Comments on: COMMENTARY: Cecil County Charter Amendments on Election Ballot– NO on Questions A and D; YES on Questions B and C

By: Ron Lobos

Ron Lobos — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 17:17:48 +0000

I like all 4 of your selections. The County Executive already has too much power over the County checkbook. Example: The CCPS was given the Basell property to build a new trade school. I supported that. Included in the Basell property was 93 acres, much of that was not needed by the CCPS so they had agreed to give back what they didn’t need for economic development. I pushed for this. As of today, the only thing that the Public Schools have done with the excessive property is give 8 acres of it away to a farm museum.

Seemingly, the only people to know about this give away was the CCPS, the farm museum and the County Executive. We the people were not notified about this give away until after the fact. The Council Members were not even made aware of this give away. There was not even a town hall meeting to discover the sentiments of the citizens. Now this may have been a good decision to give this to the farm museum people; however, what gives the CCPS and the County Executive the right to be giving away property in such a sneaky manner?

I feel it is important to have a set of checks and balances in place to keep such secret give aways from happening and to ensure that fair and equitable decisions are made with the public money. Please vote no on A and D and please vote yes on B and C

By: F Gaylord Moody III

F Gaylord Moody III — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 18:40:48 +0000

I appreciate your thoughtful analysis. I voted against all four proposed changes.

Frankly, I do not trust the executive and council to jigger ANY language until they accept responsibility for correcting current problems. The charter has a serious flaw regarding appointments to vacant seats on council. The incumbent county executive and two candidates for council who served on the committee which drafted the language of the charter have showed no intent to correct the flaw which led to wasted tax dollars on lawsuits. I questioned the executive and the two council candidates at a Republican Club meeting held in the County Admin Building and their reactions would have been amusing if I had been inclined to be flippant. However, I was not amused.

I appreciate the argument you offer to support Question B – however, if council members were to prove to be so dysfunctional that they let police and schools be without operating funds then the voting public must own that problem. Granting more powers to the executive allows problems to be papered over and spineless conniving to become a norm. A crisis is not worse than a steady stench of corruption that we might accept as a new normal.

I recoil at the Question D to expose the taxpayer to greater loss due to corruption. Remember, this proposal comes from an administration that spends the rainy day fund rather than have the spine to raise taxes or cut spending. This proposal is bad business. Does anyone remember that we lost a valuable medical resource in southern Cecil because it was underinsured against malpractice?

By: Juergen

Juergen — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 09:56:13 +0000

Thanks for the info. As the saying goes, no matter how thin the taco, there’s always two sides. Where’s the County Executive’s rationalization on moving forward as proposed?