Harken back to the days of the great landfill scandal.  After Sheriff Mike Lewis caught the criminals and States Attorney Davis Ruark sent them to jail it was discovered that the miscreants would be collecting full county pensions.  Shame on us.

By law, nothing could be done about the problem at hand.  However, Wicomico’s county council did take steps to make sure that such an event wouldn’t occur in the future.  If a county employee was found guilty of defrauding or otherwise stealing from the taxpayers they would forfeit the county’s contribution to their pension.

Last year it was discovered that a Wicomico County Board of Education (WCBOE) employee was defrauding the taxpayers (or if you are a lefty – “stealing form the children”).  I’m sure it wasn’t the first time; nor the last.  Assuming that this woman is convicted and sentence to jail, she will be eligible to receive her full pension.  Shame on us again?

Maybe.  The WCBOE bureaucrats read the paper.  Hell, thanks to their “special relationship” they practically run it.  But, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as to why they didn’t pass a resolution similar to the county’s soon after the county passed their new pension rules.  However, in early December of last year the Wicomico County Council sent a letter to superintendent John Fredericksen asking that they adopt a similar resolution.  Almost four months have passed.  NOTHING.

If the WCBOE doesn’t act, then the next time an employee is discovered stealing from the taxpayer, the fault will lie squarely on Fredericksen and the board.  Perhaps Fredericksen, et al, will argue that their collective bargaining agreements wouldn’t allow them to pass such legislation.  But wait, I thought that it was all “FOR THE CHILDREN”.

Tomorrow – Part I of The Big Field Trip, our expose of waste, fraud, and abuse in the WCBOE Travel Budget

Back in the early ‘80’s, I remember my Intermediate Macroeconomics professor wasting half of a semester extolling the virtues of Marxist economic theory.  One day, I simply had to ask – Does anyone, even YOU, actually believe this nonsense?  His response?  “Well, it’s a valid economic theory”.  Well, I have finally come across someone who actually seems to believe that nonsense.

cassandra_m, over at DelawareLiberal, extols the virtues of Cap and Tax by claiming that Delaware has made over $2 million from selling “carbon credits”.  Sorry cassandra, Delaware TAXED power companies an ADDITIONAL $2 million.  You can call it whatever you want, but IT’S A TAX!  It’s a transfer.  It produces NOTHING!

Here’s how it works in the real world (vs. the imaginary, Marxist, MoveOn.org world):

Power companies are TAXED $2 million for “carbon credits”.  One of three things occur.  One, your power bill rises to make up for the lost $2 million.  Two, instead of raising rates the power company simply takes a reduction in profit.  This means that money will not be returned to shareholders to be put to a PRODUCTIVE use or needed capital upgrades will not occur.  The capital expenditures actually CREATE WEALTH and help to GROW THE ECONOMY (so does returning the money to shareholders).  Three, there is some combination of one and two.

Something tells me that cassandra sat in on the same economics class as WCBOE superintendent John Fredericksen.

Baltimore County councilman Kevin Kamenetz (D) is leaving the council to run for county executive.  If he is successful, and serves two terms as county executive, he will leave office with a pension of at least $108,000!  Perhaps that is why he is pleading with Baltimore County AFP co-chair Steve Bailey to quit talking about the pensions paid to members of the Baltimore County Council.

They say that timing is everything in politics.  For Kamenetz, the old adage is proving true.  No one seemed to whine when former county exec Dutch Ruppersberger bolted for Congress, taking a sizable pension with him.  Unfortunately for Kamenetz, what was once a hypothetical outrage has become real – and the public ain’t liking it too much!

Last fall, councilman Vincent Gardina announced that he would not seek a sixth term.  Gardina, 54, will leave council and collect 100% of his $54,000 annual salary for the REST OF HIS LIFE!  Now, incumbent councilmen like Kamenetz are taking heat for a pension system that was put in place back in ‘50’s (when council pay was $3,000 / year).

Tonight, the Baltimore County chapter of Americans for Prosperity will host a Town Hall forum on pension reform for our county council, county executive and general assembly.  The forum is from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Towson Library, 320 York Road.

Sorry Councilman Kamenetz!  This is an issue that needs to be talked about.  Kudos again to AFP for facilitating an event where average taxpayers can learn more about their government and how their hard earned dollars are being spent.

As if there was ever any doubt, the answer is …

BIG LABOR and the LOONEY LEFT

“Unstable Isotope” (and appropriate name if ever there was one) over at DelawareLiberal tells all how it really is in the world of Democrat politics:

The party has united behind the bill. 83% of MoveOn members support its passage and organized labor has threatened to primary Democrats who vote against reform. At the same time, the opposition to the bill is weakening and is less organized. The Democratic party’s fortunes in 2010 and beyond are tied up in this bill and I think most Democrats know this.

That’s right folks!  America is OVERWHELMINGLY opposed to ObamaCare; but that doesn’t count.  No – 83% of MoveOn.org members and the SEIU want it.

The Weekly Standard reports that Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) will vote against the Senate ObamaCare bill pending in the House.  However, a close read of Boucher’s statement leads me to believe that he is still straddling the fence:

“I am very concerned about a number of things. First, we do not have a text of the legislation before us. That is still being discussed and negotiated. Obviously, I will withhold any judgment until I review it very carefully. I do have concerns about a number of matters I anticipate being in the draft, however,” he said.

Steven Osborne, over at Bearing Drift, asks an important question – What will Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) and Rep. Glenn Nye (D-VA) do?  Personally, I would rather see both Perriello and Nye wait and take a definitive stand than what we are seeing from the likes of Boucher and Maryland First District Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD).

It’s pretty obvious from yesterday’s Daily Times op-ed that Wicomico County schools superintendent John Fredericksen never bothered taking an economics class during his many years of post-secondary education.  Fredericksen seems to be under the delusion that the Wicomico County Board of Education (WCBOE) is somehow an “economic engine” that grows our local economy:

The Wicomico County school system is one of the region’s top three employers, an economic engine with 25 schools and more than 2,500 employees. Our employees support the Wicomico County economy and the communities where they live, magnifying the effect of dollars that are spent on public education.

While I certainly don’t expect Fredericksen to grasp Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, he should at least take the time to tackle Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.  Government spending CANNOT CREATE WEALTH.  Wealth creation is what grows an economy over the long term.

Government spending is simply the transfer of funds from sources that could be using those funds to create wealth to other sectors of the economy.  No NEW wealth is created.

Yes John, it is true that your “more than 2,500 employees” buy groceries, fuel and other goods.  Yes John, it is true that there is some multiplier effect from that spending.  However, this does not GROW our economy.

Yes John, it is true that we need public schools.  It’s also true that those same employees contribute to the local economy.  However, the money that is being taken from local, state and federal taxpayers to support your bureaucratic enterprise cannot create wealth (which is what creates employment over the long term).  The state and federal taxes that are paid by our local taxpayers is not all going to help government here; it’s going to support various follies across the Bay or throughout the country.

Fredericksen’s argument is akin to the recent argument by Del. Jim Mathias (D-38B).  Mathias tried to claim that replacing our local manufacturing base with government enterprises such as SU and Wor-Wic, along with the non-profit (and non-taxpaying) PRMC is somehow a fair trade.  It isn’t.

POLITICS BUNDLED AS ECONOMICS

While Fredericksen attempts to argue that we should support our local schools not only because of its core mission, but because it contributes to our economy, his real agenda is far different.  As the WCBOE faces its FY 2011 budget, and its primary patron, Wicomico County Executive Rick Pollitt faces re-election, Fredericksen is making a political argument:

We should support our public schools because we have to educate our children AND because this spending is crucial to our local economy.

Yes John, we need to educate our children.  However, the taxpayers have a right to expect you to do so in an efficient manner.  You simply lose credibility with the public by attempting arguments that are not only specious, they are the worse kind of sophistry.

During this week, we will be providing yet more evidence of the WCBOE’s real attitude towards the taxpayers of Wicomico County – we are merely ripe fruit to be squeezed.  If Fredericksen really wanted the taxpayers to support our public schools he should stop pontificating on economic issues – a subject he is obviously less qualified in than your average college sophomore – and start showing the voters of Wicomico County that he is serious about curtailing the wasteful spending and runaway bureaucracy which have been, to date, the hallmarks of the WCBOE.

Today’s front page story in the Daily Times regarding Salisbury mayor Jim Ireton’s new “Slumlord of the Week” policy fails to answer several questions:

1. Is this “policy” meant to accomplish anything?
2. Why doesn’t Ireton actually do something to fulfill his campaign promise “to ‘close loopholes’ in the city’s municipal codes and get crime out of neighborhoods”?

IF Ireton was actually doing something to close these loopholes and to actually enforce the spirit, as well as the letter, of the city’s zoning laws that would be one thing.  Instead, we have seen one woman loose her rental income because of zoning (last Sunday’s DT), but we’re not seeing any progress in taking care of the scores of non-conforming uses in the city.

Ireton isn’t pushing the issue in the appropriate forum – the city council – because he knows that the “council majority” of Gary Comegys, Louise Smith, and Shanie Shields are owned by the city’s slumlords.  Instead of exhibiting a backbone, my friend Jim is doing what liberals do best – making a show without accomplishing anything.

Does he really believe that a slumlord is going to be shamed?  It’s time for a little reality check Jimmy.

Because Ireton is unwilling to stand up to either the Barrie Comegys bloc on council or the bureaucracy within his own administration, Salisbury’s citizens are being forced to pay for Allan Webster’s six month paid vacation, watch city officials spend money that has not been appropriated, and now they are being given a “show” rather than real solutions to the rental problems that have faced Salisbury for years.

In just over a month, Ireton will present his first budget.  I am confident that it will include a sizable tax increase.  I can’t wait to see what kind of show Ireton will put on to justify that “policy” as well.

Jim needs to learn that the people who elected him expect solutions, not a “show”.  Jim needs to learn that voters want him to DO SOMETHING rather than just claim to “feel their pain”.

Retired US Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor testified yesterday before the Maryland Senate yesterday in support of AG Doug Gansler’s proposal to end the election of judges in Maryland.  O’Connor argues that ending the election of judges would help to reinforce confidence in our nation’s courts and end the appearance of corruption innate in judges being forced to seek campaign contributions.

Sounds great.  Appointed judges are so much better.  Right?  Not really.  Appointing judges just moves the politics from out front into the back room.  Maryland Sen. Allan Kittleman (R-Howard) hits the nail right on the head:

If this passes, no longer will any citizen of Maryland have the right to run for judge. If you’re not a favored son of a governor or lawmaker, forget about it. You will have to play the political game.

An excellent, and recent, case in point – Does anyone really believe that Senate Majority Leader Mike Miller’s son would have been appointed a judge IF NOT for his father’s political clout?

While the nation’s “economic pie” can be grown through good economic policies, the “liberty pie” is a zero-sum game – it doesn’t grow or shrink – and there are only two slices:  government power and citizens’ liberty.  If the current notions of centralized health care are enacted, government’s raw power over citizens’ lives will increase, and their liberty will be reduced by the same amount.

So writes Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in this month’s issue of the American Spectator.  (sorry, the actual article won’t be available online until April)

Cuccinelli is fast becoming one of the leaders of the conservative movement.  While Cuccinelli has been using the power of his office to fight federal tyranny in the courts, he is also using the pen to make a reasoned argument for all that conservatives hold dear.

During the current resurgence of the conservative movement and the semi-conservative populism inherent among the tea parties, some may dismiss the need for the intellectual strength displayed by officials like Cuccinelli.  Don’t be fooled.  Without its intellectual underpinnings, the conservative movement never would have grown beyond the Bob Taft years.

As I have noted here in the past – Yes, it is important to believe the right things.  However, without a firm understanding of WHY we believe what we do, those beliefs will not survive the test of time.  This is precisely why we need elected officials like General Cuccinelli.

Yes, we all know that ObamaCare is bad policy.  We all know that it would be fiscally disastrous.  We all know that the world’s best health care system would be greatly diminished.  Yet, Cuccinelli has managed to succinctly explain why we should fight ObamaCare – even IF these things were not the case.  If we wish to forfeit our God given individual liberty for a promised blanket of economic security then America ceases to be that shining city.  Liberty forfeited is liberty lost forever.

Thanks Ken.

We haven’t written much about PAC-14, Wicomico County’s public access cable channel in quite some time.  Because of that, many of you may think that all is well there.  Sadly, you would be mistaken.  The crew running PAC-14 (along with some of the vocal “supporters”) are just as conniving and deceitful as always.

We have to admit that we made a mistake.  We tried to be fair and allow PAC-14 Executive Director Mike Goodson and a majority of PAC-14’s board the opportunity to do what they said they were going to do.  Instead, this merry little band has decided that giving Wicomico taxpayers the “middle finger” is the best route to obtain their goals – and those goals have little to do with providing viewers an opportunity to watch their government in action and providing citizens the opportunity to produce local content.  No, the goal of the PAC-14 board is to siphon money from the taxpayers and build an entity that will eventually be handed over to Salisbury University so that taxpayers will no longer have even a marginal say as to how a portion of their tax dollars are being spent.

Thanks to elected officials like Wicomico County Executive Rick Pollitt, Salisbury Mayor Jim Ireton, Salisbury council members Louise Smith, Gary Comegys, and Shanie Shields, along with unelected “volunteers” such as Phil Tilghman, Elizabeth Bellavance and WCBOE President Mark Thompson, expect PAC-14 to blossom into an organization which wastes money (your money) on consultants and plans for grand schemes while refusing to adhere to the basic rules of transparency (which are in their own by-laws).

A Little History -

The scandal which has surrounded PAC-14 began when Goodson and a couple of bureaucratic thugs from SU refused to meet with the legally appointed board and instead engaged in secret negotiations with Pollitt, Smith, then mayor Barrie Tilghman and Wicomico councilman John Cannon to engage a “transitional taskforce” to make PAC-14 “independent” from the city and county governments while still being the recipients of the taxpayers’ largesse.

Once this became public Pollitt, Smith, and Cannon all ran for cover claiming that they knew nothing about these “goings on” and definitely never took part in these meetings.  Despite contrary claims from members of the “transitional taskforce” we made the mistake of taking these upstanding citizens at their word.  After much hand wringing and shirt tearing, Pollitt and Ireton appointed a board largely composed of the same people want a PAC-14 which sucks scarce resources from taxpayers while refusing to allow any transparency or accountability to the same public which is expected to foot the bill.  Tilghman also appointed board members, but we never expected her to do the right thing.

Bellavance Calls for Deceiving the Taxpayers -

Oddly, the nastiest piece of work on the PAC-14 board has come in the form of Elizabeth Bellavance.  Bellavance, the joint city / county appointee and a member of the library board has argued that board members who serve on the Wicomico and Salisbury councils should deceive both their fellows on council AND the taxpayers.

Last summer, it was pointed out by Salisbury councilwoman Debbie Campbell that the proposed budgets for PAC-14 (both for the current fiscal year and their long term planning budget) did not include ANY sources of revenue other than from the taxpayers and in-kind contributions from SU (also from the taxpayers).  Campbell noted that the primary purpose given by Phil Tilghman, et al in their argument for making PAC-14 “independent” from the city and county governments was the need to fundraise.

Bellavance responded that this was the problem with having elected officials on the board.  She then admonished Campbell (and Wicomico councilwoman Stevie Prettyman) that they had a responsibility as board members not to share this with either their council colleagues OR the public.  Prettyman immediately tore into Ms. Bellavance explaining that she had NO intention of deceiving either he colleagues on council or any member of the public.  Campbell concurred.

It should be noted that while Bellavance was having her little tirade, PAC-14’s $20,000 consultant, Sue Buske, was chiming in agreeing with Bellavance.  A majority of the other board members, including the WCBOE’s Mark Thompson, were either nodding in agreement or speaking out in favor of Bellavance’s malignant statement that the public should be lied to.

At a later meeting Bellavance claimed that ANYONE who though that she meant that the public should be deceived was mistaken.  Sure, Liz.  I was there.  You said what you said.  Oh – and the recording from that meeting  ironically doesn’t work either.

It is also reported that Bellavance has threatened that PAC-14 should cease to broadcast Wicomico Council meetings if the county DARES to cut their appropriation this year.  This may sound radical, but I’m not surprised.  I have personally heard Goodson make the same statement to a group of supporters after a Salisbury City Council meeting.

If You Put the Taxpayers Before PAC-14 … Leave -

Sadly, I haven’t been able to attend any board meetings since this summer.  However, it looks like I’ll have to make time now.  The taxpayers of Salisbury and Wicomico County no longer have anyone looking out for their interests on the PAC-14 board and I have learned that a majority of the board cannot be trusted to keep their word.

It seems that Phil Tilghman and the PAC-14 executive board have decided that both Campbell and Prettyman have to go.  According to Tilghman (in emails to both Smith and Pollitt):

… during the past few months, actions taken by this Board member clearly demonstrate intentions that are counter to the vision and goals of the Board. Thus, we request that the Council appoint another representative who will find our respective visions and goals for the future more compatible with his/hers.

In other words, Prettyman and Campbell believe that the PAC-14 board should be held to the promises made by Tilghman, and others, that PAC-14 would begin raising money on their own AND would stick to their core mission.  Instead, Tilghman, et al, want the taxpayer to foot the bill while they pursue such pie in the sky proposals as a “Community Media Center” (which would duplicate many of the services of the public library).  Perhaps, PAC-14 should be placed under the control of the library?

In addition to Tilghman’s claim that neither Campbell or Prettyman share the same “vision and goals” as he does (thank goodness for Wicomico taxpayers), Tilghman falsely claimed that Campbell missed three meetings in a row and that Prettyman missed excessive meetings.  Of course, when Tilghman moves board meeting dates around – including scheduling them in conflict with council meetings – I’m not surprised.  I also find it ironic that Tilghman had to cancel the last meeting because he would have had to resign if he missed this last meeting.  Needless to say, rules only apply when you don’t share Phil Tilghman’s “vision and goals”.

Campbell has been forced off of the board.  Louise Smith intends to appoint Shanie Shields to Campbell’s spot.  It will be interesting to see if Phil screams to have Shanie removed after she fails to show up.  Shields doesn’t have a very good record of attending the meetings of boards which she has been appointed to.

Tilghman is vainly trying to get Prettyman off.  Fortunately, I understand that Wicomico Council President Gail Bartkovich has made a stand.  If Pollitt possessed a spine, he would demand that Tilghman and Bellavance resign or threaten withdrawal of all county support.  Tilghman forgets that the channel belongs to the citizens of Wicomico and Salisbury.  PAC-14 is merely the steward.  So far, they have proven to be no better a steward of taxpayer funds than their pals Louise Smith, Gary Comegys, Shainie Shields, and Jim Ireton.

Sadly, we should pay much closer attention to the actions of PAC-14 from now on.  Tilghman, and cronies such as Bellavance and Thompson have proven that they cannot be trusted.  They have proven their disdain for those that pay the bills – namely the taxpayers of Wicomico County.  It’s time for them to go.  They clearly don’t share the same “vision” as the taxpayers.