More Fiber for HoCo

A new fiber network connecting Baltimore to Washington, D.C. and the northern Virginia suburbs will run right through HoCo. According to this report by Gus G. Sentementes in The Sun, the network will be completed in the next 45 days and “will run 104 miles from downtown and western parts of Baltimore south through Columbia, Laurel and Greenbelt, where it ties into the company's existing Washington and Northern Virginia telecommunication networks.”

The network is being built out by FiberLight, a Georgia based telecommunications firm that already operates about 3,000 miles of fiber-optic networks across the country.

“The company sees growth in the region's information-technology economy, where the federal government and large hospitals, universities and other sectors are looking for faster data services as networks endure greater workloads.”

Coupled with the HoCo broadband initiative this area will soon have enough bandwidth to beat the band…so to speak.

Smart Toast

Last night, after I got home from the HoCo Tech Council dinner, I inadvertently dropped my smart phone into the toilet. I am really at a loss to explain how this actually happened I just know that one minute it was in my hand and the next moment I was fishing it out of the toilet.

The phone was toast.

This morning I was the first customer in the door at the Verizon store in Snowden Square. Even though I was the first customer I was still told I had to cool my heels before a customer rep could assist me.

“Feel free to browse the store,” the reception person said.

I wasn’t in a particularly browsing mood. I was without a phone on a day that I could ill afford to be without a phone. I needed to get this situation rectified, quickly.

Before long Melvin Bond came up to me and offered his assistance.

“I dropped my phone in the toilet last night and I need a new phone quickly. Just grab me  a Droid X,” I told him.

“How about some screen protectors to go with that?”

“No thanks, just the phone.”

“Are you sure,” he persisted, “it’s a pretty good idea to have these.”

“I don’t like them and I don’t want them,” I replied, beginning to get slightly annoyed.

“What don’t you like about them?”

“I don’t like how they work with touch screens,” I said, trying to sound polite yet firm.

“Perhaps you didn’t install them correctly. I’d be happy to put one on for you.”

“I don’t want a screen protector Melvin. I just want the phone.” 

“How about a case? I can give you 20% off if you buy the screen protectors and the case.”

By now I’m figuring that Verizon’s got some kind of sales contest going on and Melvin is determined to start his day off strong.

The thing is, when you start off your day off having to drop a couple a hundred bucks because you dunked your phone in the toilet, accessories are the last thing you want to consider.

Scene This Week In…

When I dropped off my car at Benchmark Motors on Red Branch Road last week this classic roadster stood out amongst the Mercedes and BMW’s parked outside. I asked the owner Danny Grant about it.

“It’s a 1936 Ford Phaeton.”

It’s in pretty impressive condition. Danny told me that the car has been in the same family since it was two months old. When it’s not being attended to at Danny’s place it resides in a garage in Farside.

This past Sunday Peanut and I decided to have breakfast in Ellicott City before dropping in on the November edition of the Second Sunday Market. As we crossed back over the river from the Trolley Stop, a pile of red leaves stood out in an otherwise carpet of golden leaves. It was Peanut who got it first.

“It’s a heart!”

We usually look for the artfully stacked rocks in the water when we cross over the Patapsco at the gateway to Ellicott City. This time the art was on the shore. 

Hedgehog Rules!

Last year, when Tales of Two Cities won the Mobbie for Best Political Blog, I commented that The Hedgehog Report would have been the better choice.

This year the Mobbie voters agreed and The Hedgehog Report won.

Dave Wissing, the author of THR is also the elder statesman of HoCo bloggers, having maintained his blog for almost seven years now. Congratulations Dave!

I take solace in the fact that at least we’ve kept the political blog award in the county. Thanks to all who voted for Tales of Two Cities and all of the other excellent HoCo blogger nominees.

Winning by Losing?

When Northrop Grumman chose Northern Virginia over Maryland for it’s coporate headquarters earlier this year, many laid the blame for the loss at the feet of Martin O’Malley. In a Letter to the Editor in last weeks Baltimore Business Journal, the retired Chairman and CEO of another large defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, defended the governor and the incentive package he put together.

Norman R. Augustine, who retired from Lockheed in 1997, was the leader of the CEO Work Group “charged with helping to attract the aerospace and defense giant here…”

“Not only did Maryland put forth a very competitive financing package in conjunction with Montgomery County, but to strengthen the state’s case to Northrop Grumman, Gov. Martin O’Malley and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development brought together Team Maryland, a unified non-partisan group that included congressional leaders, state, county and legistlative partners, and some of Maryland’s top business leaders.”

“During my career, I cannot recall witnessing any such effort that was more thorough or better coordinated than this one.”

That’s a pretty strong statement from a heavy hitter like Mr. Augustine.

Despite ultimately losing out to Virginia, Augustine still thinks the state benefited from the excerise.

“…Maryland now has in place a coordinated strategy that will help the state attract more companies and create more jobs…”

I sure hope he’s right.

Verizon KO’d

Last night, the super welterweight championship fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito was supposedly offered on Verizon’s On Demand service and Verizon apparently wasn’t up for the game. Not only were some fight fans frustrated by not being able to get the fight, the On Demand servers crashed in Maryland, leaving even non fight fans high and dry.

Peanut and her friend were in the middle of watching “How to Train Your Dragon” when the movie suddenly stopped. I tried to restart it by rebooting the cable box but nothing worked. I reluctantly called customer service and after waiting on hold for at least a half hour for tech support I was finally told by "Antwon" that the system had gone down all over the state. I asked to be transferred to billing so I could get a refund for the movie.

This time I waited over an hour.

By the time I got someone on the phone I was more than a little annoyed. I spoke with a guy named Dave. He told me he was in “central Illinois.” He wouldn’t give me his last name but he gave me his “badge number.” It was 2111.

“Don’t you think it is ludicrous to have someone wait on the phone for over an hour just to get a five dollar credit?”

“Yes sir, we’re sorry.”

“I know it’s not your fault, you are merely the poor guy who ended up on duty tonight. Who can I contact to register a formal complaint?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about this, who signs your pay check?”

“I’m not permitted to tell you that.”

“Okay, how about giving me the name of the president of Verizon?”

“I don’t know that.”

“Let me get this straight, you don’t know the name of the president of your company?”

“No sir.”

Note to Badge number 2111, it’s Lowell McAdam. 

Talk About Fast Tracking a Project!

A 15 story hotel was constructed in Shanghai China in just six days. This feat is even more incredible because it was also built to withstand a level 9 earthquake. No workers were injured in the round the clock construction.

Old News

This is somewhat old news but still seems worth mentioning. Newsweek has identified HoCo as the third richest county in the U S of A with a median household income of $101,940.

Perhaps the bigger story is that four of the top ten richest counties were in Maryland and three, including the top two, were in Northern Virginia.

Despite this ranking we still seem to have an easier time attracting retailers like Big Lots instead of a Crate & Barrel.

Slaughtering a Sacred Cow

If the country wants to really get serious about reducing the national debt, a few sacred cows will need to be slaughtered. One of those cows is the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners. This week the co-chairs of the bipartisan deficit reduction commission suggested that the time has come to do just that.

The mortgage banking and real estate interests are already mobilizing their forces to see that this doesn’t happen. They are claiming that this will put the final nail in the coffin of an already beleaguered housing industry.

Maybe, maybe not.

When you get beyond the sound bites that always to seem to frame our national debates, you learn that the proposal isn’t to eliminate the deduction entirely. According to this story by Carla Fried on Moneywatch.com, the idea is to “end the mortgage interest deduction on primary-home mortgages above $500,000, down from the current limit of $1 million. The deficit-cutting duo also proposed to completely eliminate the deductibility on second homes and home equity loans and lines; currently up to $100,000 of interest on such loans and lines qualify for the tax break.”

This would net the government a savings of approximately $131 billion as early as 2012.

“That’s the White House’s official estimate of the 2012 revenue cost of the mortgage interest deduction.  A study that looked at proposals to reform the mortgage deduction put out by the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute points out that sum is “much more than the total of all outlays by the Department of Housing and Urban Development ($48 billion).”

I realize that this may sound like heresy from someone who is in the real estate business but if we are going to be serious about reducing the deficit, we have to be willing to offer part of our own government subsidized largess. As David Stockman so eloquently put it, it is delusional to think that we “don’t have to tax ourselves to pay our bills.”

That being said, the proposed elimination of this mortgage interest deduction and other tax deductions will have a corresponding cut in tax rates. According to this story by Tamara Keith on NPR’s Morning Edition, the commission is further “proposing a restructuring of the whole tax system, eliminating all kinds of tax breaks while reducing tax rates overall.”

Will it kill the housing industry?

There is no question that the impact would be felt hardest by those who develop higher end housing, but considering that the average sales price of a home in HoCo this year is $355,000., the majority of homeowners would not be affected. 

This Just In…

I stayed up a little too late last night witnessing that nail biter ending of the Ravens Falcons game. While the other occupants of our household were nestled warm in their beds I was pacing around the family room yelling into a pillow so as not to disturb their peaceful slumber.

It is taking me more than one cup of coffee this morning to get into the game.

While I gather my wits for a more thoughtful post I’ll just share this enlightening news report from the BBC.

Whole Foods and HoCo

First things first; Whole Foods will never locate in a Columbia village center, not in any foreseeable future anyway. The reason is that there is simply not enough population density and corresponding demographics to support it.

It will likely be awhile before they will locate anywhere in HoCo too. The reason for that is Wegmans. About  a year ago I heard that either Whole Foods or Fresh Market was close to making a deal with GGP for the Gateway Overlook shopping center but when they caught wind of Wegmans impending arrival they demurred.

Wegmans is your basic category killer for high end grocers. Their stores are three times the size of a Whole Foods or Fresh Market.

So will Whole Foods or Fresh Market ever come to HoCo?

In my not so humble opinion, the greatest likelihood of that happening would be in Columbia Town Center, in five years or so, in the Crescent District behind Merriweather Post Pavilion. And that would have to be in conjunction with the development of a few high end condominium projects to support it.

And while I am on the subject of retail, kudos to the Columbia Association for hosting a retail seminar with Tom Moriarity this past Monday. If another entity like GGP or the Howard Hughes Corporation had hosted this event it would have been derided by the flat earth society members as self serving.  

The New Howard Hughes Corporation

As of today, the company that will be orchestrating the redevelopment of Columbia's Town Center will no longer be General Growth Properties, instead it will be the newly created Howard Hughes Corporation. The new entity, whose stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange today under the symbol HHC, will be headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

And in a different twist on “meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” Greg Hamm, the General Manager of Columbia and the guy who spearheaded the redevelopment effort since December of 2007 for GGP, has assumed the same role for the HHC.

Gateway Overlook Sold

Coupled with the Reuters report this morning of  GGP’s emergence from bankruptcy, it was also reported that they had sold the Gateway Overlook Shopping Center in Columbia for $90.1 million “as part of its plan to shed unwanted assets. It did not identify the buyer.”

Gateway Overlook is home to Costco, Best Buy and Lowes, as well as the only Trader Joe's for miles around.

The undeveloped land adjacent to the center apparently was not included in the sale.

Happy Ending for GGP Bankruptcy

It’s official, General Growth Properties has emerged from bankruptcy. Accrding to this story in The Sun “the second-largest U.S. mall operator, said it has emerged from bankruptcy, 11/2 years after becoming the biggest U.S. real estate company to seek Chapter 11 protection.”

In contrast to most corporate bankruptcies, it appears that all of GGP’s creditors will also be made whole.

“Creditors were paid in full, and equity investors who often get wiped out instead obtained a "substantial" recovery on their claims, General Growth said. Both are unusual.”

The company is even expected to begin paying a dividend in the first quarter next year.

As part of the reorganization, GGP has spun off most of the assets in their Master Planned Communities division to a new entity called Howard Hughes Corporation. According to this story in Rueters “shareholders of the old General Growth received common stock in the new company and in Howard Hughes. Shares of the new General Growth and Howard Hughes began trading on Wednesday.”

Mr. Normans Nightmare

The temporary closure of the HCCA listserv to non registered users was apparently related to a post made late last night by Chris Carnavos. Mr. Carnavos is a neighbor of Marc Norman who has grown tired of Marc’s attempts to portray himself as a victim of evil developers. Marc has led the effort to try and keep Harris Teeter from opening a store in Turf Valley.

Chris takes issue with Marc’s moral character by pointing to a criminal summons from 2005 that was settled with a plea bargain. I am not comfortable with going into greater detail here but Chris did provide enough backup documentation complete with sordid details to prove his point. 

In a post on the listserv yesterday Mr. Norman claimed his “family has been harassed in Turf Valley for years.  In addition to workmen questioning my grade school daughter and taking her picture, Turf Valley was responsible for placing a port-a-potty on my back lot line last year to see if they could “have a little fun” with me and my neighbors.”

Chris provides a somewhat different version of events:

“Norman refers in the email I’m responding to about Turf Valley “workmen questioning his grade school daughter and taking her picture”. The circumstances of the incident with his daughter, as he describes it, are totally distorted. His daughter was found trespassing on the Turf Valley golf course property equipped with a walkie talkie talking to her father. So, who was spying on who?  In the last few days, Norman was “outraged” at being “monitored”, and now has distorted the circumstances around his daughters incident with workmen. I ask, how does she encounter workmen if she is not trespassing on Turf Valley property? I guess when he uses an underage kid to spy, and gets caught, it is harassment; when it’s done to him, its harassment.”

And finally, Chris takes issue with Marc’s failed petition drive and his association with the food workers union:

“And now, I get to the really big one, how the referendum issue against CB58 on the Turf Valley Town Square was planned and conducted, led by Norman. Under the guise of being a grass roots effort conducted by concerned citizens, it was really a collusion between Union 27 (who represent grocery employees), large retail grocers (e.g Safeway, Super Fresh, Giant), and activists led by Norman to get Howard County citizens to sign petitions by deceiving them as to the purpose, which was largely commercial – being to stop a non-union store (Harris Teeter) from entering the local Turf Valley/Ellicott City market. That was what I was prepared to testify about tonight because I get tired of hearing about disenfranchised voters when the very thing they signed for was based on total deception. This referendum effort severely injures proponents of good referendum processes when such a process is so severely abused. Again, I attach my testimony and my detailed backup proving the assertions in the testimony.”

I have reviewed the attachments that Chris references and they appear to corroborate his statements.

Circling the Wagons

It appears that the recent electoral setbacks of the Howard County Citizens Association have resulted in a circling of the wagons. As of today they no longer allow non registered readers to peruse their listserv.

Was it something I said?

Scene This Week In…

I suppose it’s time to take down the Halloween stuff on my STW feature. I hate folks who leave holiday décor up long after the holiday passes.

 In Ellicott City I received inspiration when I dropped in for a cup of coffee at the Little French Market this morning. The historic mill town exudes that feeling of fall and this Sunday it will be on full display with the November edition of the Second Sunday Market. The monthly market does a fairly good job of presenting seasonal offerings. Since the Ravens play on Thursday this week my Sunday afternoon will be free.

Right now it looks as if the weather will hold out too.

Yesterday I attended a press conference at HoCo General Hospital for the new LIFENET system. The LIFENET system “is a state-of-the-art system that connects emergency medical service (EMS) teams and hospital personnel with emergency patient data.” It is basically an EKG with a modem that gives the hospital critical data on heart patients in advance of their arrival at the hospital. In heart attacks, time is critical to preserve heart muscle. With the LIFENET system the doctor can even review an incoming patients EKG on their smart phone.

I’ve had a little first hand experience with this.

Coincidentally, as I was driving down to EC this morning I heard another report about heart attacks on NPR’s Morning Edition. According to a recent study conducted by the University of Michigan speeding up the treatment of heart attacks has not reduced the overall survival rate.

“The study's author believes the problem is with the patient, and says educating people to recognize heart attack symptoms and getting victims the hospital faster is key.”

I did everything wrong when I had mine.

Acronym Angst

A group of enterprising students at Howard High School has caused a bit of stir with a t-shirt. According to this story by Lindsey McPherson in The Howard County Times, Conor Soop and some fellow classmates started a t-shirt company and“created their first T-shirt design in the interest of school spirit using the acronym "FLR."

The students innocently claim these initials stand for “Fierce Lions Roar.” The school mascot is the lion. Others however have interpreted the shirt a bit differently. Howard’s main rival is Long Reach and the t-shirt made its debut before a recent football game between the two schools. The principal of Howard, Gina Massella determined that “many students interpreted the acronym as a derogatory expression against Long Reach.”

Ya think?

Still, this t-shirt controversay seems tame by comparison with Wakefield High School in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Their track and field team boosters garnered national attention last week when they began selling “WTF” t-shirts. 

Yentruoc Nostaw

While watching the Ravens I thought I’d jot off a quick post with a couple weekend observations during half time.

Last night Mama Wordbones and I spent the night in Baltimore. She won a night at the Marriott Camden Yards at silent auction last year and we just now got around to using it. After checking in around 6:30 PM we walked down towards the Inner Harbor looking for a place to eat when we stumbled upon the newly opened Kona Grill. We decided to drop in for a cocktail to check it out.

We stayed for dinner. As I have stated before, I consider myself wholly unqualified to be a food blogger. There are others who do a much better job and I willingly defer to them for all things food. That being said, we eat out quite a bit and therefore when we come across someplace that we both find exceptional, I feel compelled to comment on it. The Kona Grill is one of those exceptional places. It could be my new favorite place to eat out in Baltimore.

In her column in The Sun today, Janet Gilbert relates her first time experience working the polls in Howard County. It turns out that she was drafted for this task by the same candidate that drafted me for my first time stint at the polls, only Janet decided to make a tongue in cheek attempt to mask the candidates identity by spelling her name backward.

Her most interesting observation was how it felt to be one the people she generally tries to avoid.

“For years, I have walked briskly past these individuals on Election Day, feeling uncomfortable when they greeted me with a cheery "Thank you for voting" as I approached my local elementary school.”

It’s always enlightening to walk in another’s shoes, even if you do get cold feet...literally.

Half time’s over…back to the game. Go Ravens!

One Year Later

This week our podcast, “and then there’s that…” marked it’s one year anniversary. When we started out with that first show with Len Lazerick in the Lakeside Café I really wasn’t sure how it would play out. We didn’t know if we put together a show that anyone would actually want to listen to much less whether we could commit the time to actually do a new show every two weeks.

Twenty seven shows later we’ve learned that yes, there is an audience for a hyper local podcast about “people, politics and punditry.” According to our producer Dave Bittner, each show now generates about 2,000 downloads. And though we sometimes find ourselves in a last minute scramble, we can successfully put up something new every two weeks. We have also been fortunate to have had some great guests from politicians to just plain interesting loco personalities. It is these guests that really make the show.

Our latest show also marked a new milestone. We have moved to The Mall in Columbia after stints at the Lakeside Café, Clyde’s and the Howard County Fair. The Mall bought out a whole new dynamic for us with more people passing by and wondering what the hell we are up to. We hope to address this curiosity in future episodes by having handouts about the show available and providing a means for passersby to listen in as we record.

This show also marked the return appearance of Tom Coale, the author of the loco politico blog HoCo Rising. This past summer Tom joined us for our two minute segment and this time he came on as our main guest. Anyone who has read his blog will attest to his humor and thoughtful commentary on the local political scene. I think it is safe to say that he’ll be back again sometime in the coming year.

You can listen to the latest podcast here.