I’m new to the county, as a BRAC mover in 2009, and recently completed the Cecil Leadership Institute (CLI) course from Cecil College. I was extremely impressed with the nearly unlimited potential for Cecil County to grow and prosper and felt it would be good to participate in the county activities after completing CLI. I’ve lived all over the US and in foreign countries as a member of the military and have seen many pluses and minuses in various government activities and have learned a lot of what is right and what can be done to improve things.

However, I’m not politically “connected.” So, I volunteered, only to discover that the rumors of personal gain politics and “Smipkins” environment may be really true so a newcomer shouldn’t bother to become involved. I also do not happen to believe in the extreme approach to documenting personal information to feed into such an environment as would be required by the expanded scope being proposed under the guise of “Ethics”. If there is extensive evidence of conflict of interest, it should be formally reported and not just randomly mentioned as a political speech.

People can be ruined by innuendo and this appears to possibly be part of personal agendas. This doesn’t help Cecil County realize its real potential. Maybe things will improve with the County Executive form of government.