Muir Boda – Louise Smith with a Beard?

As Tuesday’s Salisbury municipal election approaches, certain things are becoming clear and more questions are being raised.  Mayoral candidate Gary Comegys and his supporters are showing their desperation by disseminating the most vile and hateful trash about Jim Ireton; that is clear.  The city’s slumlords are throwing thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars to illegally benefit the Barrie Comegys ticket of Gary Comegys, Muir Boda, and Shanie Shields.  District 2 council candidate Muir Boda continues to make statements which raise multiple questions.  However, they can all be summarized by this – Would Muir Boda simply be a younger, more masculine version of Louise Smith if elected to council?

Remember back two years ago.  Louise Smith ran for office promising to bring some financial sanity and accountability to Salisbury government.  We were told that Louise Smith would ensure that the city’s audits would be done on time and that city contractors would be held accountable.

What did Salisbury citizens receive?  Over $10 million of taxpayers money was improperly accounted for.  The city has yet to deliver an audit on time.  Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars have been thrown at contractors for change orders for the WWTP and we now know that it doesn’t work.  Smith’s first two concerns as a council member were to cut a deal with Gary Comegys in order to be council president and to vote for a charter change enabling a 17% tax increase.

Much to my shame, I actively supported Smith’s candidacy.  While I like Boda personally, I’m not willing to make the same mistake twice.  I’m a huge believer in the old adage:

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

Back to now.  Muir Boda has run on a platform that claims he will bring “civility” back to the city council.  He and his supporters claim that he will bring his “extensive knowledge and leadership” to city government.  He claims that he will be a good fiscal steward of the taxpayers money.  Is there any basis for these claims?

CIVILITY?

Boda claims that he would reach out to other members of council and form coalitiions.  This sounds marvelous in theory.  However, if you look at what actually happens on the Salisbury city council one thing is clear – the only way to actually accomplish this wonderful ideal is to act as a rubber stamp for the executive.  Legislation is rammed through without vetting in a work session.  Often it lands in the lap of council hours, or even minutes, before the start of meeting.

Therefore, if you take Boda at his word he is sitting on the horns of a dilemma.  Either you rubber stamp the will of the executive or you demand adequate information.  However, Boda implies that it is these demands for adequate information and refusals to appropriate taxpayers’ money on the word of the mayor are not civil.

I am confident that Mr. Boda will claim that this is false.  However, the record indicates otherwise.  He would be hard pressed to find one instance of his opponent, Councilwoman Debbie Campbell, acting in any manner which meets the normal definitions of rude or uncivil behavior.

Boda’s definitiion of incivility appears to be any policy disagreement with the executive.  As such, we can only conclude that a councilman Boda would simply serve as a rubber stamp for the city’s mayor, albeit a polite rubber stamp with a smile on his face.

In addition, Boda has a propensity for trying to have his cake and eat it too on this issue.  While not using Campbell’s name, he compared her (and others, like myself) to Saddam Hussein because Campbell believes that any entity (such as PAC-14) which receives large amounts of the taxpayers’ money should be accountable to the taxpayer.  He denies this through his unofficial spokesperson Jonathan Taylor but anyone who paid attention to Boda’s interview with Phil Tilghman knows that this is accurate.  Additionally, and more gravely, Boda allowed himself to become affiliated with the unofficial blog of the Barrie Comegys ticket – initially as an open contributor.  This publication has committed every offense imaginable from publishing a picture of Joe Albero in blackface to gay bashing to simply posting lies (which are too numerous to post here).

Boda will undoubtedly argue that he can’t be held responsible the actions of others.  I would usually agree.  However, his opponent has never written on Delmarva Dealings or Salisbury News.  While I can only take responsibility for what I write, neither I nor Joe Albero have ever been guilty of the outrageous and scurrilous hate and fear mongering proffered by Boda’s unofficial campaign blog.  … and I readily admit that Albero, and even I, have been outrageous in the past.

KNOWLEDGE and LEADERSHIP?

I am somewhat reluctant to tackle this subject at the risk of being accused of being mean.  However, since Boda has made this a cornerstone of his campaign it does need to be examined.

Knowledge

Typical of several letters of support for Boda is this one from former county councilman Marvin Long.  We needn’t discuss Long’s performance on county council to evaluate whether or not he is a good judge of Boda’s qualifications.

As someone who never attended a city council meeting or work session prior to his candidacy, how can we seriously believe that Boda offers in depth knowledge of the workings of Salisbury government?  If you get past the platitudes and actually listen to the few times which Boda has made substative comments, you quickly realize that his “extensive knowledge” of city government consists of a weekend course at the Barrie Comegys School of Municipal Governance along with reading the abridge edition of Bubbanomics.

Boda claims that county and city monies derived from the franchise fee are “not the taxpayers’ money”.  If we agree with this argument we must also agree with the equally bizarre propositions that renters do not deserve city services because they do not DIRECTLY pay property taxes; or that monies collected from the lodging tax really belong to the people who stay in hotel room and do not belong to the county’s taxpayers.

Boda has argued repeatedly that the now infamous 4-2 (4-3?) ordinance caused rental properties to be spread throughout the city.  The claim is that enforcement of this ordinance caused an increased demand for the number of rental units.  This argument may found in chapter 6 of Bubbanomics.

There are only a few problems with this specious argument.  For starters, all of the existing rental properties were grandfathered.  Therefore, no additional demand could possibly come due to this law.  Perhaps Mr. Boda meant to argue that what the city really needed was MORE illegal conversions.  Given that his friend Barrie Tilghman never allowed the la
w to be enforced to begin with, that argument doesn’t hold.  There have been ample illegal conversions since the passage of 4-2 and it’s amendment to 4-3.

I honestly don’t wish to ridicule Mr. Boda.  He seems like a fine young man.  He is no doubt bright.  However, Muir needs to understand a basic concept – there is a distinct difference between intelligence and knowledge.  You can be the most intelligent guy in the world, yet not possess knowledge of a particular subject because of lack of experience, training, or education.  Unlike Boda’s unofficial spokesperson Jonathan Taylor, who is void of both intelligence and knowledge, Muir needs to take the time to learn a little before he should claim to posses the answers to the city’s problems.  Barring that, he merely provides more evidence to my argument that Boda would be a simple rubber stamp for a Comegys administration (or lackey of an incumbent councilman Comegys).

Leadership

I know that Boda is a youth group leader at his his church.  Unfortunately, that is not the kind of leadership needed in city government.

Leadership is not only the ability to work with others.  It is also the willingness to stand firm despite the will of the majority – when you know that you are right.  It would be unfair to say that this is where Boda falls short.  We simply don’t know.  He has no public record.  However, this appears to be another case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

Boda criticizes Mrs. Campbell for “120 NO votes”.  Let’s put that in context.  Almost everyone of those votes falls into one of three categories:

• A vote against raising taxes, rates or fees.

• A vote against wasteful government spending.

• A vote against a particular bill because the administration refused to provide adequate time and / or information to make an informed judgment.

Is Boda in favor of those tax, rate and fee increases?  If so, that’s fine.  He should make his case.  However, if he wasn’t and is merely criticizing a “NO” vote that shows a lack of leadership ability as well as a few other possible character flaws.

One of the cornerstones of Boda’s campaign is the claim that he will be a good fiscal steward.  If this is the case, then why is he criticizing Campbell’s votes against wasteful government spending?  Again, there seem to be a few flaws here, but Muir certainly isn’t showing “leadership” by any normal or normative definition.

Does Boda believe that appropriating money without adequate information is a good idea?  If he does, then he fails on the third leg of his campaign stool – fiscal stewardship.  If he doesn’t, then why is he criticizing Campbell?

The answer to these three questions is apparant.  It’s not that Muir Boda is a bad guy.  This is just what he was taught at the Barrie Comegys School of Municipal Governance and he simply doesn’t know better.

However, there is one thing that is obvious.  IF Boda currently possesed the type of leadership ability necessary to be an effective legislator he would not have fallen into this trap.

Another point on a slightly more personal note.  As we have witnessed during this campaign, Boda’s supporters and his dear pal Jonathan Taylor have engaged in some pretty horrendous behavior.  We have heard everything from accusations of Jim Ireton’s moral unfitness to be mayor to implications that Boda’s opponent had engaged in an immoral behavior.

I would be wrong to question the sincerity of Muir’s beliefs as a Christian.  Therefore, I can only question his fitness as a leader if he permits friends, advisors and supporters to engage in seriously questionable behavior without some form of rebuke or denouncement.  This has obviously not occured because the behavior has not only continued, it has worsened as we approach Tuesday.  Yet, Muir continues to be the beneficiary of illegal campaign expenditures, he continues to take support from people engaging in a panoply of lies and character assasination and continues to accept the “help” and support of an individual who has shown himself to be a moral bankrupt.

Is this leadership?

A GOOD FISCAL STEWARD?

We have pretty much covered this in parts I and II.  However, to recap:

Boda, like Louise Smith before him, has no public record.  We can only take him at his word.  Therein lies the problem.

No, I am not accusing Boda of being a liar.  There is no evidence of that.  What I am stating is that there is too much evidence that Boda would be a Comegys tool on council whether Comegys is elected mayor or not.  Comegys’ fiscal record is well known and not something to be proud of.  In addition, we have Boda’s criticism of Campbells votes againt a property tax increase, against water and sewer rate hikes and against myriad examples of wasteful and ineffective spending by the Barrie Comegys team.

While I have no doubt that Muir Boda INTENDS to be a good and faithful steward if elected, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Without an adequate knowledge base, without the leadership qualities required to stand firm against the wrong current, can we expect Muir Boda to succeed as an effective city councilman?

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