The Spin Mistress
It’s no secret that I am no fan of the Barrie Tilghman administration. However, I have to give the Mayor credit for one thing – that woman can spin. While not as bright as the gang from the Clinton administration, Barrie makes up for it with a singular lack of conscience and a boldness that few politicians can muster.
I tuned in to Monday’s meeting late and began my evening viewing with King Burnett’s presentation of the “Visioneering Committee†report. The focus of the presentation was supposed to be a proposal for “a council of governmentsâ€. Unfortunately for Barrie and the Rubber Stamp Debbie Campbell was able to turn the focus to growth. Since I am pretty confident that Debbie Campbell was the only member of council who actually read the report (to paraphrase various members of council they are part time, don’t strive for perfection, and aren’t that concerned), the other members weren’t up to debating any issues with Ms. Campbell and seemed to hope that Mr. Burnett, et al would rise to their defense. It didn’t happen, so Barrie had to step in and try to remind everyone that the presentation had nothing to do with growth. Good thing too, because one of the things that the committee called for was an APFO to force development to be in line with public facilities, including schools. Now we know that Barrie’s buddies would like that very much.
Not to be deterred, when the time came to give us a rehash of the budget statement we were treated to a neat piece of spin. While discussing growth and its impact on revenues Mayor Tilghman tried to twist Mr. Burnett’s presentation to her own use. She claimed that developers are interested in public facilities and that is why they are coming to Salisbury.
Good try Barrie. Developers want water and sewer so that they can build at a higher density. Until traffic reaches Baltimore—Washington corridor levels, they’re not that concerned with roads. They’re not concerned with schools until overcrowding reaches the point that the newspaper actually takes notice and then starts screaming about it. The presentation talked about planned growth, growth that moved in line with the available public facilities. It was smooth though.
The best performance of the evening revolved around the Ullman Theater project. The Mayor just can’t stand it when her boys and girls don’t adequately defend her pet projects. They tried, but Barrie just wasn’t satisfied. So what did we get? More spin.
If I had a few beers with dinner I might have bought some of her spin. I had no idea that the Taylors were “urban pioneersâ€. Shoot I didn’t even know that Salisbury was really urban. I know that Barrie and the Rubber Stamp want it to be, but I wasn’t aware that we had made it yet.
Mayor Tilghman claimed that it was people like the Taylors who were responsible for the redevelopment of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It was awesome. I don’t see the city of Salisbury buying and demolishing buildings. I don’t see the Rouse Corporation proposing any plans for the revitalization of downtown Salisbury. I’m not advocating a massive use of eminent domain, but projects like the Inner Harbor are accomplished by governments and large corporations working in concert over many years. Salisbury’s approach is piecemeal and scattered. It appears that they change their minds on what they want to do every budget season.
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Comments
Barrie,
How’s that letter or card coming along sending your sympathy to the Tragle Family for losing their son several months ago? I spoke with them just the other day and they have yet to hear anything from you, the City and or the Salisbury Zoo. Dr. Tragle was the Veterinarian for the Zoo for 12 years.
How about that fund raiser you promised to take care of for the injured zookeeper at the Salisbury Zoo, Kip Grangier? You said you were going to mention it to the Zoo Commission and they have never once brought it up.
I thought you told the citizens of Salisbury the Zoo got a clean bill of health from the AZA? Why did you hide the fact that over these past two years while you could have been out raising funds to build out this $2,000,000.00 building Jennifer Albero had been asking for over the past 18 years and the AZA obviously agreed with her, why did you hide this demand from the AZA to the citizens of Salisbury? Oh, was it because Jennifer Albero was 100% correct and it would have embarrassed you because you terminated the best employee the Zoo had ever had?
Since Jim Rapp admitted to the public that he did in fact drop his pants and expose himself numerous times, why is he still employed at the Salisbury Zoo? Is it OK now and encouraged that City Staff can do things like this and even admit it and say, “I thought it was a good idea at the time” and that gets them off?
How about Carrie Samis. She admitted to numerous sexual encounters even at the Zoo. Do you truly feel these people should be around children?
How about the WWTP? Do you still stand behind your statement that my photos were not realistic and accurate? Is that why the MDE is demanding you remove the sludge pit, get permits you never had and I exposed multiple illegal activities there the MDE never even knew were in place? You said Monday night that the MDE is there regularly doing surprise inspections all the time. If that were the case Barrie Tilghman, how did you get away with all these illegal activities over the past 18 years then????? Shall we also mention the construction debris they are also demanding you remove? Gee Barrie, they didn’t even know that was there!
Yeah, this woman can spin all right. But we can spin right back and nail her to the Cross and that’s what we’re going to continue to do. Barrie Tilghman is a flat out liar and a con woman. The Taxpayers are paying the price for her lies and she needs to go.
And the spin will continue, branching out to the Mayor’s “newsletter” to constituents, which will grace our mailboxes on a quarterly basis. This “happygram” to voters is little more than a “look at me!” propaganda rag, designed to up the Mayor’s credibility and visibility among the otherwise poorly informed. While it could be an important, useful vehicle for informing the people of both sides of issues, and a method to get more people involved in government, in its current form it does neither. If it continues in the tack shown in its first issue, the $20,000 annual costs should be deducted directly from the Mayor’s campaign funds.
Mr. Chaney:
You’re mistaken on the old Salisbury Mall — the City is waiving $14 Million in future property tax, and Wic. County another $6 Million (for which it gets 6 acres for parking at the Civic Center.
Wow $14 million, I stand corrected. Another $6 million from our county that can’t afford school renovations, no suprize there. We got so much cash lets blow another $500,000 on a street making the Downtown Plaza, the yawner it always was. But you can get a theater pretty cheap if you know the right person I guess!
Million dollars and acre for a parking lot, not even waterfront LMAO “Holy sh** Batman,” how can I get in on this deal?
Much of what the Mayor stated in the budget was spin; several other of her ideas were things that Debbie Campbell has been lobbying for since before she was elected:
a) The per-unit rental licensing fee, although the $25.00 amount suggested by the Mayor still doesn’t nearly cover the cost of inspections and code enforcement that was projected by Bill Holland.
b) Promoting home-ownership is something that Mrs. Campbell has been intimately involved with for many years. She was the first director of SNHS, where the Mayor used every tool she had to block Debbie’s efforts. Curiously, many of the problems that we have with home-ownership in this town were created by Mayor Tilghman’s policies!…recall the Mayor’s stance on the 4-2 issue.
c) Community policing has been methodically gutted by the Mayor, now she wants to completely do away with the horse patrol. Debbie was instrumental in supporting the creation of this aspect of policing, and also supported the substations in our neighborhoods which are not currently being utilized.
Also it is interesting that the nearly $1,000,000 fuel cost was described by the Mayor as being “huge”; on the other hand, she seems to think it’s not a big deal to give away nearly $1,000,000 in capacity fees and developer reimbursements to the Sassafrass Meadows project.