Sunday’s “Daily Times” contains an editorial decrying sprawl and the disappearance of farm land and open space. The claim is that Wicomico County government isn’t doing enough to prevent overdevelopment. The author is correct.

What demonstrates the paper’s blatant hypocrisy is that it fails to criticize Salisbury for promoting this development. The editors of the “Daily Times” should get off their collective bums and attend a city council meeting once in while.

The primary concern of Salisbury government, when it comes to development, is providing developers with everything they desire and boosting the assesed tax base.

Schools are a county problem. If you don’t believe me, ask Lynn Cathcart. Roads are something that can be postponed until the state puts up some more cash.

I guess the editors have some logical reason why developing a farm in the county is wrong, but annexing one into Salisbury and then developing it is “smart growth”.

… the right way.

Sunday’s Baltimore Sun contains an article about the GOP’s plans to push legislation to outlaw flag burning and gay marriage. The reported purpose of these proposed constitutional amendments is to keep the socially conservative base in check and get them out to the polls come November.

Regardless of the merits of these two pieces of legislation, I take my hat off to the socially conservative wing of the GOP. After years of being pandered to by nominally conservative politicians this wing of the party, dubbed “Theocons” by the left, have stood up and said this is the price for our loyalty.

Do we really want to make burning the flag a crime? Do we really want to dictate to states what constitutes a marriage? At least the panderers are going about it the right way. Rather than merely passing laws which will be overturned by the courts they are attempting to amend the constitution. Of course this brings up another question – are these issues worth amending the greatest governmental charter ever devised by man?

The legislative session is over. Let the fundraising begin.

George Will’s recent column on campaign finance reform shows the hypocrisy of the GOP power elite. McCain-Feingold was wrong, but it seemed politically advantageous. Since the Dems seem to have benefited more from the use of 527 committees, the GOP wants to heavily regulate them.

What we need is real and sweeping campaign finance reform. That would entail taking all limits off of individual contributions. For that matter you could take them off of corporations and unions too. The trick is to require full and timely disclosure.

This is doable as well. The Virginia Public Access Project tracks contributions by contributor, locality and occupation. You can look up which one of your neighbors is giving to candidates. Want to know how much developers are contributing and to who? Look it up.

The Federal Election Commission could be providing this service now. The only problem is that incumbents don’t really want easy access to their contributor base.

Did you or any member of your family hold any financial interest in Sassafras Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC? Did you or any member of your family derive any benefit from the sale of properties by Sassafrass Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC to Thomas H. Ruark, Inc.?

Did you or any member of your family hold any financial interest in Sassafras Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC? Did you or any member of your family derive any benefit from the sale of properties by Sassafrass Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC to Thomas H. Ruark, Inc.?

Did you or any member of your family hold any financial interst in Sassafras Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC? Did you or any member of your family derive any benefit from the sale of properties by either Sassafrass Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC to Thomas H. Ruark, Inc.?

Did you or any member of your family hold any financial interst in Sassafras Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC? Did you or any member of your family derive any benefit from the sale of properties by either Sassafrass Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC to Thomas H. Ruark, Inc.?

Did you or any member of your family hold any financial interst in Sassafras Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC? Did you or any member of your family derive any benefit from the sale of properties by either Sassafrass Meadows, LLC or Marquis, LLC to Thomas H. Ruark, Inc.?

Tonight’s Salisbury City Council meeting agenda isn’t interesting for what’s on it, it’s interesting for the order things are laid out in. Per the rules of procedure, Council President Mike Dunn decides on the agenda and the order of items on that agenda. Why has he scheduled “Public Comment” prior to approval of minutes instead of the normal position at the end of the meeting?