Divide and Conquer?

In case you've missed it, two items have featured prominently in local news here in Queen Anne's County.

First, the county commissioners have sent out mailings alerting of a series of budget hearings. Of particular note in that notice is the advertised a tax increase of up to $.12 above constant yield.

Second, the Maryland Transportation Authority has announced it is considering massive toll hikes, particularly on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

For obvious reasons both of these issues are of major interest to Queen Anne's County residents and thus we've all been eagerly looking forward to the hearings for both. Well I imagine you were as shocked as I was when those dates were announced.

The county was out first, with word that there will be three hearings, on the 13th, 14th, and 15th, in Kent Island, Centreville, and Sudlersville respectively.

Then the MDTA came out with the announcement for all of its own hearings. And lo and behold, the Queen Anne's County meeting just happens to be scheduled for June 15th, at Kent Island High School.

Now, then far be it from me to suggest anything sinister, but it does seem awfully convenient that the toll hike hearing just happens to be scheduled on the same night as what are well known to be contentious hearings. And it seems even more convenient that it happens to be located as far away as possible from that budget hearing while still being in Queen Anne's County.

But hey, coincidences happen, right?

They Doth Protest Too Much

The Centreville Taxpayers Association is alleging opponents of proposed low-income housing are the victims of “dirty tricks.”

Now we have seen anonymous posting of letters on the web, attacking some of those citizens who have signed the petition. Without knowing the source of these anonymous attacks, they are clearly from those in support of the project, whether in government, development or simply other citizens. In one instance, an anonymous letter has been sent to the employer of a signer, suggesting the employer should know of the anti-development sentiments of his employee. The employer, as you may have guessed by now, is a firm specializing in commercial property development and ownership.

These anonymous writers have named and attacked one signer because he is currently unemployed, another who experienced financial difficulties, another for personal problems of another nature. One writer stated, “You are a bunch of snobs. Stop attacking Council members who actually try to make things better.”

Curious that CTA provides no evidence of these “anonymous attacks” on the web or provide the email sent to the employer of the petition signee. CTA only provides a response to the allegations.

Check the comments on the petition site http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/centreville_low_income_housing/signatures?page=1

Where are these anonymous attacks on petition signers? Were they removed? If so, why?

Seems to me CTA would want to show proof of such dirty deeds. After all with a couple taps of the keyboard screen capture technology allows them to insert such visual evidence into a Wordpress blog post.

Speaking of the Citizens for Greater Centreville blog, that is a Dan Worth project.

You may remember Worth as the guy who impersonated a Centreville Town Council member to make her look bad and “drag her name through the mud.”

That these allegations—with no evidence provided—were made on Worth’s website should cast doubt on the veracity of such claims, and bears the mark of a half-assed false flag operation, which given Worth’s history and the less than honest track record of his compatriots is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Bay Bridge Safety Legislation in Trouble

EJ Pipkin has sponsored a bill SB458, which would codify best practices for the Maryland Department of Transportation to adopt for its safety inspections of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

The bill passed the Senate 47-0. However, Delegate James Malone, vice chair of the House Environmental Matters Committee is holding up the bill in that committee.

Time is of the essence, the end of the legislative session “sine die” is midnight Tuesday morning.

Please call Malone’s office (410) 841-3378 or email james.malone@house.state.md.us and let him know you want this bill brought to the full House for a vote.

Pot, Kettle, Environmentalist

Recently I commented on a Center Maryland piece on the origins and culprits of the fiscal mess in Queen Anne’s County by my fellow county resident Clayton A. Mitchell,

Now, Center Maryland has published a response by Jay Falstad, Executive Director of the Queen Anne’s County Conservation Association (QACA).

Falstad—a nominal Republican—jabs Mitchell a Democrat for invoking William F. Buckley Jr. by invoking Patrick Moynihan’s famous dictum that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

Falstad should heed his own advice.

Falstad claims that the traffic from the proposed Four Seasons development on Kent Island would outweigh any economic benefits. Yet the only “facts” Falstad cites in his keen economic analysis are the number of potential cars that may be added to the traffic on Route 50/301.Given that Queen Anne’s County is facing a budget deficit between $18-21 million, it’s hard to argue that traffic concerns outweigh the benefits of jobs, money injected into the local economy, and the expanded tax base the project would bring.

To paraphrase the aforementioned Buckley, I won’t insult Falstad’s intelligence by suggesting he really believes what he wrote.

As for the FASTC project, again I was not as sanguine on the economic prospects as Mitchell, but Falstad mangles the truth about the facility. Going by Falstad’s absurd logic, picnickers at Tuckahoe State Park would need to don hurt locker suits.

Falstad’s ally, the execrable Sveinn Storm, uses similar hyperbole to demonize any growth in the county as tantamount to turning the Route 50 corridor into the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex.

But alas that type of deception is the modis operandi of Falstad and the environmentalists.They say they are for “smart growth” which merely a euphemism for no growth, because they in fact oppose all attempts to grow the county.

Witness the signature measure of their puppet commissioners, county ordinance 08-25, which would have restricted the transfer development rights of farmers, rendering the value of their land—which they use to obtain credit to finance their operations—worthless. Naturally, QACA offered a report full of cooked statistics to support their case for 08-25.

Falstad accuses Mitchell for being a mouthpiece for “developer interests.” However, that begs the question for what special interests is Falstad playing useful idiot?

How about Allan Griffith, the former executive vice president of the Bank of New York and head of BONY’s international banking sector. Griffith lives on a million dollar waterfront estate in Centreville. Griffith was named in a federal lawsuit involving bank executives and Russian mobsters laundering billions of dollars through BONY accounts.

Griffith is a board member of Falstad’s employer QACA, and a generous donor to the web of political action committees that fund the anti-growth movement, including the Republican Environmental Alliance PAC Falstad used to chair. Falstad had to resign his chairmanship of the PAC because he violated state ethics laws by making illegal transfers while being a registered lobbyist.

And, interestingly enough, Griffith also happens to own Falstad’s mortgage.

Then there is former Freddie Mac fraudster Leland Brendsel, a prolific donor to Falstad’s PAC, QACA’s PAC, and anti-property rights candidates. In 2005, Brendsel who, leased his home at the historic Wye Hall property in Queenstown from the state, came under state scrutiny forviolations of the terms of the lease by performing illegal landscaping and paving to the ecologically sensitive property.

Note the irony of Falstad the statist, who would restrict what property owners can do with their own land, taking money from a man who feels entitled to do whatever he pleases with land that he does not own.

Lastly, QACA has received nearly $150,000 in grants over the last four years from the Easton based Town Creek Foundation. Town Creek is the same radical environmental donor group, which provided funding to the Center for Climate Strategies, the global warming alarmist outfit to which Governor O’Malley outsourced state climate policy. Town Creek paid CCS to recommend a menu of tax increases, burdensome regulations, and economy killing land use restrictions.

Falstad’s screed would be laughable if it weren’t such a cynical ploy to hide the fact that he’s as much a tool for well-funded special interests as he accuses Mitchell.

It's About Economic Growth

While I am loath to link to anything from Center Maryland that den of rent-seeking corporatists masquerading as a straight “news” site, this piece from Stevensville attorney Clayton Mitchell, Jr. is worth reading. Mitchell highlights the tough fiscal issues Queen Anne’s County faces as a result of anti economic growth policies pursued by the last set of county commissioners and the know nothing/no growth special interests, who pulled their strings.

On November 2, 2010, the Queen Anne’s County taxpayers said, “We are cutting government to the bone because we are tired of being pushed around”. We were pushed around when the preservationists shut down the Four Seasons development (and kept millions of additional property tax dollars from the County’s coffers) because the prior Commissioners lacked the political will to do what was socially and fiscally responsible in order make it happen.

The prior Commissioners were prepared to let a small vocal minority of protesters organize and prevent a multi-million dollar Federal training center from locating in the County – a project which would have yielded 500 new jobs, transferred in 500 additional taxpayers and which would have brought with it a catalyst to jump start and fuel the local economy. Because of the loss of these and other large economic development opportunities, the County consequently pushed us taxpayers to dig deeper and deeper into our pockets (every time our homes were re-assessed) to fund its penchant for ever more government services.

While I disagree with his call for tax hikes to fund county education budget—education spending cuts won’t hurt as much as he thinks—Mitchell is dead on here. I only wish he had mentioned that it was Governor O’Malley—whom Mitchell effusively praised—who cast a no vote against the Four Seasons project at the Board of Public Works. And, while I was not as sanguine about the federal training center (FASTC), there is no doubt a vocal minority of political bullies tossed their weight around and pulled the puppet strings attached to the previous commissioners.

Mitchell and I have our disagreements, but we both recognize the key for Queen Anne’s resurgence is economic growth. We must not let a small cadre of thugs stop the needed growth while frittering away our rights and prosperity on a bag of magic beans called “preservation.”

Anatomy of a Smear

The Baltimore Sun, and even the Drudge Report picked up the total non-story that is MDGOP First Vice Chair Diana Waterman’s black angus cow “Oprah.” There is, of course, a lot of bovine waste floating around this manufactured tempest in a teapot, but none of it is coming from the cow.

The real story here isn’t the cow as the Sun thinks, but about Queen Anne’s County ne'er-do-well, Sveinn Storm ginning up a controversy where none exists to smear Waterman in order to sink County Ordinance 11-02, which the Queen Anne’s County Board of Commissioners approved Tuesday night.

Storm and his pack of shrieking anti-growth harpies were opposed to the measure, which allows the party central committees to fill vacancies on the Queen Anne’s County Board of Commissioners. A similar system exists for vacancies in the General Assembly. The governor appoints replacements recommended by the county central committee of the party holding the particular seat.

Duly elected pro-growth Republicans dominate the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee. Waterman is not only First Vice Chair of the Maryland GOP, but a member of the county central committee as well. Get the picture.

Storm and his ally Dan Worth claim that their opposition to the ordinance is all about democracy. Worth writes:

I don’t know about you, but I would rather have an opportunity to vote to fill a County Commissioner vacancy rather than have the selection made by who knows who.

Does Dan Worth, an active ally and neighbor of Sveinn Storm really think he can fool people into thinking he actually doesn’t know who is on the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee? Quite cheeky for a guy who was busted for impersonating an elected official to be talking about “who knows who.”

In a letter so full of specious legal reasoning not seen since William O. Douglas wrote about emanations from penumbras, Storm demanded the committee turn over documents under the Maryland Public Information Act. An official from the Attorney General’s office assured me that county political central committees are not subject the law.

What Storm, Worth and the anti-growthers are really worried about is power. The commissioner’s election didn’t go their way, so they’re left with nothing but juvenile tricks and smear campaigns.

Storm and his anti-growth crowd are a fifth column, in what Senator EJ Pipkin and, Delegate Mike Smigiel call the war on rural Maryland.

Economic growth no matter how sensible or how needed is spat upon, and property rights are held in contempt--except their own of course. They know no boundary of decency or propriety, opponents are to be demonized at all costs.

Old Dog, Old Tricks, Same Old Bullshit

Sometimes old dogs can’t learn new tricks they just repeat old ones. Case in point Dan Worth, or Gait Keeper/Gate Keeper, or Sentinel Whispers or whatever anonymous moniker he chooses to hide behind

Worth you will remember ran afoul of the law six years ago after impersonating former Centreville Town Council member Donna Turner, in order to—as he admitted to the Maryland State Police—drag her name through the mud and make her look bad.

Here is the entire police report on Worth. Truly something to be proud of.

MSPReport



Now, it appears Worth is back in the impersonation game. After the 2010 county elections, the administrators of the 2010 QAC County Commissioner's Race Facebook page, changed the page name to 2011 QAC Open Forum. Shortly thereafter “Gait Keeper” one of Worth’s nom’s de cyber, created a Facebook page with the exact same name, and negative of the same photo of the steamed crabs used by the real 2011 QAC Open Forum administrators.

One would have figured that after being exposed by the Maryland State Police for identity theft, Worth and/or his accomplices would forego the impersonation scheme.

Juvenile tricks aside, what this does prove is that the anti-growth—more accurately the anti-liberty crowd—can’t stand on the merits of their own arguments and are reduced to such childishness. For example, using false statements to gin up accusations of racism.

Holy Cow(pie)

"every word she writes is a lie, include 'and' and 'the"

--Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman

McCarthy's famous zinger on the Stalinist sympathizing Hellman could well apply to Sveinn Storm, who appears to have fired up the steamroller to pave over the tattered remnants of his integrity.

Storm’s too-clever-by-half attack on Diana Waterman over her black angus cow “Oprah” contains two blatant falsehoods.

First, Storm claims Waterman named the cow. She didn’t. Perhaps Storm was too busy working on illegal renovations to the property he owns on Commerce St. to pick up the phone and call Diana to get his facts straight.

Second, Storm claims Waterman abused her position as Vice Chair of the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee by campaigning for Robert Mansfield during the primary. As the Torch has documented this is completely false.

The only problem with Storm’s clever little conceit is that Waterman wasn’t campaigning for Robert Mansfield, and wasn’t acting in her capacity as vice chair of the QAC GOP Central Committee. Furthermore, contrary to his claim, there is no provision in the Queen Anne's County Republican Central Committee bylaws, which proscribes a member for campaigning as a private citizen for a certain candidate.

In fact, Waterman organized the door knocking effort on behalf of Queen Anne’s for Ehrlich, and the Andy Harris campaign. Furthermore, she wasn’t “campaigning for Mansfield.” As the email alert she sent out clearly contains the addresses of anti-growth candidates David Dunmeyer—Mansfield’s opponent—and Frank Frohn in the distribution list.

Diana also specifically states “Candidates bring your literature (and your volunteers) and we’ll hand it out too.”

The invitation was open to ALL Republican candidates.

Storm is free whine about promoting a “positive image” of the Republican Party, only he should conduct his spoon banging tantrums in front of mirror. Going by the long search return of his name in the Maryland Judiciary database, Storm is as about a positive image of a Republican, as President Obama is a centrist.

But let's not be too hard on Storm, he did reiterate for us the definition of the word racist... a conservative who is winning an argument.

What Does Racism Really Look Like?

It looks like this.

After allowing Queen Anne's County to enjoy a period of relative peace and quiet, Mr. Storm has painfully reminded us all of his continued existence (perhaps he's spent the last few months dealing with those possible EPA violations of his?).

In a recent post of his he accused Diana Waterman of being a racist for owning a cow named Oprah. Yes, having a pet named after a black celebrity makes you a racist in Storm's book.

Well, here's a message from the Torch to Storm - look to the speck in your own eye first.

As an aggressive opponent of any and all growth in Queen Anne's County and other rural areas, Mr. Storm has promoted policies explicitly designed to drive up property values by artificially restricting the supply of homes and buildable land.

Driving up prices like that has consequences. And considering that whites on average make about $25,000 more per year than blacks, chief among those effects is that it becomes that much harder for people who aren't white to buy homes here in Queen Anne's County.

Queen Anne's County did see its white population shrink from 2000 to 2009. But in that same time the black population dropped at 7 times the rate the white population did! For some reason, I can't help but think that the fact that the commissioners during that same period consistently adopted Storm's policies probably had something to do with the disproportionate shrink in the black population.

So you tell me which sounds more like racism to you, owning a cow with a celebrity's name or aggressively supporting policies that make it significantly harder for a black or a Hispanic family to buy the house next door?