seven people. Last night there were about 30 people that not only included bloggers but also blog readers, media folk and politicians. Even Mama Wordbones came, her first ever attendance at a blog event!

I can’t begin to name all the people who attended because I never got to work my way all through the crowd. That’s okay, that’s what happens at a fun gathering, you go home wishing you had gotten to talk to more people.

I did get to speak at length with Jeff Robinson, one of the Repub candidates for the House of Delegates in District 13. We had a good laugh about the Howard County Times split decision between him and Shane Pendergrass on whom to endorse. Talk about opposite ends of the political spectrum! I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall during that discussion. 

Dennis Schrader, the Repub candidate for the District 3 County Council seat, also dropped by to mingle with the bloggers, offering further evidence of the growing influence of blogs.

Rock star blogger David Hobby was in attendance as well, sporting an official Blogger hoodie (I want one!). I think this may have been the first bogtail party that he has attended too. David was the first person to really open my eyes about blogs.

Trevor, an occasional guest commenter on HoCo Rising, used the occasion to announce that he has started his very own blog, HoCo Politico. 

Though this gathering was co-hosted by HowChow and HoCo Rising, the real credit for these blogging events goes to Jessie. She has continued to nurture this blogtail concept from that small group four years ago to the wildly successful event last night.

Nicely done. 

Direct Mauling

Over the last three days we received ten pieces of campaign mail from six candidates. The most frequent mailer has been Bob Ehrlich with three mailers followed by Courtney Watson and Jon Weinstein, each with two. The others were from Gail Bates and Warren Miller, Maryann Maher and Martin O’Malley.

For the most part the trip from the mailbox to the recycle bin is a very short one. In fact, that’s where I had to retrieve these pieces in order to write this post.

So what are the messages that the candidates are sending to us through the mail?

Bob Ehrlich wants us to know that Martin O’Malley broke the budget, wasn’t honest and that he’ll will get Maryland back to work.

Courtney Watson wants us to know that she is supported by both Repubs and Dems and that she will keep our schools “No. 1” without raising taxes.

Jon Weinstein tells us about his lifetime of public service and that he’s all about responsive and responsible government.

Gail Bates and Warren Miller (are they actually joined at the hip?) want to know if we are concerned about jobs and the economy.

Maryann Maher wants us to know that she would make our government accountable.

Martin O’Malley simply wants us to know that Bob Ehrlich is evil.

One thing is certain. This is a good year for the printers and the direct mail houses

Curb Job

When I arrived home this afternoon the following notice was taped to my mailbox:

First of all, twenty bucks is a little steep for spray painting a number on a curb. Second, my street number is highly visible both on my house and on the post of the very mailbox where this notice was planted. Third, I called the number “You have reached Sprint mailbox 410-588-9269.”

That’s it. No message. No nothing.

Licensed?

By whom?

Professional?

See item number three.

How many ways can I write scam….

Screening Restaurants

In recent years the trend in restaurant design has been towards an openness to the elements. This does not just mean more outdoor seating it means opening up the entire restaurant, European style, to the street with glass walls that can be folded back when the weather permits.

In Maryland, if you do this you better include a screen when you open up those walls. According to this story by Elahe Izadi in TBD, “restaurants and officials have only recently become aware of a regulation against open windows in restaurants, one that has long been a part of Maryland law. The rule is designed to prevent vermin infestation.”

The biggest impact of this newly enforced regulation is being felt in MoCo, particularly along Woodmont Avenue. In  HoCo the newly opened Stanford Grill is the only restaurant that I’m aware that will have to adjust to this rediscovered Maryland law.

And they will have to adjust. The potential penalty for non compliance “could technically cost a restaurant $1,000 or 90 days in jail.”  

The Mobbies Are Back

A little over a month ago I lamented that The Sun appeared to be backing off their embrace of blogs. Since then, the Baltimore media giant has introduced a blog feed on the HoCo section of the online paper and today they announced the 2010 Mobbies.

It looks like I spoke too soon.

Still, the blog feeds in the HoCo section are missing some of the more widely read blogs like HoCo Rising and Sarah Says. I have heard that there is some internal dissent about how cozy the media giant should get with the likes of us. It is also possible that the rekindled interest in local blogs could be a reaction to the recent emergence of Patch sites.

In any event, as of today the 2010 Mobbies are now underway with a call for nominations and already HowChow has been nominated for Best Food Blog.

Running Out of Road

“If I only had eleven more months…”

That’s what Bob Wheatley said to me last night at Clyde’s. I had just finished telling him that I had heard he did well at the HoCo Chamber State Candidates forum that morning. We were both attending a “Business Roundtable” event for Ed Priola. Besides HoCo Risings earlier report, that David Yungmann categorized as “gushing like a school girl,” others readily confirmed that he had far outshone his opponent, Liz Bobo.

Someone said it looked as if Liz didn’t even want to be there.

That’s no surprise. This was a group of business people, real business people.

Bob told me that his biggest obstacle has been getting voters in the district to look beyond the “R” label. “I find that if I can get them to spend a few minutes talking to me I can get them past that.”

If he only had eleven more months.

I also got to meet Ed’s special guest of the evening, Tony O’Donnell. Tony is the House of Delegates minority leader from District 29C (Calvert / St. Mary’s). He also serves on the Environmental Affairs Committee with Liz Bobo. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter what party they’re in, when I mention Liz’s name eyes tend to roll.

I didn’t stay for the speeches but I did get to speak with Ed for a bit before I bugged out. With the possible exception of Guy Guzzone, Ed is head and shoulders above any other candidate running for a delegate seat in District 13. He, along with Bob Wheatley and county council candidate Dennis Schrader, have a tough row to hoe in their heavily Dem districts but those voters would be well advised to take a long hard look at him, particularly in comparison to incumbents Shane Pendergrass and Frank Turner. 

Suburban Office Market Improving

Rents for Class A office space in the suburbs of Baltimore have increased by 7.7% so far this year, while rents downtown has decreased an average 3.31% according to a report in the recent issue of the Baltimore Business Journal. This can largely be attributed to the mission expansions at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Hartford County and Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County. After two years of flat growth this is welcome news for office developers and may help more projects move off the drawing boards and into the ground in HoCo. Already, Greenebaum & Rose has dusted off their plans and started construction on Maple Lawn IV, a 105,000 square foot four story Class A office building in the Business District of Maple Lawn.

It’s pretty much the same story in DC burbs as well. According to this story by V. Dion Haynes in The Washington Post yesterday, the DC area “added a net of 20,000 public and private sector jobs during the past year, according to the government. Growing payrolls often prompt employers to look for more space.”

A clearer picture of the HoCo office situation will emerge next week when the HoCo Economic Development Authority hosts its 2010 Commercial Real Estate Tour. This event is held every eighteen months and provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the HoCo office market for regional commercial real estate brokers, bankers, and architects. This year the tour will kick off with a breakfast in the newly completed EmersonOne, one of only two Class A office projects completed in HoCo this year.

Pity Mr. Pitney

Two years ago, when we had a receptionist in those pre recession days, one of her jobs was to keep the office postage meter going. It took about six months after she had left for the meter to run out of funds. By that time, our relationship with the postage meter had changed. We no longer considered it mission critical. It wasn’t that many years ago that we sent out regular mailings to our clients and customers via snail mail. Now it’s all done via email.

The now disabled postage meter sat unfunded. When we moved our offices back in July it was placed in a box. Three months later it’s still in that box and will remain. It’s not really ours either, it belongs to Pitney Bowes and now that we aren’t using it they would like to have it back. They can have it.

I wonder how many other companies are sending their meters back to Mr. Pitney. I can easily imagine a warehouse filling up with returned postage machines as the volume of US Mail has declined from over 200 billion pieces of mail annually in 2005 to approximately 175 billion pieces of mail this year. The Kiplinger Letter predicts that this will drop to about 160 billion pieces of mail in 2015.

In other words, it’s not exactly a growth industry.

The Problem with Bloggers

In a post yesterday on the Howard County Citizens Association listserv, Mona Brinegar took issue with the HoCo loco blog community. “The problem in our blog community is domination of one-sided arguments and bearing down on open discussion until it is nonexistent.”

Wow! There is a lot to dissect in that seemingly simple statement.

Let’s take the “domination of one-side arguments” first. There is really no barrier of entry to blogging. It costs nothing to start a blog but one’s own time. In HoCo, we have an extraordinary collection of blogs that cover every topic under the sun. If one or two blogs appear to “dominate” it is only because the blogger is a proliferate poster who writes with the reader in mind. Most blogs, this one included, are only as good as what they put up everyday. Dominance can be fickle.

What I really don’t get is the “bearing down on open discussion” cut. If anything, blogs that liberally allow comments, provide a forum for more open discussion of local issues. Blogs and their comments keep an issue alive much longer that a printed article in a paper or a one minute segment in a broadcast. Sure, there are those anonymous commenter’s who go off half cocked with acerbic diatribe but those types of comments only reflect poorly on the commenter, not the discussion.

Perhaps Mona is jealous since her own attempt at loco publishing was short lived. Howard County Issues was published nine times in two years. The last issue was published over a year ago. It’s hard to build an audience with that little frequency, much less achieve anything remotely resembling dominance. It's failure to find an audience could also be attributed to it's underlying message and lack of concern for the reader.

Hard Science HoCo

Fifty seven percent of all adults in HoCo have a college degree, thirty nine percent of those degrees are in the hard sciences such as mathematics, biology and engineering, the highest concentration of hard science degrees in the Washington, D.C. metro area. According to this story by Daniel deVise in The Washington Post, " 13 percent of degrees are in engineering."


As someone with a Bachelor of Arts degree I found all science hard.

Scene This Week In…

Peanut needed new shoes. As any parent will attest, buying shoes for your kids is something you always feel like you just did.

"Didn't I just buy you a new pair of shoes?"

"Those were sneakers dad."

And so they were. What she wanted yesterday was replacements for her L.L. Bean slip on shoes so we headed on over to The Mall. Outside the Scouts were selling popcorn while inside the shoe department was hopping. Anthony, our sales clerk, had beads of sweat on his forehead as he worked to handle the onslaught of customers. When he asked if there was anything else we needed today my eyes drifted to the snow boots.

Last season I waited too long to buy her snow boots and it was only after running all around town that I snagged one of the last remaining pairs at Nordstrom.

She's already grown out of those so I went ahead and picked up snow boots yesterday too.

"We sold out of snow boots by December last year," Anthony told me. I know, I know.

Of course buying snow boots this early pretty much guarantees that we won't have much snow this year. When we got home my neighbor was putting the final touches of his Halloween decor. Peter goes all out with his spooky vignettes and each year is an original production. The theme this year is zombies.

When I spoke with Peter he was trying to figure out what to do with the coffin he built for last years display.

Later on I went down to the Wine Bin in Ellicott City to replenish my wine supply. As I pulled into the parking lot I noticed that the movie screen was still attached to the side of the store. I thought the Saturday night movie nights were over now that the fall weather has arrived so I asked  Dave Carney, the store owner, what was up.

"We're doing a movie on the Saturday night before Halloween," he told me. On Saturday October 30th at 6:30 PM they will be showing Ghostbusters in the parking lot. "Then we'll do one more for Midnight Madness  on December 3rd. I've rented ten California heaters and stand up tables." They will also be selling a warm spiced cider. He realizes that it will probably be too cold for people to stay for a whole movie so that nights feature film will be an old holiday favorite, "It's a Wonderful Life." It's a movie that most folks have seen at least once so if they arrive or leave in the middle of the film it's no big deal.

HoCo Patches

There is a new player in the HoCo loco news scene. Patch, a hyper local news website backed by AOL, now has three "patches" up and running in HoCo; Ellicott City, Columbia, and Savage-Guilford.

AOL describes Patch as a hyper loco news site "run by one professional local editor who, along with freelances, provides quality original news and information to its community."

They have targeted "communities of 15-100k population that are drastically underserved by media and would benefit by having access to local news and information about government, schools and business. These could be inner-city neighborhoods or distinct towns."


I wouldn't exactly characterize HoCo as "drastically under served by media." It's more likely that they were attracted by our awesome demographics. Consider that the inaugural Patch communities were all in New Jersey and Connecticut, suburbs of one of the largest media markets in the country. There are no Patch sites in West Virginia or Kansas. According to this report by Joseph Tartakoff in The Guardian "Patch is selecting towns to expand to based in part on a 59-variable algorithm that takes into account factors like the average household income of a town, how often citizens vote, and how the local public high school ranks."


"Once in town, Patch will vigorously target local businesses by courting them to "buy banner ads and also letting them set up their own business listings, which they can convert into ads."


The company plans to have 500 Patches up and running by the end of this year which is a huge increase from only 12 just a year ago.

The inaugural Columbia Patch home page includes a video clip of Mary Kay Sigaty at the HoCo Chamber Candidate Forum this week. The Savage Guilford Patch features Dennis Schrader and Jen Terrassa at the same forum. HoCo Risings hip makes a cameo appearance.

All in all Patch is the real deal and a welcome addition to those of us insatiable for more HoCo loco content.

Welcome Patch.

In This Months Business Monthly

Ordinarily I would put up a post and a link to my column in The Business Monthly shortly after it goes online. This generally occurs within a week of the print publication of the paper. This month, when I went to check and see if it was up, instead of The Business Monthly website I got a message that said the domain had expired.

That didn't sound right.

At the candidates forum on Wednesday I ran into the publisher, Becky Mangus, and asked her what was up. She proceeded to tell me how someone had stolen the domain. The details are still a bit sketchy but it appears that someone, somehow, had gained control of the bizmonthly.com and then tried to sell it back to them. The paper lawyered up and got the domain back without paying the domain extortionst. There is obviously more of story here and I'll try to get more details and report back.

In the meantime, my column this month was inspired by the Halyomorpha halys, also know as the stink bug. This little insect from Asia has been the subject of many a column in recent months so it wasn't exactly an original topic. For me, it was divine inspiration. I was well past the deadline for submitting the column and sitting at my computer, wracking my brain to come up with something to write about,when a stink bug landed on my keyboard...

You can finally read this month's column here.

If It Isn't Broke...

Oftentimes when the subject of the governing of Howard County comes up, someone will quip "it's hard to screw up Howard County."

There is a good deal of truth in that statement. Compared to other jurisdictions, even those on our borders, we have it good here in HoCo with great schools, low unemployment rate, abundant parks and open space, and a Wegmans on the way.

HoCo, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average (with apologies to Garrison Keillor).

And ever since 1990 when the voters booted Liz Bobo out of the seat and put Chuck Ecker in, we've had a county executive who has worked to create a business friendly environment and grown the commercial tax base. That streak has continued with our current county executive.

Trent Kittleman, the Repub challenger, is no lightweight. She is certainly qualified to be the executive, I don't think many folks would dispute that. Her only problem is that she hasn't been able to come up with a compelling enough argument as to why we should change horses. She has tried to get some traction from suggesting that there are tax increases in our future if we reelect Ken but that has failed to ignite the electorate as evidenced by the failure of the GOP's Taxpayer Protection Initiative. The other issues like whining about flat screen TV's and executive protection come off sounding more like partisan sniping that a strategy for the future.

HoCo isn't broken. It doesn't really fixing inasmuch as it needs good governing. Ken Ulman and his team have done a pretty good job at that for the last four years. There is simply no good reason to change horses in the middle  of the stream.

Ken Ulman for County Executive.

Yesterday at the Forum

HoCo Rising has already provided a pretty nice recap of yesterdays HoCo Chamber forum for county executive and county council candidates so I'll just throw in a couple of additional observations from my side of the podium.

This was the third candidates forum I've attended and the first ever that I have moderated. The other two were sponsored by the HoCo League of Women Voters. This main difference between the two was that the 125 or so attendees at yesterdays event paid thirty five bucks to educate themselves on the field of candidates, while the LWV forums were both free. The other difference was that the chamber allowed the audience to take pictures. At both of the LWV forums I was told by LWV members that I couldn't take pictures, though at the second one I did it anyway, albeit a bit surreptitiously.

As far as the forum itself, I doubt any minds were changed by listening to the candidates. The only challenger who may have benefited was Dennis Schrader. Though Jen Terrasa clearly put in her best performance so far, Dennis can off as much more confident and comfortable with the issues in District 3. If you didn't know better you'd have thought he was the incumbent which of course he once was. Dennis also gets points for the best line of the morning when he said "Local politics are the bedrock of this nation."

I couldn't agree more.

I also got to spend some quality time with Zaneb Beams (AKA Dr. Moonbeams). We had a chance to talk before the forum started and I found her to be both passionate and confident of her ability to make a difference. In fact, I was just starting to think that maybe I should drop the whole Moonbeams thing when she told me that as a doctor of medicine she knows the inside of the brain and how it works. I was under the impression that she was a pediatrician not a neurologist. Anyway, that statement struck me as a bit odd and when she repeated the same line on the dais the audience reaction seemed to be the same as mine.

A couple of school board candidates also attended the forum. Larry Walker showed up looking sharp in a suit while Bob Ballinger took the casual route and wore a golf shirt. That sort of stood out in room where most of the men sported ties. Later, in a conversation about the school board candidates with a seasoned loco political consultant who is working with the Ulman campaign, I was told that Bob is also an Allen Dyer disciple. I hadn't picked up on that before. I've come to see Cindy Vaillancourt, Leslie Kornreich and now Brian Meshkin as Dyer disciples but I didn't see Bob in that camp too. Fortunately I'll get the opportunity to explore this with him next week on our podcast when he'll join us for the two minute segment at the end of the show.

Stay tuned.

Coyotes in HoCo

I was surprised the first time I heard that coyotes were seen around Ellicott City. I always figured that this particular pack animal was more commonly found in the southwest. This can likely be attributed to the fact that my actual knowledge of coyotes was largely formed by watching Roadrunner cartoons... right on through college.

It turns out that coyotes, like deer are highly adaptable. According to this story on Midday with Dan Rodricks on WYPR, they seem to be doing quite well around here. Dan interviews the authors of "Urban Carnivores: Ecology, Conflict and Conservation." about the infiltration of coyotes into urban and suburban communities. As it turns out, midwestern coyotes started appearing in Maryland in the 1970's and the populations are growing. "They've doubled their range and are exploring new habitats everyday."

Coyotes came back on my radar when Kristi Simon told me she was alerted by her village newsletter "saying there are coyotes running around Dorsey and parts of Howard County, and this has been confirmed as legitimate by the DNR. It warned that they are eating out of trash cans and can "attack small dogs and cats", and warned people not to let their pets out alone."

She was very concerned for her dog.

There is good news though. The coyotes are carnivores. They like deer too.

Four Years of Blogging

Today marks the fourth anniversary of Tales of Two Cities and what a long strange trip it's been. Four years ago HoCo blogs were easily dismissed as insignificant background noise in the loco politico dialogue. As testament to how much has changed, this morning two local bloggers moderated a HoCo Chamber of Commerce forum for county executive and county council candidates.

When I started blogging I had no idea where it would lead. My primary motivation four years ago was to defend the development community that I felt was being portrayed as the scapegoat for all of the ills in the county in the last countywide elections. I doubt that I changed any minds but at least I tried to offer a different perspective.

Four years is a long time in blog years and Tales of Two Cities is very different than it was in 2006. Though I still defend the industry I work in I have also expanded the range of topics that I post about and that has led to more prolific posting. In 2006 I wrote a total of 22 posts between October 13th and the end of the year. Nowadays I average 59 posts in a month.

Appropriately, the first blog post went up on a Friday the 13th and  it had the further distinction of being the only post out of over 1,500 that wasn't actually written by me. It was written by my long time friend, Jim Binckley who was frustrated because The Columbia Flier wouldn't print his Letter to the Editor. I posted his letter and thus my blogging journey began.

Thanks to all who visit here. If y'all keep reading, I'll keep blogging.

About That Security Clearance...

I had a meeting up in Towson this morning so I got to listen to the Kojo Nnamdi show on WAMU on my way back to HoCo. The second segment of todays program was entitled "The Security Clearance Conundrum." which was all about getting and keeping a security clearance.

This is certainly a timely topic for a large (and growing) portion of the HoCo loco workforce. There are a myriad of ways that an existing clearance can be put in jeopardy including giving your kid a foreign sounding name like Barak. The guests offered tips on what you can do if your clearance is denied or revoked.

Bottom line?

Get a lawyer.

Now It's Official

A month ago, when I wrote this post about the new name for the General Growth Properties spin off company, I was asked by a senior executive at GGP to play that down. Apparently, William Ackman, one of the largest shareholders in the newly created entity, had spoken out a little too soon. At that point the company was still assembling its new board.

Now it's official. According to this story by Steve Green in the Las Vegas Sun, the new company has assembled it's board of directors and formally adopted a new old name, The Howard Hughes Corporation. GGP had already been using this name for some of it's Las Vegas operations. The company obtained the rights to the Howard Hughes name when they acquired The Rouse Company in 2004. The Rouse Company acquired the Howard Hughes Corporation in 1996. During Howard Hughes lifetime the company was known as Summa Corp.

What has yet to be decided is where the new firm will be headquartered.

"There was no mention in today's announcement on whether a decision had been made on where the new The Howard Hughes Corporation would be based and if any corporate jobs would be moving around as part of the spinoff. A spokesman said there was no immediate information to disclose on those issues."


On the other hand they do already own a pretty nice headquarters building in Columbia.

Eateries Scouting Sites in HoCo

A sub shop from the Jersey shore and a grilled cheese cafe' are scouting for locations in HoCo to open new stores, signaling a rebound in the loco HoCo restaurant business. According to this story by Joanna Sullivan in the Baltimore Business Journal, HoCo has seen a net loss of eleven eateries since 2008.

Last month Mark Smith reported in The Business Monthly that Jersey Mikes, a sub shop chain that started in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey,  is searching for " for locations in Columbia and Ellicott City."

Jersey Mikes now has 430 stores in 28 states. The closest existing store to HoCo is in a shopping center in Laurel.

This past Friday I ran into a fellow commercial real estate colleague, John Sindler. John was with some folks from Grilled Cheese & Co scouting sites in Columbia. When I saw him they were checking out the former Orinoco Coffee Shop off McGaw Road.

Griiled Cheese & Co opened their first store in Catonsville earlier this year.

You can count me amongst those who were a bit surprised that someone would open a restaurant featuring grilled cheese sandwiches. This has got to be one of the easiest foods to fix yourself, then again it is rather iconic.

Wegmans...OMG!

Before we headed home from the Oktober Fest yesterday, we decided to venture a little further north up I-83 to check out Wegmans in Hunt Valley. Neither of us had ever been  in a Wegmans before and we were curious to see what all the excitement was about.

Now I get it. The place is basically a celebration of all things food. In the prepared food section alone there was a coffee shop, a sushi bar, a delicatessen, a fish market, a bake shop and a butcher.

And this wasn't even in the cafe'!

Mama Wordbones isn't usually impressed by food retailers. She was definitely impressed with Wegmans.

We've resolved to return again this winter. It would make a great day trip on one of those cold winter weekends...after football season of course.

Ken Ulman and the Real McCoy

When we started doing our podcasts almost a year ago, we knew we would eventually invite the county executive to join us. Paul and I also thought it might be best to wait until we had a few shows under our belt and were more comfortable with each other.

After twenty some shows it was time to have the big guy on.

Considering that we were a mere twenty five days away from the general election I found Ken to reasonably candid with us. We discussed the potential fallout from the Court of Appeals ruling on the MoCo ambulance fee referendum, Healthy Howard, the funeral home dust up in Clarksville, the future of Belmont, the recent Gonzales poll on the executive race, and the new broadband initiative.

Our short segment featured John McCoy, the newly hired watershed manager for the Columbia Association. In addition to working with Columbia's open space, John is also developing landscaping programs for individual homeowners in Columbia to reduce impervious surfaces and improve storm water runoff.

You can download the 25th episode of "and then there's that..." here.

Beer

After completing our Saturday yard work, Mama Wordbones and I decided to head on up to the Maryland State Fairgrounds for the Maryland Brewers Oktober Fest. This is not to be confused with the 1st Annual Baltimore Beer Festival that will be held next Sunday in Canton.

Sigh. So much beer, so little time.

I should note here that I am not a big beer drinker. My adult beverage of choice more often than not is a nice glass of red wine. On the other hand, I still enjoy an occasional beer and yesterday seemed like the perfect occasion for an occasional beer...or two.

It was also a great afternoon for Oktober Festing. With our souvenir tasting glasses in hand we proceeded to sample the offerings from the fifteen participating breweries. Once we had our first samples of Harvest 4 Grain from Johanson's Dining House in Westminster and Blueberry Dog from Pub Dog, I decided to keep notes. We liked the Harvest 4 Grain best out of those two.

From there it was on to Heavy Seas where I tried the Prosit while Mama Wordbones headed over to The Raven for their Pilsner. Out of those two, we liked the Prosit best.

On the drive up to Timonium I told Mama Wordbones that I looked forward to eating one of those giant soft pretzels while listening to an Oompah Band and drinking a beer in the warm afternoon sun. Alas, there was only one vendor selling soft pretzels and they looked like the same ones you can get at the Target snack bar. No thank you. The only Oompah music we heard was from the music played between sets of local rock and roll bands.

Still, the weather was warm and the beer was excellent.

Unfortunately for the blog reader, I soon became more interested in sampling than note taking. The only other notable brew that we both thought worthy of mention was the ESB from the Ruddy Duck in Solomon's Island.

All in all, it was a good time, and despite the report in the paper this morning, it was a well behaved multi generational crowd.

While we up in that part of the metro area we decided to check out the Wegmans in Hunt Valley.

To be continued.

It's In The Hole

Last Saturday I picked up our free tree from the county. This morning it went into the ground. We really won't know until next spring if our transplant was successful but we've done everything we could to see that it gets a good start. We pulled a bucket full of rocks from the hole, mixed in some Leafgro and peat moss and topped it off with some fresh mulch.

After a good soaking it is now pretty much in Mother Natures hands.

With our Saturday task complete, we're now off to enjoy what Beer Week holds for us.

The Chattering Classes

The continuing discussion that my post on Pub Politics II has generated is significant in a couple of ways. This comment thread, as opposed to some of the comment threads from the earlier days of the blog, is less noise and more meat. Call it Casually Choosing Civility if you will.

Anyway....

The difference between then and now is that since June I've been using the Diqus commenting widget. The level of dialog in my wide open, any anonymous comment allowed, no moderation days was steadily deteriorating. People whom I respect were beginning to tell me that they were no longer commenting because of the vitriol.

Still, I resisted while also checking out what others were doing. After first discovering Disqus on HoCo Rising, I asked Columbia uber geek, James Howard, what he thought. Once James gave it a thumbs up I convinced him to help me install it. I am the antitheses of the uber geek.

The  Tales of Two Cities commenter's reacted swiftly. They were not happy. Commenting dropped down to a trickle.

Readership on the other hand continued to climb. In June Tales of Two Cities had 14,894 visitors. It July it was 14,954, in August, 16,155 and last month it was 18,972.

Now the commenting is back up to pre Disqus levels and the blog is back in balance, better than ever.

Thank you and a big wag of the wordbones tail  to all who read and comment here.

The Latest Poop on Chicken Poop

Earlier this week Barbara Pash from Maryland Reporter wrote an interesting piece about chicken waste. This is one of my favorite topics and a continuing subject of debate between me and Senator Alan Kittleman. When he was on our podcast back in January, he took the side of the eastern shore chicken industry in advocating for more chicken houses. After the show I looked into this issue and discovered that these chicken houses are a big problem for the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

Whenever Alan and I get a chance to talk, the conversation will inevitably lead to chicken poop and we continue to agree to disagree about what is to be done.

Barbara now tells us there is positive news about the poop from a, "recent experiment that drastically reduced the ammonia level in chicken houses."


"Over a period of eight months, two tests were conducted: first on a small 500-bird chicken house and then on a full-size house of 15,000 to 20,000 birds. The results amazed even UMES officials.


With the AviHome flooring system, the ammonia level dropped at least 80%, and that produced healthier, faster-growing birds, said Dr. Ronald Forsythe, vice president of technology and commercialization of UMES."

Of course, ammonia is only part of the problem of the chicken houses. Runoff is still the larger concern for fowling the waterways. Still this is progress and a step in the right direction for this billion dollar eastern shore industry.

This Sunday is Second Sunday

The weather is supposed to be exceptional this Sunday, perfect for the October edition of the Second Sunday Market in Ellicott City.

According to an email I received today, the market will include specialty breads from the Little French Market, "exotic" fruits vegetables from Tersiguels, and homemade jams from Rare Opportunity Farm in Westminster, as well as other standard farmers market fare.

The market will be open this Sunday from 10 AM to 3 PM in the parking lot behind the old post office.

Ira Brings Home the Broadband

Last night Ken Ulman paid a visit to my neighborhood for a fundraising event at a neighbors home. Though I have heard Ken speak more times than I can count about the standard fare of quality of life issues, last night he spent a good deal of time talking about the federal broadband award that will enable HoCo to link every school and government building in the county with fiber optic cable.

But that only tells part of the story. After losing out on the first round of broadband money earlier this year, Ira Levy, the HoCo government technology czar, put together a coalition of all Maryland counties and this time they succeeded in winning a statewide grant.

Fellow blogger Frank Hecker has already written one of his well thought out posts about this so I won't rehash all the details. What impressed me last night with was Ken's acknowledgement that this was largely Ira Levy's initiative. Undeterred by the first defeat, he figured out a way to win in the second round. His initiative in getting all of the counties to work together as one also made HoCo the hub of this network. Getting all of the counties in Maryland to work together on anything is no small feat.

The long term ramifications of this are difficult to quantify because the possibilities are seemingly limitless for public safety, education and healthcare, not to mention private business. When completed, the State of Maryland will have the most comprehensive broadband network in the country.

Nice job Ira.

Pub Politics II

Our group of HoCo loco politico wonks gathered again last evening at a local pub. As before, it was a diverse collection of political moderates that is pretty well in tune with the HoCo politico scene with strong opinions and some insiders insight. The ground rules were still in effect, we could freely share what was discussed but the participants would remain anonymous.

The governors race kicked things off. Despite the recent polls showing Martin O'Malley now leading Bob Ehrlich by almost two digits, the general feeling was that Ehrlich would still carry HoCo by perhaps not by as a big a margin he'll need to win the state. This has a direct relation to the District 1 county council race.

The HoCo Repub insiders feel that District 1 is their best hope for gaining another council seat. Though it was generally acknowledged that Courtney Watson is the better candidate, Bob Flanagan stands a chance of unseating her based solely on party affiliation. The theory is that if Bob Ehrlich carries District 1with a significant margin the other Bob will ride in on his coattails.

In the District 3 council race the consensus was that Dennis Schrader wins if the turnout is low. All agreed that Jen Terresa has run a lackluster campaign but in this deep blue district any Dem, even a relatively weak one, has a huge advantage.

The last time this group got together most of the participants felt that Jody Venkatesan would beat Kyle Lorton in the Repub primary. That of course didn't happen and now the consensus is that Jim Robey will win reelection in District 13. The House of Delegates race in that district looks pretty good for the incumbents too with the possible exception of Frank Turner. The only Repub with an outside chance in this race is Ed Priola who was widely acknowledged as the hardest working man in loco politics.

As the the second round of drinks started we touched on the school board race. The big news is that the HoCo Repub establishment is dropping Brian Meshkin like a bad habit and throwing their support behind Bob Ballinger. It is widely expected that Bob Erhlich will endorse Bob as soon as this week. This could significantly impact what some believe is Brians long range political plan to run for Greg Fox's seat in 2014 and eventual world domination.

When Worlds Collide

This afternoon I took a client on a tour of some the business suites in Columbia. These are offices that work pretty much like a hotel for business. In addition to offering individual furnished offices for rent on a short term basis, you can also just lease a presence whereby you get a business mailing address, a phone answered by a receptionist and use of a conference room when the need arises.

They are perfect for someone who needs flexibility and is either unwilling or unable to commit to a long term lease.

The first stop was the Cadillac of Columbia business suites, BusinessSuites in Town Center. When the manger came out to meet us I recognized her immediately. Cheryl Ludy formerly worked with GGP and now manages the BusinessSuites in the Parkview office building. As we finished up the tour, Cheryl commented that she enjoys my column in The Business Monthly as is also a regular reader of my blog. I don't think my client had any idea that I had this other life.

Later, as we we were going through Business Suites of Columbia on Berger Road, I literally ran into Brian Meshkin as he rounded a corner in the hallway. As has been noted by HoCo Rising, Brian's company Salugen, maintains an office suite in this business center.

This time I thankfully went unrecognized. Brian simply said "excuse me sir," and went on about his way.

In this instance I was grateful for the anonymity.

Nice Numbers

The seventeen military installations in Maryland employ over 118,000 people with an in-state payroll of $9 billion. They purchase over $7 billion in goods and services from Maryland companies.

In our backyard, Fort Meade/NSA accounts for "a total of $17.8 billion of economic activity in Maryland and creates or supports an estimated $9.2 billion in employee compensation."

That's billions with a capital "B".

These are some of the findings contained in a report entitled Mission Maryland: Measuring Economic Impact of Maryland's Military Installations. The report was compiled by the Jacob France Institute of the Merrick School of Business at the University of Baltimore.

If you like big numbers this report is chock full of them, breaking down the impact of each of the seventeen facilities.

Leading Loco Econ Indicator

Last Friday I was talking to one of my commercial real estate colleagues, Darrell Nevin, about the HoCo loco economy. In the past, whenever another broker asked a competitor about business the response was generally positive, no matter how bad things were.

That's no longer the case. Nowadays most commercial real estate brokers I speak with are brutally honest about how bad things are. Instead of presenting a false front and saying that everything is fine, they instead share tales of incredible deals that are being made both to retain tenants and to entice them to relocate.

Still, we are by nature an optimistic bunch and so we are always on the lookout for signs that the market is turning around. On Friday, Darrell shared with me one of those signs.

"The smaller tenants are beginning to make their moves."

Darrell's niche in commercial real estate is working with the smaller companies, those companies that occupy under 5,000 square feet of office space. While much attention is paid to larger HoCo tenants like SAIC, Intregal Systems and Martek Biosciences, the smaller tenants are a very large part of our loco economic picture. And while the average business in HoCo occupies somewhere around 3,500 square feet of office space, the Howard County Economic Development Authority does not track office absorption below 5,000 square feet.

According to Darrell, that's exactly where the action is right now. "I'll bet if you compiled the numbers under 5,000 square feet, you'd find there is over 100,000 square feet of positive net absorption of office space in Columbia."

That compares with a year to date negative absorption of 53,000 square feet in the market in general.

Darrell sees the smaller tenants beginning to make their moves in anticipation of an improving market, "They are acting now to lock in lower lease rates and expansion options."

He cautions that this trend is really just beginning and hasn't wholly taken root yet but he notes that he has already completed over 10,000 square feet of transactions in this size range this year and he has a few more deals teed up to close soon.

I've always said that commercial real estate transactions are a good leading indicator of the economy. When a company signs a lease for new space it will often take three months or more before the space is ready for them to occupy. The expansion deals we close today will translate into new jobs in the next quarter.

If Darrell is right, 2011 could be shaping up to be a  good enough year to start lying about how busy we are again.

Purple and Black

Last Thursday I attended Back to School night at Ellicott Mills Middle School. For those readers who have never taken part of this annual ritual, on Back to School night parents get to experience their childs school day schedule first hand by moving from classroom to classroom and meeting the teachers. Towards the end of the evening I began to notice that while a couple of Peanuts classrooms were adorned with Ravens stuff (Wacco for Flacco and so forth) I did not see any evidence of Redskin fans.

Looking for hidden meaning in this, my convoluted mind drifted to the school board race. In an earlier post, before the primaries, I winnowed my preferences from the field of eleven down to eight candidates that I believed deserved greater attention. Of my eight picks, only one David Gertler, didn't make the cut. Now, with only a few weeks to go before the general election, I'm ready to pick my final four. 

So what does that have to do with Back to School night and the Ravens?

Well, for me, the pick of the final four candidates for school board is like choosing between black and white but since I have Ravens on the brain today, I thought it might be more appropriate to phrase it as a choice between purple and black. With the exception of one candidate, the choices are just that stark.

On the one side, lets call it the black side, are the candidates that would lead you to believe that the current board is nothing more than a rubber stamp for the school system. These candidates believe they would do a better job of questioning the superintendent and his staff. In other words, they seem to suggest they are smarter than everyone else. These candidates are Cindy Vaillancourt, Brian Meshkin and Leslie Kornreich. All three of them are also a little too cozy with Allen Dyer who I consider to be the worst board member since Laura Waters.

Then there is Robert Ballinger. I happen to like Bob and think that he would make a good board member but I like the other remaining four even better. That's makes it hard. If we were looking to replace Allen Dyer this time around too, Bob would get my vote as the fifth candidate.

That leaves my final four. I think both Frank Aquino and Sandra French have served the board well over their tenure and therefore deserve reelection. Larry Walker has to the potential to become one of the best board members ever. His record of community service tells me that he cares very deeply about kids. David Proudfoot brings frontline experience to the board and also a cool demeanor. In fact choosing between Bob and David was my toughest call.

We have a great school system in HoCo. I suffer no illusion that it is perfect but at the end of the day, it is pretty darn good, Much of the credit for that can be laid at the feet of the board and the Superintendent, Dr. Sydney Cousins.

We don't need people on our school board who think they are the smartest people in the room. We need people who can work together collaboratively to deliver the best product for our students.

The choice for me then is as simple as purple and black.

Go Ravens!

First Friday

"Whats up with red bag?"

I was enjoying a glass of wine at the Pure Wine Cafe in Ellicott City last night when I spotted this red bag hanging by the front door. I asked the Sommelier, Mark Bowman what the deal was.

"It's for First Friday," he told me. The red bag lets shoppers know that the restaurant is participating If a customer brings in a receipt from a Main Street retailer they got 5% off their check last night.

The Ellicott City Business Association is trying to promote evening shopping on Main Street. While there are plenty of places to eat and drink in the old town when the sun goes down, most of the other shops close up around six. On First Fridays participating retailers  and galleries agree to stay open til eight.

It seemed to be working. Main Street was hopping when I rolled into to town around seven. There was even a wedding going on at Ellicott City Weddings and Events.

First Fridays occur on the first Friday of the month and are not to be confused with Second Sundays which occur on the second Sunday of the month. I'm just looking forward to the day when they decide to try out Thirsty Third Thursdays.

Free Trees

We were too late too late to get a free tree the first time the county doled them out earlier this year but Mama Wordbones was determined not to miss out this time. She was one of the first to jump online to snag one of the 2,010 trees in the autumn reprise of the Plant(it) Green program.

This morning I picked up a very young Dogwood.

"You were lucky, the Dogwoods went fast," Josh Feldmark told me as I arrived at the Thomas Dorsey Building. Josh is the HoCo Environmental czar.

Two years ago when were trying to decide on an ornamental tree for the corner of our screened room I lobbied for a Dogwood while Mama Wordbones favored a Red Bud. We ended up with the Red Bud of course.

I finally got my Dogwood. Now we just have to figure out where to dig the hole.

Bye Bye Belmont

It was inevitable I suppose. Ever since the American Chemical Society sold the Belmont Conference Center to Howard Community College Educational Foundation back in 2004 the 18th century historic estate has been enveloped in controversy. First it was the creative financing arrangement that was used to acquire the property and then it was the colleges ill fated attempts to expand the conference center.

At every step along the way a group that ironically calls itself "Save Belmont" has worked to thwart any attempt to make it a viable entity.

Earlier this year, the college put the property up for sale but continued to operate the conference center. Now they are shutting it down. According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun Belmont "will close at year's end, costing six people their jobs, college officials announced Thursday."

For years, a group of local residents who live near the estate have fought the college's purchase and operation of the property. They opposed suggestions for widening the poorly paved single-lane entry road, proposals for development on the property and what they considered threats to the estate's historic ambience.


"It's a sad day," said Cathy Hudson, an Elkridge resident who helped form the Save Belmont Coalition to protect the property's historic status. "It has potential for being a successful business, but they didn't have the vision for it," she said about college officials.

Didn't have the vision for it?

Judging by how neighbors have responded to any plans for the historic estate I'd have to say that the only "vision" that the Save Belmont folks will find acceptable is one that returns the property to private ownership.

That would be a shame but at this point that seems to be the most likely scenario which leads one to ask, save Belmont for whom?