Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Buying Local in Maryland
By Eric Luedtke.
Maryland’s Buy Local Challenge week starts July 18th and runs through July 26th – and if you haven’t had a chance to try local food, now’s the time. The premise is simple; just eat one thing from a local farm every day during the week. That’s cake. I mean absolute cake. And once you’ve tried it and found out how simple it is, and how much great local produce there is, my guess is you’ll do it a lot more often than one week in July.
Some of you may already be pretty familiar with the local food movement. It’s been around a long time, but has absolutely exploded over the last couple of years. In almost a perfect storm for the food industry, concerns about the chemicals and processing in store-bought food (see the movie Super Size Me if you haven’t yet), increasing recognition of how long-distance conventional agriculture can contribute to global warming, and the Food Network driven obsession with new and unique food experiences have combined to seriously ramp up the popularity of local foods. And the market has responded – there are now successful farmer’s markets in pretty much every corner of the county, and shares of Community Supported Agriculture operations sell out early each spring. [Pause for definition: Community Supported Agriculture, CSA for short, is where a consumer buys a ‘share’ of a farmer’s produce, the consumer gets a box of fresh, interesting produce each week and the farmer has a guaranteed income through good and bad years.]
I’ve become sort of an expert on living off of local food over the last year. My wife Emily and I are always up for a challenge, and last year after reading a book called The 100 Mile Diet about a couple’s attempts to live entirely off of local food in Vancouver, we decided on a bit of a whim to try out the 100 mile diet for ourselves. For about eight months, everything we ate with only a few exceptions came from within 100 miles of our home in Burtonsville. In some ways, it was a lot easier than we imagined. There are a tremendous number of local food producers within our 100 mile radius, which includes most of Maryland and large sections of northern Virginia and southern Pennsylvania. For practical reasons, we made some basic exceptions. We had a social rule, because when you’re going over to someone’s house for dinner it isn’t exactly polite to refuse to eat the food they make. We made exceptions for coffee (which neither of us can live without), spices (who wants bland food?), and baby food and formula (although we began making a lot of our own baby food out of local produce, and ended up using almost no store-bought food for Colin, our now 16 month old son). And still sticking with the spirit of the hundred mile diet, we ate local food as much as possible in places we went, which meant that the only time we had orange juice during that eight months was when we visited my in-laws in Florida.
But it absolutely forced us to rethink the way we eat – something we had taken for granted. We’ve always tried to buy good organic produce as much as possible, but eating entirely local forced us to give up the idea of instant gratification in food. Our modern food system can get us pretty much anything at any time we want – Strawberries in September, Broccoli in January – without paying much attention to what’s in season. On a purely local diet, we quickly found that we couldn’t have anything we wanted when we wanted it. Our angst about that lasted about a week, until we figured out that it’s pretty easy to preserve foods at home. We froze berries, corn, beets, green beans, and local meats. We bought a water-bath canner, which is surprisingly simple to use, and canned our own peaches, plums, tomatoes, tomato sauce, pickles, jam and jelly, applesauce, and rumtopf (a German preserve saved for winter where summer fruits are preserved in rum and sugar). We even air dried our own chilies – though if we had only had the good sense to spend a few bucks on a food dehydrator we could have made our own dried fruits and jerky as well. It also took some time to figure out how to work substitutions – you can use honey in place of sugar in some recipes, some local fruits in place of citrus, etc.
And we researched. A lot. If you look hard enough, the internet has a lot of information about where to get local foods. I like to bake and we ran out of our existing flour pretty quickly. It took us an exhaustive internet search to find Wade’s Mill, which is the closest working flour mill in our region, milling almost entirely local grain. We found and started going to farmer’s markets in Olney and Silver Spring. We signed up for a CSA – at the time we used Sandy Spring CSA but switched to Evensong Farms this year because we liked that the farmer there tries out more heirloom varieties of vegetables and unique things we hadn’t tried much before. We started going to pick your own places like Butler’s Orchard in Germantown, Larriland in Howard County, and Blueberry Gardens in Ashton. We learned about new foods we hadn’t tried but which we now love like ramps (a wild leek that tastes intensely of garlic and onions), gooseberries (which our son loves), and stinging nettle (which tastes a little like spinach and obviously needs to be handled very carefully). Even with that experimentation, there are local foods we never got the chance to try, like paw paw, a local native plant whose fruit supposedly tastes tropical. And we got to know producers personally, which was by far the best part about our experiment. Farmers are great people.
We gave up on the experiment mid-winter, when it became clear that we hadn’t preserved nearly enough food to last us through. But a lot of the habits have stuck with us, and the vast majority of our food is still local. We’ve become sort of local food evangelists among our friends, giving away our preserves and telling them about how fun pick-your-own is while they stare at us oddly. But, joking aside, a lot of people we know have started getting into local food as well, and all over the country. It’s an exciting time to be trying it out. In any case, one local food per day over the next week shouldn’t be too difficult, and I encourage you to give it a try. I’ve included some more links below to help you get started.
Farmer’s Market Directory: be sure to ask the farmer if food is local or organic – not all farmer’s market products are.
Pick Your Own Directory
The Montgomery County Farm Directory: a big pdf
USDA Guide to Home Food Preservation
Seasonal Food Calendar
Some of our favorite producers (not all are organic growers):
Apples – Heyser Farms (also carries local eggs and dairy, though not all produce is local)
Cheese – Firefly Farms
Flour – Wade’s Mill
Honey – The Bee Folks
Produce – Evensong Farm
Produce – Charlie Koiner
Thanksgiving Turkey – Maple Lawn Farms
Friday, July 17, 2009
Virginia Republican Advocates for "Bullet Box" Against "Tyranny"
Read more about it in this Post article.
Maryland Transit Administration Wants to Record Our Conversations
By Paul Gordon.
Imagine you’re sitting on the MARC train, having a conversation with someone you’re close to – your husband, maybe, or a close friend. You’re hardly talking about classified material, but you still don’t want people listening in to your private conversation. So you keep your voices down. You look around to make sure you have some space around you and as much privacy as you could reasonably expect in a public area. It’s the sort of thing that happens every day.
Except this time, without your knowledge, someone is listening in. Someone from the government. Because the state is recording your conversation on the train.
Personally, I find the idea of the state recording people’s conversations on public transportation creepy, something I would expect from the old Soviet Union.
But that’s exactly the scenario that came to mind when I read the Maryland Transit Administration’s request for the opinion of the Attorney General. Last Friday, the MTA submitted a letter asking for an opinion of the Attorney General on the following questions:
1. Can MTA lawfully make audio recordings of the conversations of passengers and employees on board public transit vehicles operated by or under contract to the MTA?
2. Does the Maryland Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act,§§10-401 through 10-403 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, Annotated Code of Maryland, require MTA, when using audio recording devices on board transit vehicles operated by or under contract to it, to obtain the consent of passengers and employees before recording their conversations?
3. If the answer to Question 2, above is in the affirmative, through what means can consent be obtained, e.g. can MTA obtain passengers’ and employees’ consent by posting signage on board its vehicles containing words such as, “This car (or bus) is subject to video and audio surveillance?”
Now I am no expert on Maryland state law in this area. But I am an expert at being an American citizen living in a society where I don’t expect the government to be recording my every word. And from that perspective, I find the MTA letter alarming. The fact that a state agency wants to record passenger conversations – and is even asking if there’s a way to do it without our consent – makes my blood run cold.
Yes, it may help the government detect or prevent crimes. Who knows, it might even stop a terrorist. But that is not the only issue. If it were, we would not need the Bill of Rights. Putting limits on government power has always meant that not every crime will be stopped, and not every guilty person will be punished. That is the price of liberty.
Of course, the Attorney General can only address whether the MTA can record passenger conversations. Whether the MTA should do this is a matter for our elected officials in Annapolis to address.
The Reporting Life, Part Five
By Kathleen Miller.
6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Now’s the time when you send your story over to an editor for review and let your mind rot a bit while you surf Facebook, Perez Hilton or Media Bistro Fishbowl D.C. - if you’re me. It’s also a good time to scan your competitor’s websites, make sure there was nothing major that broke and they’re already reporting while you wrote your story on something entirely different.
The editing process usually is fairly painless. The boss reviews your article, catches any glaring typos and asks you for more detail if they feel like there are some holes in your work.
Most days, I look at my stories afterwards and thank God for editors. The good ones will make your story flow 100 times better than it was before, slice out extraneous information and make sure you spelled George Leventhal’s last name as Leventhal, and not Levanthal.
There are bumps in the road, however, even with a good editor. A few years ago, I pitched a story about county fair woes, including the fact that they seem to attract gangs and nobody I know goes to fairs anymore. My editor loved it. He lived in Montgomery County and heard much of the same from his friends and neighbors, nobody takes their families to the fair anymore, largely because they’re worried about crime.
The greenlight was given. I started reporting and spent four days talking to police, fair operators and residents. The people I stopped on the streets of Rockville said exactly what my boss and I had predicted: essentially, “We don’t go to the fair anymore, we used to but our friends were robbed last time we went and it’s just not safe.”
Except I had a major problem: the stats didn’t back up that sentiment. In fact, the Montgomery County fair had record attendance the year before, and while police had detained an armed, known gang member outside the entrance gates, there hadn’t been a major incident inside the fairgrounds.
I had informed one supervisor of this, and said I was going to have to write the story differently, focusing on how despite record attendance there are new concerns for fairs. I.e., police have to be more vigilant about crime and with the economy tanking, many vendors can’t afford to travel to as many fairs as they used to do.
The other editor, however, read the final version of my story and found it totally unacceptable. He wanted the original idea we’d discussed. I told him I couldn’t write that because the facts didn’t back it up.
We fought. And fought and fought and fought. In a weaker moment, I walked outside and sat in a park near tears. There was no way I was going to let the story appear in print with my name on it if I didn’t agree with the underlying premise. On the other hand, he’s the boss. He has the final say.
I debated playing the reporter’s only trump card: I could pull my name from the story, tell him he was free to run it as he wished (which he can always do without my permission anyhow), but I didn’t want my byline attached to it. It’s an approach that makes everybody unhappy, but it is the last thing a reporter can do when battling with an editor.
I’d never done it before, and it didn’t get that far that day. I’m not sure either of us was ecstatic about the final version of the article, but I felt it was fair. We talked about the crime concerns, used anecdotes and quotes, but also noted the record attendance and that the biggest local incident had been averted by cops outside the Montgomery County fairgrounds.
There is often a natural tension between reporters and editors. We’re hired to write and report stories, and they’re hired to question them and improve them. It is literally their job to correct what we do. The system probably functions best when they’re comfortable challenging our work and we’re comfortable standing up for it, but it does require a thick skin on both ends.
Conclusion
Once the editing’s done, a reporter is free to go home - where, as I’ve noted, they’ll often continue compulsively checking facts long after the day is supposedly over.
Then, it’s time for bed, when the worries sink in that another publication will have a story you didn’t or have dug deeper than you on a given topic.
Trust me, there is nothing worse than getting beat on a story. It can happen in all sorts of ways. You can be flat-out oblivious to something. In my case, see Washington Post reporter Ann Marimow’s “County Executive to get $65,000 Bathroom” story. I was clueless there was any sort of bathroom brouhaha whatsoever. Or similarly Post reporter Miranda Spivack’s scoop “Report on Water Quality Withheld.”
You can be looped-in on a topic and miss a major development that another reporter catches. In my case, see Janel Davis’s “Disability Retirement Review Nets Another Employee.”
And, perhaps most painful of all, you can have the story but be holding out for one more comment, one more fact and lose the whole thing in the process. This happened to me in Marimow’s “Montgomery Disability Practices Under Fire.”
It works both ways, however - I received friendly emails from other local reporters congratulating me on a story I broke that there was a federal investigation into the disability retirement packages of two former Montgomery County assistant police chiefs.
This winter, other news outlets followed a story I broke at the AP about a congressman from the Bronx that had collected thousands of dollars in property tax credits over ten years by claiming his primary residence was in Montgomery County although he was registered to vote and drive in New York. Bloomberg and the Post followed the story shortly thereafter, noting that a high-ranking California congressman had similarly exploited the Homestead Property Tax credit for his Anne Arundel home.
Again, competition should work both ways - and when it does everybody benefits. Reporters work harder when they know somebody is chasing the same story, and the audience gets more-informed articles.
This area is lucky to have The Washington Post as the paper of record - however, that’s generated a sense of entitlement among many local folks that complain when the Post doesn’t cover this county issue or that county issue. The Post, like most media organizations, is dealing with financial strains that don't allow them to run every story their reporters pitch. In many newsrooms right now, there is a battle for space that pits reporters against other reporters and editors against editors at the same paper every day to score a spot for their article.
To those in the community who feel slighted, I say cry me a river - you’ve got plenty of other places to go to pitch stories and read local news.
Make use of them. The Gazette has dozens of reporters covering Maryland, the Examiner sets aside space for at least six Montgomery County stories a week. This blog itself is read by most insiders, activists and reporters in the area.
You never know. Bob Woodward got his start at the Sentinel, and Maureen Dowd covered some of the issues surrounding Robin Ficker’s first ballot referendum victories on landfills and sewage sludge for the now-defunct Washington Star.
If it’s a good story, it will capture the public’s attention no matter who covers it.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Senator Jennie Forehand Files for Re-Election
Rockville Central has her statement. Senator Forehand, who has served in the Senate since 1994, will be challenged by former Delegate Cheryl Kagan.
The Gaithersburg West Master Plan and the Magic Carpet
By Donna Baron.
The Gaithersburg West Master Plan is by all accounts unique among master plan nightmares. Not only has the Montgomery County Planning Board proposed to bury a large portion of the county in traffic, it is also permitting Johns Hopkins Real Estate to destroy one of the most beautiful Civil War-era farms left in the county, Belward Farm. In order to create a “Science City”, this plan will bring 40,000 more workers plus the residents of 5,000 multi-family housing units to an area that is less than two square miles, is already highly congested and is located five miles from the nearest Metro station.
Belward Farm
To justify these phenomenal numbers, the County and Johns Hopkins Real Estate announced that our established residential suburban community would become an urban “transit oriented development”. To effect this abrupt change, the County has rolled out 45-year-old plans for the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT), a rapid-bus that will meander through the area. Granted, the CCT would be a nice addition to our transit options, but the County, the developers and the politicians portray it as the magic carpet that will solve all of our transportation problems while allowing unlimited increases in density.
However, many areas of Montgomery County offer special challenges to those who would seek to increase transit ridership. The Planning Board and the developers have spent the past 50 years creating auto-dependant subdivisions filled with cul-de-sacs and limited access to secondary roads. Residents cannot get out of their subdivisions without their cars, so in order to go anywhere they have to think about where they will park their cars.
Curly Streets and Cul-de-Sacs
To make matters worse, the Planning Board, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to limit parking near the CCT stations. If residents cannot get out of their subdivisions without their cars and then must drive to the CCT, where will they put their cars once they get there? My guess is that they will drive to their destination rather than to the CCT.
Another troubling aspect of the proposal for the CCT is that the County has said it will be necessary to propose the addition of approximately 50,000 people to the “Science City” in order to secure funding for the CCT. However, the CCT is only expected to carry 15% of the population leaving 85% of the added population in their cars. This works out to be about 42,500 additional cars destined for the already congested roads in Gaithersburg, North Potomac, Rockville and Potomac.
To handle the 42,500 extra cars, the Planning Board has proposed six- and eight-lane highways around and through the “Science City”, complete with multi-level highway interchanges. And the state is examining options for I-270 north of I-370. However, these super highways will do little to mitigate the traffic on the other roads throughout the area. There is no assurance that the two-lane roads and the rural roads won’t be hopelessly clogged with traffic. Further, there is no assurance that those who live in the many subdivisions will even be able to get out of their subdivisions given the greatly increased level of traffic on the secondary roads.
And to make matters even worse, Johns Hopkins Real Estate is using the “Science City” and the CCT to justify building monstrous high-rises for 15,000 people on the pristine 107-acre Belward Farm despite their promises to the former owner, and despite the deed restrictions they accepted in order to purchase the farm for a fraction of its value. Even though Belward Farm is immediately adjacent to three established residential neighborhoods, JHU’s proposed high-rise commercial complex will have the density of a downtown area near a Metro station complete with 150-foot buildings.
In a suburban area where it is highly unlikely that most of the residents will be able to stop driving their cars, how can the addition of 42,500 cars on six- and eight-lane highways, with multi-level highway interchanges, be called a transit oriented development even if there is access to a rapid-bus?
It is easy to get lost in the circular reasoning used to justify the various and seemingly veiled objectives of the Gaithersburg West Master Plan. But it is clear that this plan needs to be rewritten in an honest, straight-forward manner with development that is in scale with our community, infrastructure that is appropriate for a suburban setting, and plans for Belward Farm that will respect and maintain the character of the farm. The opposition to this master plan is so widespread a website called www.scale-it-back.com has been created by civic and community organizations to voice our objections and offer alternatives.
Finally, to quote Royce Hanson, Chairman of the Planning Board, “Development of great centers need not occur at the expense of existing communities.” If only he and his Planning Board colleagues supported these words in deed.
Belward Farm and the "Science City" from a Presentation by Johns Hopkins Real Estate
Donna H. Baron, Coordinator
The Gaithersburg - North Potomac - Rockville Coalition
www.scale-it-back.com
The Reporting Life, Part Four
By Kathleen Miller.
5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Now it’s time to write. Everybody goes about this process differently.
The lede, or first sentence of an article, is arguably the most important part of a story. You’re trying to hook readers and summarize the story at once, typically in less than 40 words.
I personally prefer to dive in, throwing all my information onto the page and allowing the story to shake out as I write it. My boyfriend, who I’ve occasionally had to double byline stories with, takes the opposite approach. The kid will literally spend an hour visiting dictionary.com and using an online thesaurus to revise and rework every single word in the lede until he’s totally satisfied with it before thinking about the rest of the story.
I’m too anxious. Plus, I think while you’re writing the rest of the story, it often helps hone your lede and reminds you of what the overall point here is. That being said, his ledes are typically better than mine. But his stories are often late.
After the lede comes a nut graph, in which you put the whole story in context, generally referencing the background elements that led to the breaking news. For example, if council members voted to restrict homeowners’ rights to add-on to their homes, the nut graph may mention that “mansionization” has been an issue in Montgomery County for years as neighbors complain that some people’s massive reconstruction efforts block other people’s sunlight and intrude on their privacy.
It’s basically as simple as that typically, with the story filled out by quotes and insight from people on both sides of whatever issue is being covered.
There is a new school of thought in journalism championed by the AP’s Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier that says reporters should “cut through the clutter,” or essentially call bullshit as they see it.
I took a journalism ethics class in graduate school where we learned that during the McCarthy era, many reporters felt professionally restricted, only able to report exactly what McCarthy and his targets said, and not offer any independent insight or analysis about the situation. The press in those days, apparently, was often far less-educated than the people they covered, and there was a sort of hesitance to challenge authority or do anything other than basically act as stenographers.
Last summer, Fournier said in a memo to AP reporters that they should “write with authority.” “The AP's hard-earned reputation for fairness and nonpartisanship must not be used as an excuse for fuzzy language when a clear voice is demanded, nor should it force us to give both sides of a story equal play when one side is plainly wrong.”
Fourner said that shortly after Katrina struck, he had “dutifully reported” that President Bush had said nobody anticipated the breach of the levees, when, in actuality, many experts had actually predicted a major storm would bust New Orleans’ flood-control barriers.
“In the past, that’s all I would have written;” Fournier wrote in the memo. “Readers would get both sides of the story and then be expected to draw their own conclusion. This time, I went a step further and simply wrote: He was wrong. Why not? Why force the readers to read between carefully parsed lines when the facts are clear? Why not just get to the point? The president of the United States was wrong. The governor lied. The congressman broke his promise. The preacher, the CEO, the banker, the coach, or whomever, failed. Don’t mince words... Too often we depend on the government and its critics to tell us what happened, and we end up with he said/she said stories that never get to the bottom line.”
It’s an interesting concept. I think it’s both smart and dangerous. If you’ve covered an administration or an issue for years like Fournier or many of his team, you are probably an expert in your own right and deserve the power to call it like you see it.
You can’t use that style every day, in every story or on every topic, however, or you risk editorializing. There are some topics - for me, environmental policy - where at this stage of the game, I have no business calling BS or cutting through the clutter. I’m too green, (yikes - pun unintended) to take on that role. In others, like local immigration policy or WSSC drama, I feel like I’ve been in the weeds enough to cut through the crap on occasion.
Tomorrow: 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
District 20 Challenger Sends Out New Email
District 20 challenger Eli El sent out the following email last Tuesday night. He is making an early start in this campaign.
FRIENDS OF ELI
Hello Friend,
The Exploratory Committee for Eli El for Maryland State Delegate is very grassroots based. We rely on volunteers to help us accomplish our goals. Our campaign has been built one volunteer and one neighborhood at a time. Your help is critical to our victory. You can help provide the much needed resources to ensure that I am elected to the Maryland House of Delegates. The website has been updated, and you may now access the volunteer form by navigating to www.friendsofeli.com, then clicking on "volunteer".
Once we get started, your help will be absolutely critical to winning the campaign. It is the people of the great State of Maryland who keep us grounded, and you are the people I wish to serve. In the coming months, I want to listen to your ideas and desires for legislation because it is the people, not just the legislature who must live with the laws we will enact. Please take a moment to fill in the requested information and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible. We appreciate your support. With your help, we really can make a difference. Please e-mail and/or fax the form to: f: 866.783.2515 e: eli@friendsofeli.com
Feel free to forward this e-mail to your family, friends, and professional contacts.
Sign up to volunteer today!
Best Regards,
Eli El
--
Please Note:
This message was sent by Eli (eli@friendsofeli.com) from Friends of Eli El Exploratory Committee. To learn more about the Exploratory Committee, visit his website at www.friendsofeli.com or www.thisguyisreal.com Click here to be removed from our mailing list.
Exploratory Committee: eli@friendsofeli.com
7209 Flower Ave., #6; Takoma Park, Maryland USA
www.friendsofeli.com
Why At-Large?
By Marc Korman.
Back in June, MPW covered the rumored challengers for the at-large County Council seats. But with every incumbent expected to run for reelection, why are these candidates looking towards an at-large raced instead of district level runs?
Working off the list of ten rumored candidates previously discussed, here is each challenger and the district they live in:
Rumored Candidate and Council District
Jane De Winter: 1
Peter Fosselman: 5
Larry Giammo: 3
Guled Kassim: 4
Ben Kramer: 4
Cary Lamari: 4
Chris Paladino: 4
Hans Riemer: 5
Steve Silverman: 5
Becky Wagner: 1
Before launching into an analysis, a few caveats. One, some of these rumored candidates have said that they are not running, at least privately. But I kept everyone on the list used in earlier posts. Two, Adam did note in previous posts that Larry Giammo and Chris Paladino could also be candidates for district council races.
One motivation for running at-large could be political perception of where the weaknesses are. As has been covered at MPW, Duchy Trachtenberg has had difficulties with the coalition she brought together to win in 2006. Whether the broader voting public cares or if this will affect the mechanics of her campaign, I leave to others to speculate. Marc Elrich ran for the County Council numerous times before winning his seat in 2006. As of January, he had the least amount of funds raised or on hand of any of the at-large members. On the other hand, George Levanthal and Nancy Floreen are viewed as pretty safe, with $60,000 and $33,000 in the bank respectively. Levanthal was the top vote getter in the 2006 Democratic primary, while Floreen was the top vote getter in the general.
Another reason to run at-large is that many of the prospective candidates have tried and failed to win district seats in the past. Ben Kramer, Cary Lamari, Chris Paladino, and Hans Riemer have all run and lost (in Paladino’s case, he dropped out) in district County Council races at least once. Two other prospective candidates, Guled Kassim and Peter Fosselman, ran and lost a district level delegate race. Of course, that does not necessarily foreclose a later victory. Roger Berliner lost a special election for the district 1 seat in 2000 and came back six years later to knock off the guy who beat him.
Finally, for potential candidate Steve Silverman, an at-large seat would be a return to the office he previously held.
That means that of the rumored candidates strictly for at-large seats, only De Winter and Wagner do not have a previous election indicating they should be looking at an at-large slot over a district challenge.
Both of these candidates live in Roger Berliner’s district (Note: Councilman Berliner is my councilmember and I have worked with him through my capacity on the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee). Will one or both of them decide to challenge Berliner instead of entering a crowded at-large field? Will Berliner have difficulty in a Democratic primary if there is no serious Republican candidate as there was in 2006?
Leggett Supports Rail CCT, HOV Lanes to Frederick
Following is a two-page memo from County Executive Ike Leggett to County Council President Phil Andrews. For some reason, we cannot locate it on the county government's website.
The Reporting Life, Part Three
By Kathleen Miller.
1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Shortly after lunch, it’s time to start assessing what information you’ve got, and what information you lack. It’s time to fill the holes in your story and often time to dash out to cover a press conference or meeting.
If the event’s a ribbon-cutting for a new recycling center or workforce housing program, it’s a safe bet the press isn’t there to cover the excitement. Often, it’s the only way you can pin down a number of influential people or elected officials on other issues. Or eavesdrop on what other reporters are asking.
You feel slightly sleazy as a reporter when you’re standing next to somebody from a different paper or station and literally taking notes on their questions. But you quickly learn they do it to you, and it’s better than the alternative, letting them have the elected official to themselves, including any juicy tidbits they might drop along the way, or getting sucker-punched by an article in the next day’s paper.
3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
About mid-afternoon, it’s time to start assessing what information you’ve got, what information you lack and what information you absolutely can’t live without. It’s also time to play tough-guy with your sources. Remind them of your need for information and that the story will run with or without their comment.
I think sometimes people think it’s best to say no comment on touchy subjects, but I couldn’t disagree more. If the story’s gonna run, it’s gonna run. The reporter will be given a certain amount of space to fill, and if you’re sticking with “no comment,” you’re giving the other side more space for their spin.
It is the journalist’s obligation to attempt to give both sides a chance to speak, but they’ve done their job by trying to reach you by phone and e-mail. If you’re not returning their messages, that doesn’t mean they won’t run the article. It just means you won’t get a chance to present your case.
Sometimes you’ll see different terms tossed about for “no comment.” A “could not immediately be reached for comment” generally translates into “we called them at the last second and they weren’t there to talk” or “this story is breaking right now and they didn’t answer their cell phone.”
A “declined to comment” means “we reached them with plenty of time, and they weren’t mean about it, but they wouldn’t touch the subject.”
A “refused to comment” means “we’re mad they won’t comment, they’re mad we’re writing the story but they won’t say anything on-the-record,” - loosely translated, of course.
This is also the time when sources will try to play tough guy with you, a.k.a try to kill a story.
Last December, I was tipped off that an assistant fire chief had crashed a county-owned vehicle into a cop car while driving home from a Redskins game. I called several county sources about the tip. One tried to kill the story by making me question my own reporting skills and news judgment. He told me I was late, that everybody else had the story days ago, and that no other reporter in town thought it was worth running, so he wasn’t sure why the Examiner and I were so interested. Said with just the slightest hint of derision, of course.
It worked for a few minutes. I got off the phone and thought about whether I wanted egg on my face for this story while I was applying for another job. Whether I wanted egg on my face in general, if this all turned out to be no big deal. Whether I should bother pursuing it, if as this guy said, nobody else thought it was worthwhile.
Then I realized that at face-value, this story was interesting. “It’s my worst nightmare to crash into a cop car,” I said to the source during another phone call, “and I don’t drive a county-owned vehicle.”
Even if the story turned out to be nothing more than a simple “Thank God that wasn’t me” article for readers, it’s worth noting that a county’s assistant fire chief crashed into a cop car while in a county vehicle. Not Watergate-level news, but certainly worth a few head shakes, even if the guy turned out to be stone cold sober.
So we ran the story. A spokesman for the fire department noted there had been questions about the assistant chief’s sobriety, but said he’d seen nothing that proved he was drinking. My bosses ran it on the inside of the Examiner, in a single-column story, no pictures, no big, bad headline. We played it straight.
And the next day the emails and phone calls poured in. People had been talking before the story ran. I was contacted by folks who said they were county residents and their firefighter neighbor had mentioned the incident, others who said they had previously heard firefighters at a lunch spot discussing the accident themselves. They said the assistant chief had been drinking at the Redskins game.
Four days later, we ran a second story after it came to my attention the county had in fact tested the assistant chief’s blood alcohol level after the crash. The police had not done so, but a personnel office did the tests as a matter of course after an accident involving a county vehicle. They told me they wouldn’t release the blood alcohol test results, citing personnel confidentiality rules. The Post followed the story that day as well, with several of their reporters looking into the issues.
I wound up getting a new job shortly thereafter and moving to a Annapolis to cover the state legislature for the Associated Press, but I always wondered what those blood alcohol tests said, and wondered if we’d ever know.
We do know now. The Post’s Spivack stuck to the case, and was able to get a copy of the blood-alcohol test results. The guy blew twice the legal limit, hours after the accident. Luckily no one had been seriously hurt.
This is why competition is good, why it helps to have multiple papers competing for stories and access to information. I may not have had the right contacts to ever obtain those test results, but Miranda Spivack did. Maybe her editors weren’t interested in running the story at first - pure speculation - but they got interested after the Examiner ran it. Or maybe the county official lied to me about the Post passing on the story in the first place.
And this is why it matters to trust yourself, and not be swayed from a story by a person who questions your judgment.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Great Article on Crab Houses of the Eastern Shore
If you like crabs, you are going to get hungry in a hurry reading this terrific article in the New York Times.
Ike Leggett on "Political Pulse" on Ch. 16 TV during the week of July 13th
Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett will be on the "Political Pulse" political talk show on:
Tuesday, July 14th at 9:30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 15th at 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, July 16th at 9:00 p.m.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday (July 17th-19th) at 6:00 p.m.
Mr. Leggett announces his candidacy for re-election on the Show and discusses his difference of opinion with the County Council over the Ambulance Transport Fee (which was projected to generate $90 million of revenues over 6 years for the County). He gives his view on how Governor O'Malley is doing in these tough fiscal times and also discusses his recent visit to Vietnam, where he served in the Vietnam War as a U.S. Army Captain 40 years ago.
Political Pulse is on Channel 16 TV in Montgomery County.
Democrats Offer Advice to GOP
Dear readers, we recently congratulated the Maryland Republican Party on the excellent financial performance of their Chairman, James Pelura III. (Excellent, that is, for the Democrats!) Well, some conservatives didn’t take too kindly to our post. But we will not let such misunderstandings interfere with our much-renowned spirit of being helpful. And so we went to our extensive spy network inside the Maryland Democratic Party to ask for their advice on where the GOP should go from here. And boy did they give it!
#####
I hear Sarah Palin’s looking for a job. She might make a great state party chair, dontcha know. And John Ensign might be looking for a job too, although in the case of hiring him I’d advise state Republicans to lock up their women.
My advice? Just truths. Those who bitch about the party and money probably haven’t given much. Those who declare what the “party” is and does - and do it loudly from talk radio or on the net - usually don't have a clue what the party is or does. The Chris Caveys of this world kill political parties because they’re all about themselves and everyone else knows it except the press. Political party executive committee meetings are open to the public and the press, something few people know. Let’s get some popcorn and pull up a chair when this one meets. If they close the meeting, they’re admitting the party doesn’t care what the people think. This is proof that for the MDGOP, the vision of Reagan is dead while the angry whining of Limbaugh is alive and well and eating the party alive.
They need to moderate their positions on issues. They need to recruit credible candidates. They need to work at the grass roots. They need to have folks at the national level not undercutting whatever they’re trying to do at the local level. Not much interested in providing greater assistance than that, sorry!
Only advice: find another state!
The GOP should just pack it up for 2010 and start looking toward 2014 when, perhaps, they’ll have a better handle on the fundamentals of being a political party. Perhaps they will have some ideas for how to govern as well, instead of just being the Party of “No.” It’s not even clear who the GOP think their constituency is - corporate interests, the well-to-do, religious right - because they just use a scattershot approach of saying Democrats are bad without providing their own vision. It’s time for the Grand Old Party to fold their tents for 2010 and use the time for some soul searching - perhaps they may be a viable party by 2014? We’ll see.
I got nothing for you. Sorry. The Maryland Republican Party is populated by one-note loonies, with a few kindly souls mixed in who are unwilling to stand for anything remotely progressive, lest they have to expend energy educating their base on why they aren’t doing what Rush Limbaugh says a good Republican should do.
They could follow the wisdom of Virginia Republicans and refer to the high population and economic growth areas as the “fake” Maryland and continue to dominate elections in Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, and Somerset Counties, the “real” Maryland.
Rehire John Kane. He has a knack for saving on labor.
The problem is that Republicans only contribute money if they have a good chance to own and then loot the government. Maybe the state party could get in line for federal stimulus money with their former super-donors like the corrupt mortgage brokers and Wall Street investment bankers who are still soaking the taxpayers.
The State GOP should resort to robbing banks. Why? Here are three good reasons: 1) It beats the present strategy in which they have a fundraising apparatus in place but aren't actually raising any money! 2) It’s a great populist branding tool (think John Dillinger and Robin Hood), and 3) If this fails to generate revenue for the party, well, at least gangsters get to wear great clothes and date hot chicks! That beats winning elections any day!
I think they should hold a “Guns and Ammo Bake Sale.” They could ask all their party members and their kids to donate just a few of their extra AK-47s and M-16s lying around the basement and some large-capacity magazine clips stuck between the sofa cushions and really rake in the dough. They might even be able to get Sarah Palin to host, since she’s not doing anything other than studying up on the “Bush Doctrine” and the Country of Africa.
A wise man marches to victory only after he stops shooting himself in the foot.
Ike Wants Police Helicopters; Council Has Questions
The County Executive and the Police Department are requesting funding for a new police helicopter program. The police want to apply for $248,894 in federal grant money and are asking the County Council for $279,890 in local funding to acquire two helicopters. The police have not detailed the annual operating costs, but council staff believes they could account for 1-2% of the total police budget. Under the Fiscal Year 2010 budget, that would amount to $2.5-4.9 million per year. Council President Phil Andrews sent a long list of questions to the Executive Branch that he would like answered by Thursday which we reproduce below.
But here are our questions. First, when we cannot afford to give the police officers raises, how can we afford helicopters? Second, why did the Executive Branch wait until after the Fiscal Year 2010 budget was set in May to send in this request? Third, how does this impact next year's expected $350 million budget deficit? And fourth, what is our state delegation supposed to say when they make a case for state aid to Montgomery in Annapolis?
Montgomery County Council
Rockville, Maryland
Office of the Council President
Memorandum
July 13, 2009
To: Tim Firestine, Chief Administrative Officer
J. Thomas Manger, Chief, Montgomery County Police Department
From: Phil Andrews, Council President
Subject: Proposal for Montgomery County Police Department Helicopter Unit
The Council has received notice from the Police Department of the County’s intent to apply for $248,894 in Federal funds to assist in funding an aviation helicopter unit for the Montgomery County Police Department. The grant application indicates that $279,890 in costs will be funded with non-Federal funds, which the Council understands from Council staff to be the County’s Drug Enforcement Forfeiture Fund (DEFF).
As the Council has not received any written information, other than this grant application, or a briefing on the proposed helicopter unit, there are many questions about the cost of the proposal, its benefits to the County, and how it ranks in the Executive’s funding priorities. The Executive and Council have continually placed a priority on funding for public safety, even in this current fiscal crisis. However, it is not clear what the long-term annual costs of this proposal are and how they will be paid for once the grant and DEFF monies are spent.
Please provide to the Council by noon on Thursday, July 16 a written overview of the current proposal and a five-year cost estimate. I recognize that this proposal is different from the proposal forwarded to the Council in 2001 by then Chief Moose. However, I will note that the 2001 proposal said that, “The average helicopter budget for an existing program is around 1% - 2% of the total law enforcement budget.” This memo will also reference some other information from that proposal.
Please include as a part of your response answers to the following questions:
1. What are the benefits to the County from having its own police helicopter unit and why is it needed now?
2. Please confirm that the County is expecting to acquire two helicopters. If not, what is the expected size of the helicopter unit?
3. Where will the helicopters be housed? What is the annual cost associated with any lease or facility upgrades?
4. After the initial refurbishment, what is the expected annual cost for maintenance including parts and labor?
5. How many hours is the Department expecting the units will be in service and how many miles are they expected to fly in a year? What are the expected fuel costs for the annual mileage?
6. How will the County provide insurance for this program and what is the expected annual cost? The information provided in 2001 included a preliminary response from Risk Management that the County Attorney’s Office felt the County could not self-insure for the full amount of the aircraft and that supplemental insurance would be needed. A preliminary estimate, not based in a detailed application, was that supplemental insurance might cost $50,000 per year.
7. How many staff will be assigned to the unit? In 2001 the staff was proposed as one supervisor, five pilots, and five observers (two officers would be in the aircraft). It was felt that pilots should be police officers rather than civilians. If a lower number of staff is now being recommended, will the helicopter be ready for dispatch 24-hours a day? If not, what will be the impact on helicopter response time?
8. What divisions will police officers assigned to the helicopter unit be reassigned from and how will their current assignments be filled?
9. Will the Department have memoranda of understanding with municipal, Park, or State police regarding when the County will respond to requests from these agencies?
10. What is the expected useful life of the helicopters that are being acquired? Does the Executive branch propose establishing any type of sinking fund or internal service fund account in motorpool for a planned replacement?
11. Please confirm that the DEFF is the source for the non-Federal funds. If not, what is the source of funding?
12. What is the current balance in the DEFF? While the Council recognizes that there are detailed items funded by DEFF that should not be publicly disclosed, what were total expenditures from the fund in FY08 and FY09, and what were the major categories for those expenses?
13. What are the total planned expenditures from the DEFF for FY10, and what are the major categories for expenditures in the coming year?
14. Assuming the DEFF is the source of funds, why is the creation of a helicopter unit a higher priority than other items that might have been funded with DEFF monies, such as additional in-car video cameras?
15. If as Council staff understands, it is expected that the DEFF will cover the non-Federal costs in FY10 and FY11, what source of funding is expected to be used for the ongoing costs beginning in FY12?
The Council is very interested in understanding the benefits of establishing a helicopter unit, but we must also make a decision regarding the long-term costs. As you know, the Executive and Council have reduced police officer positions, eliminated a recruit class, and considered having to limit public access to at least two police stations. In addition, some of the other grants that already been applied for, such as the crime lab expansion and COPS hiring grant, will have future fiscal impacts. The State will likely be sending additional reductions to the counties. It would be unfortunate if the County established this new unit only to find that it is not sustainable after the grant period ends.
cc: Councilmembers
Joe Beach, Director, Office of Management and Budget
Nancy Navarro Calls for District 4 Parkland Acquisition (Updated)
Following is the press release from the Council Member's office.
Update: The resolution was endorsed by the Audubon Naturalist Society and the Montgomery Countryside Alliance and passed on a 7-0 vote.
Councilmember Nancy Navarro Calls for District 4 Parkland Acquisition
Proposed Parkland Purchase Would Mitigate ICC Impact & Protect Environment
Contact: David Moon (240) 777-7953 or david.moon@montgomerycountymd.gov
ROCKVILLE, MD – As part of her ongoing desire to mitigate environmental impacts from the ICC, Nancy Navarro announced her staunch support for a County Council resolution to approve the purchase of 52 acres of land for Burtonsville’s Fairland Park. The parcel contains old growth forest over 100-years-old, as well as wetlands and bogs that would serve as a buffer for the ICC, which is located only 1.5 miles away. Groups ranging from the Sierra Club of Montgomery County to the East County Citizens Advisory Board endorsed the purchase.
Navarro noted: “The ICC cuts aggressively through District 4, and as a result, the residents of my community are shouldering many of the highway’s negative impacts. But by saving this delicate land from development, the County would be taking a step forward to demonstrate basic fairness. We transferred so much land to the State for ICC construction, that it only makes sense to take advantage of these rare opportunities to preserve replacement land.”
The land would be sold to Montgomery County by Fairland Development LLC, at a cost of $8,750,000, which has been negotiated down from the original asking price of $11,550,000. If the County Council rejects the purchase, this sensitive land will undoubtedly be developed into 109 housing units. Navarro highlighted the fact that this acquisition would not have been possible were it not for the weakened financial conditions in the development and housing industry. “The housing crash has presented Montgomery County with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect and preserve land at a steep discount.”
The County Council will vote on this resolution during its July 14th session today.
The Reporting Life, Part Two
By Kathleen Miller.
Around 10 a.m.
Sometime around 10 a.m. every day, an editor would saunter over to my desk and hit me with the inevitable: what’s going on Kathleen?
Editors have to tell their bosses what to expect, to give them an idea of the number and the magnitude of the stories that will appear in the next day’s paper and coordinate the layout and need for photos or graphics. There’s no grand conspiracy_it’s basically as simply as a reporter telling their editor a handful of things going on in the area and the two of them hashing out what’s worth covering.
And, I hate to break it to you but hard news - i.e. breaking developments in policy changes, a crime, a vote on a controversial issue or investigative reporting into a potential scandal, cover-up, conflict-of-interest or ethical lapse - is always, always, always going to win out over “fluff,” i.e. a story about a group of kids cleaning up a highway or a fundraising effort for a local shelter, no matter how nice and inspiring the fluff is.
My mom - a first grade teacher at a Catholic elementary school in Northern California - disagrees with this approach. She used to send me e-mails when I worked for the AP in Cheyenne, Wyoming, suggesting I do a feature on a group of nuns in a remote part of the state that were making their own all-natural soap. “You never write about anything positive, Kathleen…..”
One day, feeling particularly empathetic to the need to highlight good over evil, I mentioned her line-of-thinking to my boyfriend, a reporter who covers Virginia for the Examiner. He paused for about one second and totally dismissed the idea.
His take: we cover counties that employ at least ten people each for the sole purpose of promoting the region’s image. They’re called public information officers. On the other hand, how many people get paid to bring questionable or controversial acts to the public’s attention? Most counties have an inspector general. Montgomery’s IG Tom Dagley does great work - you need no more evidence than the fact that many county officials chafe at the mention of his name. However there are probably more county council members than IG office staffers. So that leaves the media, a shrinking group these days.
Perhaps it’s grandiose to see it as our mission to be the public’s watchdog, but when we don’t question or investigate enough - i.e. Bernie Madoff scandal, economic collapse or oh, say the Iraq War - we’re also the public’s favorite punching bag. You can’t win. I’m siding with the boyfriend over Mom on this one.
Every morning, I’d try to have three or four story ideas ready-to-go. There’s usually a give and take between the reporter and the editor. My bosses would let me know what sounded like the biggest story to them. If I felt passionately that something else was more important, I’d fight for it. You try to wind up with a story you’ll shoot to deliver and a back-up you can guarantee you’ll deliver.
Why? Because every reporter knows what it’s like to have a story fall-through on them. Occasionally you’re working with inaccurate information, sometimes you can’t get an essential call returned or access to a necessary document and at other moments you’ve just simply bitten off more than you can chew in one day.
On top of that, every reporter knows what it’s like to have an editor approach their desk around 3 p.m. and say, “We’ve got another hole in the paper, what can you give us?” Sidenote, for people looking to get media coverage, this is where press releases and friendly relationships can be very handy.
There definitely were times when this happened and stories that I never would have pitched at 10 a.m. and editors certainly wouldn’t have accepted before lunch time start to sound real good.
10:30 to 1:30 p.m.
From that moment on, it’s all about working the phones and sending emails. I try to make as many contacts as possible before lunch because frankly, you never know if/when people will call you back or if you’re even contacting the right people.
Sometimes, in the course of a conversation about a totally unrelated topic, a source will mention something that beats all pre-conceived story ideas and you have a new focus for your day.
In Montgomery County, residents should rest assured that - love them or hate them - you guys have an unusually hard-working, motivated bunch of elected officials. And sometimes just giving one of them a call to press them on a point would lead to a much bigger and better story. They really do know what’s going on and they can certainly back up the positions they take with anecdotes, facts and logic.
I realized you can learn a lot just by shutting your mouth on occasion and giving people a chance to tell you why they felt a certain way. I called now-Council President Phil Andrews once in spring 2008 to discuss some relatively wonky concerns he had about the collective bargaining process. In asking him why your average resident should care, he gave me a fascinating tip that was probably common knowledge inside Montgomery County government, but surprising to me and many readers.
He noted that the county was eight years late on a promise to equip cop cars with video cameras, a promise made by Montgomery officials as part of a settlement brokered after an unarmed black man was shot and killed by police in the ‘90s. The victim’s family had accepted a smaller settlement if the county agreed to install the cameras, but conflict between county and union leaders meant the agreement had never been fulfilled.
To make the story even better, the late Johnnie Cochran had been involved in negotiating the settlement. I hung up and googled the story. There were links to the agreement but nothing about the fact it hadn’t been followed. I called the local attorney who’d worked with Cochran on the case and he was astounded. He’d never thought to make sure the county had lived up to their end of the deal, nor had the victim’s family. Yet eight years had gone by without the cameras that were common in many neighboring counties.
Moral of the story? Sometimes, just giving people a little time to explain their views will yield far better stories than the reason you called them in the first place. It doesn't matter if you side with Andrews or organized labor (who argued the agreement violated the Maryland Wiretap Act, which requires the consent of all parties before conversations can be recorded), it's an interesting - and I think still unresolved - story.
Tomorrow: 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Post Runs PR Content as News
The Post's Howard Kurtz gives the following account of the newspaper's decision to run an article from a hospital's in-house PR magazine as "news." Why did they do it? The health section editor admitted that buyouts had eradicated her staff, forcing her to rely on freelancers - even including PR writers. Contracting Out
The lead story in The Washington Post's Health section last week, on why some people seem immune to AIDS, focused in part on a top physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The work of researcher Bruce Walker, who runs the hospital's Partners AIDS Research Center, was first spotlighted in the third and fourth paragraphs. The article ended with a dutiful disclosure that it was condensed from one that had run in Proto, the magazine of, yes, Massachusetts General Hospital.
What gives? Health Editor Frances Stead Sellers, who obtained the piece without charge, says Proto is "one of the best biomedical magazines," that the article was by an established freelancer and that she was transparent about the story's origin. "The cure for a perceived conflict is disclosure... I felt with this piece I was bringing something very interesting to readers," she says.
The magazine is produced by Time Inc. Content Solutions, where spokeswoman Carrie Jones says the hospital gets to review all copy and "to bask in the reflected glory" of a high-quality publication.
Sellers, who had run an earlier piece from Proto, says early-retirement buyouts at The Post have cut the weekly section's full-time staff from four to none, forcing her to rely heavily on freelancers. "If I had a whole bundle of reporters, I wouldn't be thinking of doing this," she says.
Print MSM to MoCo: Adios!
So you thought the print mainstream media (MSM) was undergoing changes? Wait until you read this!
Washington Post
MoCo political reporter Ann Marimow is on maternity leave. We hear that when she comes back, she will not cover MoCo anymore. Because she lives on Capitol Hill, she may receive a local D.C. beat. Her replacement will be Michael Laris, who has covered Virginia for the Post. MoCo schools reporter Daniel DeVise is now covering higher education and will be replaced by Prince George's schools reporter Nelson Hernandez. We do not know whether Hernandez will report on both counties or just on MoCo. The Post is reorganizing its specialty reporters to cover regional beats. Accordingly, we hear that investigative and land use reporter Miranda Spivack may be covering other counties in addition to MoCo. We are a big fan of Spivack's reporting and we would like to keep her focused on our county. We do not want to share her! In addition, the editor of the Post's Montgomery Extra section is leaving.
Gazette
Ace local political reporter Janel Davis, one of our all-time favorites, is resigning. Fred Lewis, the Silver Spring editor, is also leaving. Lewis replaced long-time editor Jim Brocker a year ago, an event that helped to precipitate our epic Crisis at the Gazette series. In addition, commentary editor Georgia McDonald is retiring.
Turnover happens in the media just as it happens in other industries, but the extraordinary economic pressure on MSM businesses may be exacerbating it. Marimow and Davis have covered MoCo since 2006. Both have developed into very good reporters who know their way around the county. No matter how talented their successors may be, they will not be able to perform at their level for quite awhile. And remember, we have elections coming up next year.
We wish Ann Marimow and Janel Davis well. It's getting pretty lonely around here.
Berliner Calls for New Transportation Policy on Wisconsin Avenue
Montgomery County Council Member Roger Berliner, who represents Bethesda, North Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac, is calling for the state to consider a “Sustainable Transportation Corridor” approach to Wisconsin Avenue. Berliner points out the impending transportation challenges in the Bethesda-White Flint vicinity and rightly notes how current policy emphasizes intersection capacity improvements above other solutions. Berliner states, “It is increasingly clear that pavement alone is not going to get the job done and would be counterproductive to our long term energy and environmental objectives, which can be met only if we significantly reduce vehicle miles traveled, expand transit options, and encourage more biking and walking.” We reproduce his letter to the Governor below.
Montgomery County Council
Roger Berliner
Council Member
District 1
July 13, 2009
Governor Martin O’Malley
100 State Circle
Annapolis, MD 21401-1925
Dear Governor O’Malley:
I am writing to ask you, Acting Secretary Swaim-Staley, and our legislative leadership to explore new legislation or regulations that would enhance coordination between state and local governments, harmonize land use and transportation objectives, and provide priority funding for “Sustainable Transportation Corridors.”
Modeled after a similar policy in Oregon, the goal of this program would be to ensure that future investments in state highway segments that (1) are of extraordinary economic significance to the state; (2) are experiencing unacceptable levels of congestion; and (3) straddle urban smart growth areas, are considered in the context of our larger public policy objectives of reducing vehicle miles traveled and supporting livable communities.
Regrettably, our current approach to significant state roads that bisect our increasingly urban county too often focuses on isolated intersection improvements in one area totally divorced from the larger context. The result can be short term “improvements” that are actually counterproductive in the long run. As the County Council representative of the communities that surround the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, I have witnessed this possibility first hand. Indeed, it is this experience that led me to explore other models that might serve our state and community better.
To the credit of your people in the State Highway Administration, who recently testified before our Council, they are trying hard to come up with a plan that would provide immediate short term relief to a looming traffic nightmare. As you appreciate, under the Base Closure and Realignment Act (BRAC) the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda is expanding and will reopen in 2011 as the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. This expanded facility will treat twice as many patients, add 2500 new jobs, and increase traffic on a roadway that is already subject to unacceptable levels of congestion.
At the same time, just to the north of the expanded Medical Center, the Montgomery County Planning Department is currently drafting a new “White Flint Sector Plan,” which calls for compact mixed-use redevelopment. The Plan envisions the transformation of a section of the Rockville Pike into a multi-modal urban “boulevard” with a landscaped median, street parking, wider sidewalks, bike lanes, a grid of streets to take pressure off Rockville Pike, and much needed mass transit improvements, including the possibility of bus rapid transit.
Yet, to date, we have not stepped back collectively and assessed the needs of the entire Rockville Pike/Wisconsin Avenue corridor, without question one of the most important transportation corridors in the entire state. It is increasingly clear that pavement alone is not going to get the job done and would be counterproductive to our long term energy and environmental objectives, which can be met only if we significantly reduce vehicle miles traveled, expand transit options, and encourage more biking and walking.
The aim of legislation creating Sustainable Transportation Corridors would be to establish that broader context, to bring the best of urban planning and progressive transportation policies together to support sustainable and vibrant communities, and to give priority to such areas of statewide significance.
Governor, I know that you and our legislative leaders are firmly committed to sustainability. The legislation that you and our state legislature have championed puts Maryland at the environmental forefront. In my view, legislation creating Sustainable Transportation Corridors is consistent with and builds upon this commitment. I commend it to you and our legislative leaders for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Roger Berliner
cc:
Secretary Beverly K. Swaim-Staley
The Honorable Mike Miller
The Honorable Michael Busch
The Honorable Rich Madaleno
The Honorable Brian Frosh
The Honorable Bill Bronrott
The Honorable Susan Lee
The Honorable Ana Sol Gutierrez
The Honorable Al Carr
The Honorable Jeff Waldstreicher
The Honorable Bill Frick
The Honorable Brian Feldman
Great Concern Over State Budget (Updated)
This blog is drowning in direct entries to our "More Warnings of State Budget Apocalypse" post from Friday. That post, which contains a copy of a letter from state budget official Warren Deschenaux to the General Assembly leadership about the dire state of the budget, is now accounting for 31% of our traffic. The visits are not coming from any central source. Rather, the post is spreading virally through emails and is attracting particular attention from state and county governments, charities and contractors. We should be used to the state's perpetual budget difficulties by now but Deschenaux's letter is unusually blunt about Maryland's fiscal abyss.
Update: Now it's 38%.
The Reporting Life, Part One
By Kathleen Miller.
A reporter’s day starts with a pit in your stomach as you trudge to the end of your driveway or turn on your computer to see exactly what the competition has that you missed.
Our day often ends hours after we've climbed into bed, awakened with a start from a dead sleep, eyes wide open, palms sweating and mind racing about whether we triple-checked a figure, spelled a name like Schwarzenegger right or are going to be screwed by the headline an editor sticks on our story.
Most of us care about what we produce and we take our work seriously. We know people’s reputations are at stake and that if somebody is kind enough to call us back, they deserve to be quoted accurately.
I know. You probably don’t believe me. According to the recent Pew Center Annual Report on American Journalism, less than 50 percent of people think news organizations are moral or helpful to democracy. Adding insult to injury, the majority of people surveyed also said they believe our stories are often inaccurate.
My name’s Kathleen Miller and I’m a former reporter for The Washington Examiner and the Associated Press. For the past three years, I’ve paid the bills as part of the so-called mainstream media, the past two years of which I’ve covered Maryland, most of that time focusing on Montgomery County.
Now, I’m one of the unemployed masses, a healthy chunk of whom, it seems, hail from the news industry these days.
I’m self-aware enough to realize a common perception among many people - PR types and government officials especially - is that journalists are lazy, biased, blood-sucking leeches or something along those lines. Let me tell you how I see it.
We’ll start at the beginning.
7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Contrary to popular belief, a typical day working in the media does not begin with any sort of axis-of-evil collaboration between reporters and their editors about how to bring down a particular political party, interest group or advance a given agenda.
Rather, it starts with reporters absorbing each other’s work and following blogs like this one.
Print reporters tend to show their faces in the office a little on the later side, like 9:30 or 10, unless you’re working for a wire service that has a specific staffing schedule. This does not mean most of us are sleeping in or watching the Today Show. While I’m downing my breakfast, I like to devour everything other news outlets have put out that relates to my beat - praying/wishing/hoping that there’s nothing the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, MPW, WTOP, WAMU or the Gazette has that was going to totally blindside me.
Like it or not, I think it’s better to know what other media outlets are reporting as soon as you wake up in the morning - both so you can think of what you’ll say to your boss if you got beaten on a story and so you can get a jumpstart on putting calls in to follow any of the competition’s work with your own second-day look at the issue.
You learn a lot from other people’s articles: sometimes you kick yourself for not tracking an issue or calling a certain person the day before and sometimes you scratch your head and wonder who thought that story would make for an interesting read. Regardless, it always expands your knowledge of the area you cover.
Reporters, like readers, are drawn to different kinds of stories, and if say, wetlands or the Purple Line don’t make your pulse race, it’s still good to read articles about them from people who naturally gravitate to those subjects.
Tomorrow: Around 10 a.m.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Reporting Life: A Preview
One of our favorite MSM (mainstream media) reporters is Kathleen Miller. Ms. Miller covered Montgomery County for the Examiner and the state legislature for the Associated Press. We particularly appreciated her reporting on Delegate Luiz Simmons’s (D-17) position on slots, the state government’s anti-union website, the O’Malley administration’s transit project cuts, the preference of some County Executive staff for buses on the Purple Line and House Majority Leader Kumar Barve’s property tax issues. Now, we have truly lucked out: in an exclusive five-part series, Kathleen Miller is spilling the beans on what it’s like to be an MSM print reporter in Maryland.
Some of our readers have questioned why we discuss the media as much as we do. Let’s make one thing clear: you cannot understand politics without understanding how politicians reach out to their constituents. And even in the era of blogs, that demands understanding how the MSM acts as a conduit between elected officials and the public. Kathleen Miller lifts that veil in a way that has rarely been done in Maryland. If you are a politician, a wanna-be politician, an activist or anyone else trying to get attention, her description of a day in the life of an MSM reporter is a must-read for you. Read on tomorrow!
Metro Operator Caught Sleeping
This video is rapidly acquiring cult status. For more details, look here.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Post Ombudsman Covers Dinnergate
Washington Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander offers a thorough report on the Dinnergate scandal today. He details participation by four newsroom editors in planning the event, none of whom said it was wrong prior to the scandal's surfacing in Politico. Alexander writes, "By having outside underwriters, The Post was effectively charging for access to its newsroom personnel. Reporters or editors could easily be perceived as being in the debt of the sponsors. And by promising participants that their conversations would be private, those attending would be assured a measure of confidentiality that the news department typically opposes." This is a must-read.
Friday, July 10, 2009
More Warnings of State Budget Apocalypse
In a letter to the General Assembly leadership, state budget official Warren Deschenaux is predicting a $700 million budget deficit in FY 2010, a $1+ billion budget deficit in FY 2011 and an “underlying structural gap” of $2 billion. He declares, “The present course of State finances is plainly unsustainable.” In all likelihood, the state will be dealing with the worst of these problems when federal stimulus aid dries up. We reproduce Deschenaux’s letter below.
MPW on Political Pulse
Political Pulse from Crossing Georgia on Vimeo.
Here's a bit of political junk food offered by yours truly on Charles Duffy's great interview program, Political Pulse. This show was aired on May 26 and May 28.
China Bans MPW
County Council Member George Leventhal, who is traveling to China, reports that their government has blocked access to Maryland Politics Watch. But the Communist censors, employing what is known as "the Great Firewall of China," have not blocked Just Up the Pike. How much is Dan Reed paying them?
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Town of Chevy Chase Town Council Meeting
Here is my summary of the meeting held on July 8th:
The Town Council started its meeting with a moment of silence in memory of Kelly and Sloane Murray following the pledge of allegiance.
**Town Manager’s Report**
Town Manager Todd Hoffman gave his first formal and written report of the past month’s activities. Councilmember Al Lang requested that it be posted to the web and the Council supported this idea.
**Charter Amendments**
I introduced two charter amendments. The first would allow the mayor to serve two consecutive terms before needing the unanimous consent of other councilmembers before continuing in that office. Currently, the mayor may serve for only one year before unanimous consent is required. The second proposed amendment would mandate that the Town hold referendums in the manner of Town elections rather than forcing everyone to show up to vote at a town meeting at a specific time and day as currently outlined in the Charter. The introduction of the first amendment was approved 4-1 with Councilmember Lang dissenting and the second was introduced with unanimous approval. The Council plans to hold public hearings on both amendments in September.
**Native Canopy Tree Program**
I introduced a resolution to allow the Town to implement the Native Canopy Tree Program proposed by the Environment Committee and supported unanimously by the Council at the previous meeting. The program would support the planting of canopy trees on resident property to help promote the tree canopy. The Council unanimously approved the resolution and reviewed implementation plans drafted by Town Staff. We also learned that six residents have already requested trees. The Council will consider the budget transfer needed to pay for the program at its September meeting.
**Building Code Amendments**
Several members of the Land Use Committee, including Chair Donna Kirk, Sue Blacklow, Kathy Flaxman, Lees Hartman, Dedun Ingram, Joe Rubin, and Bruce Russell, presented their Committee’s detailed proposal to amendment the Town Code to clarify and remove inconsistencies regarding the current rules regulating land use as well as reduce the need for variance requests. Among many other proposals, the revisions would change the definition of the rear setback line so that residents with irregularly shaped properties would have more regularly shaped building envelope. (My understanding is that none of the changes would reduce the amount of buildable land.) The changes would further make it easier to replace existing walls without the need for a variance.
The proposals were not discussed or debated at this meeting. The Council plans to hold a work session to consider these complex rules and then hold a public information session in advance of a public hearing. Everyone on the Council was grateful for the enormous amount of work which clearly went into putting together the thoughtful and lengthy report on this complex issue.
**Water Management Program**
The Council reviewed proposed operating procedures drafted by Staff with input from the Public Services Committee for the proposed water management program proposed by the Public Services Committee and supported unanimously by the Council at the last meeting. The Council would like to move forward with the program and will hold a public hearing on it and consider the transfer of funds within the budget needed to pay for it.
**Committee Operating Procedures**
Councilmember Pat Burda and Community Relations Chair Ann Wild presented and the Council reviewed the proposal of the Long-Range Planning Committee regarding committee operating procedures. The Council discussed various ideas for improvement, focusing on various ideas to promote openness with an emphasis on making sure that residents are aware that they can attend any committee meeting as well as committee minute reporting. Other proposals concentrated on coordination among the committees and with Town Staff.
Democrats For Pelura (Updated)
Maryland Democrats had better hope the state Republican Party does not get rid of embattled Chairman James Pelura III. From a financial perspective, Pelura is the best Republican Chairman the Democrats could ever hope to have.
Pelura and some Republican elected officials may disagree on the state party’s role in setting policy. But few people would disagree on the central role of any political party apparatus: helping its candidates win elections. That means training activists, registering voters, communicating with the press, criticizing the other party’s candidates, getting out the vote and channeling activity towards critical, and winnable, races. All of the above takes money.
Much of the discontent with Pelura is directed to his inability to raise money and clear the state party’s debt. Let’s put those party finances in perspective. Both the Democrats and the Republicans maintain county party organizations, each of which has its own treasury, along with the state organizations. Furthermore, both parties have federal funds which must be used to promote federal candidates. The sum totality of all these party funds augments the individual candidates’ funds to wage battle at election time.
Here are the most recent financial statistics for all Democratic state funds in Maryland:
And here are the most recent financial statistics for all Republican state funds in Maryland:
Among the county organizations, the Republicans do not trail the Democrats by much. GOP county funds had a collective total cash balance of $148,562.65 in January 2009, fairly close to the Democratic county total of $171,733.69. Only one county organization, the Queen Anne’s County RCC, had any debt, and that was just $500. Three Republican county parties – Montgomery, Harford and Anne Arundel – raised and spent more than $20,000 each. Only one Democratic county party – Prince George’s – did so. None of this makes up for overwhelming Democratic registration advantages throughout the state. But at least some of the Republican county parties are trying to stay in the game.
The same cannot be said at the state level. In terms of state funds, the Democratic state party had $161,898.48 in January 2009 with no debt. The Republican state party had $57.96 with $57,272.24 in debt. Of the debt amount, $40,672.24 is in “outstanding bills due.” Who is owed and how soon will they come to collect?
But there is more. Consider the condition of the two parties’ federal funds.
The Democratic state party and the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee together raised $805,140 and spent $929,077 in the first five months of this year. (MCDCC raised more money than 15 state Democratic parties.) They recorded a final cash balance of $98,001. The Republican state party raised $128,099, spent $128,187 and finished with just $1,547.
Let’s restate this in pure and simple terms.
Republican state party, state cash balance, January 2009: $57.96
Republican state party, federal cash balance, May 2009: $1,547
Republican state party, debt, January 2009: $57,272.24
Under James Pelura III, the Maryland Republican Party is flat on its back. It cannot help protect GOP incumbents. It cannot devote any resources to helping defeat First District Democratic Congressman Frank Kratovil. And the staff turmoil under Pelura guarantees that donors will stay away as long as he continues to serve as Chairman.
And so keeping Pelura in place should be a top priority for Maryland Democrats. Once his Executive Committee starts to push him out, Pelura will need legal advice to remain in place. We should start a defense fund for him right now. Let’s call it “Democrats for Pelura.” Do we have any takers?
Update: According to the Sun, the state GOP’s problems are now $77,500 worse.
Will Maryland Follow DC?
WTOP reports that Gov. O'Malley thinks we should recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states:"I think that it's very difficult to deny equal rights to people when it comes to rights that are disbursed by a government rather than a faith or a church," O'Malley said Monday on WTOP's Ask the Governor Program. "If the person has these rights under another state, I think we're sort of pressed to deny those rights. So, yes, we probably should respect those rights."
The District recently moved to take this step so Maryland's action would be nothing new in the region. One can understand why the District chose this route rather than legalizing same-sex marriages as getting this legislation past Congress quite difficult. Maryland's choice results from politics of a different sort. The General Assembly won't pass it. Gov. O'Malley seems willing to have gay marriages in the State but doesn't want the credit from Blue Maryland/blame from Red Maryland. Ironic though as we used to be the place people came to get married more easily and with less fuss. No renewing of the fine tradition of eloping to Elkton. Instead, we'll be forcing couples--and their wedding business--to go elsewhere.
O'Malley has been cold to the idea of legalizing same-sex marriages in Maryland, but has promoted the idea of civil unions.
"I believe that if we were to have civil unions, there would be no question about whether or not we would recognize unions in other states. And that's the way to move forward."
Before making any changes to state laws, O'Malley is waiting for an opinion from Maryland's attorney general.
"If the law allows that, then that's what we will do."
O'Malley's remarks come as a new law in the D.C. recognizing same sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions is set to take effect on Tuesday.
Winners and Losers in the Maryland Blogosphere
From our dataset on 38 statistics-releasing Maryland blogs, here are three that are on the way up as well as a category of them that is stalled.
Headed Up
Inside Charm City 
Inside Charm City is the leading news aggregator in the Baltimore area. Its traffic swings wildly with current events, getting enormous spikes from posts about Michael Phelps and Miss California, Steve McNair and local fireworks schedules. The blog has caught on as a central location for Baltimore MSM links, leading the state in visits in five of the last six months. Its great weakness is that it has virtually no original content. Still, Inside Charm City’s success demonstrates that Baltimore is hungry for blogs, and if an independent, original political blog ever set up shop there, its site traffic would explode.
Rockville Central 
Brad Rourke and Cindy Cotte Griffiths have created a true online gathering place for the City of Rockville. Their site carries a mix of news, editorials, announcements and pictures that many residents have adopted as an indispensable resource. Local politicians are particularly watchful as many have submitted guest posts and city elections are approaching. Rockville Central has been the second-most visited local blog in the state after Inside Charm City over the last two months.
Annapolis Capital Punishment
Not so long ago, Paul Foer was known as “PMF” on the liberal blog Free State Politics, where he was a frequent target of Red Maryland’s conservatives. Well, Foer is getting the last laugh. His Annapolis Capital Punishment blog, which follows Annapolis city politics in minute detail, beat the statewide Red Maryland in site visits for the first time in May. Foer’s numbers should stay strong as he has a mayor’s race to cover.
Heading Down/Stalled
Red Maryland and Conservative Blogs
Free State Politics, a multi-author liberal blog, was the leading political blog in Maryland starting around 2006. Red Maryland, a multi-author conservative blog, was founded in July 2007 and passed Free State Politics in site visits in October 2007. That started a 13-month reign atop the state’s political blogosphere that was ended by MPW in November 2008. But Red Maryland’s slide has been much longer than that. The blog peaked in January 2008 with 14,614 site visits. Its June 2009 level was 7,859 visits, or 54% of its high point.
Red Maryland’s decline is echoed by a broader stagnation of the state’s conservative blogosphere.
The 15 conservative blogs that release their site visit statistics have together combined for around 30,000-40,000 monthly visits since October 2007. Their peak month, January 2008, occurred in the immediate aftermath of the special session’s tax package. The conservatives’ stall is noteworthy considering that the state’s entire blogosphere has been growing rapidly.
The state’s right wing has been plagued by infighting between the state Republican Party Chairman and its elected officials, staff disruption at party headquarters, pointless bickering over how to deal with the anti-Obama comments from Anne Arundel County and collapsing voter registration and electoral performance. Those facts may be combining with a general lack of morale to stall conservative blogdom in Maryland.
We’ll have a closer look at MPW’s readership next week.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Cheryl Kagan's Kickoff Speech
From her June 15 fundraiser. More videos of former Delegate Paul Carlson and former District 17 Senator Mary Boergers appear here.
How Re-Regulation Will Cost You Money
Yesterday, we revealed how Pepco customers can save up to 13.7% off their power bills by switching to a new power supplier. BGE customers can save up to 9.8% off their bills by doing the same thing. But “re-regulation” will block your ability to save yourself money. Why?
In the old days, utilities were vertically integrated companies. They generated power, transmitted it to substations and distributed it to customers. But they had to answer to government regulators, who set their prices. Those prices had to allow the utilities to recover their costs of servicing customers. Otherwise, they would be unable to remain in business. The prices also had to generate a reasonable return on investment. After all, if stockholders could not get steady dividends and occasional capital gains by buying utility stocks, no one would buy them and none of those of power plants or utility lines would have been built. Because of these characteristics, the old system did nothing to protect consumers from the gigantic price spikes that occurred in 1972-1975 and 1978-1982.
Deregulation changed all that. In Maryland, Pepco and BGE were forced to sell off their power plants so they could purchase electricity from competing suppliers. (BGE wound up selling its plants to another member of its corporate family.) Competition was supposed to keep prices low. But the plan did not work immediately for two reasons. First, the alternative suppliers were slow to show up. Second, retail prices were capped from the time the deregulation law passed in 1999 through 2006. Deregulation’s architects thought enough power suppliers would enter the market by 2006 that rates could be allowed to float and competition would keep prices down. Instead, BGE asked for a 72% rate hike to make up for seven years with no price increase. Political hysteria ensued.
Fast forward to the winter of 2008-2009. Competition has arrived. As we stated yesterday, Pepco customers can pick from five electricity suppliers and BGE customers can pick from ten. But few people took advantage of those opportunities and rising utility bills put the issue of “re-regulation” back on the table. The Senate passed a bill that would have given the state’s Public Service Commission the right to order utilities to build new power plants and regulate the rates they charge. Never mind the fact that it would take decades to build all of these new plants and no one knows exactly how many billions of dollars they would cost. And never mind the fact that business customers, who spend massive amounts on electricity, opposed the bill and were organizing employee cooperatives to take advantage of competition. Some in the General Assembly were determined to save us from the deregulation regime that the General Assembly, of course, created. But the House of Delegates’ Economic Matters Committee stopped the measure on a 21-2 vote. As Delegate Brian Feldman (D-15) said, “There's a risk, if we screw this up, of unintended consequences.”
Here is the unintended consequence. The “re-regulation bill,” as amended, contained this language:The commission shall develop and implement a plan for residential and small commercial customers to transition from a program of customer choice of electricity supply and electricity supply services established under subtitle 5 of this title.
So remember how you can switch suppliers and save double digits off your power bill? “Re-regulation” will put the brakes on that. Why?
Remember how the old regulated system works. Even though regulators set electricity rates, utilities are allowed to recover their costs from customers and realize a return on investment. So if the “re-regulation” bill passes and the Public Service Commission orders Pepco or BGE to build a new plant, they will be entitled to pass on the cost of building, operating and maintaining that plant to you. Plus, they will be allowed to earn a profit. Under today’s system, if Pepco or BGE raised the price of their Standard Offer Service, which is their default price for electricity, you could switch to another power supplier to save money. If the state forced either of them to build a new power plant and their customers deserted them to avoid paying the construction charges, the utilities would be unable to pay their costs and earn a profit on the plant. So to keep the companies whole, the state would have to limit competition and force you to pay for all of this. The problem would be compounded if the plant owner bets wrong, builds a plant that runs on a fuel that later soars in price and seeks to pass on those costs to now-captive customers like you. Is that a risk you want to bear?
Think about it this way. Today, you have the ability to shop around and save money on your power bill right now. Pepco customers can save up to 13.7% by purchasing their power from Washington Gas Energy Services. Ask any politician who supports “re-regulation” if any law they can pass will save you 13.7% right now. And then ask them exactly when any law they can pass will save you 13.7%. See how they answer you. And then think about whether “re-regulation” is truly in your interest.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
What Is The Strategy?
By Marc Korman.
I usually do not write about national politics unless there is a Maryland tie in, but since Adam posted Sarah Palin’s resignation speech and I am so confused by her strategy, I could not resist.
If the plan is to run for president in 2012, declining to run for reelection certainly has precedence. Mitt Romney chose to stand down in 2006 despite having only served one term as governor of Massachusetts partly because he knew a reelection campaign would require him to take positions far to the left of the 2008 Republican primary electorate and could easily end in defeat (think Bob Ehrlich).
Even resigning from a position to run is not new. Bob Dole left his Majority Leadership position and the Senate in the summer of 1996 to focus on his bid for the presidency. Of course, by that point he was already guaranteed the Republican nomination.
But resigning before her first gubernatorial term is complete to focus on an election three years away is an interesting strategy. The best explanation I have heard is she wants to make some money in the private sector, which she can do through book deals, speeches, and slots on corporate boards much easier outside of the governor’s office. She can combine that and campaigning between now and the midterms in November 2010 and then switch over to a full campaign effort leading up to the 2012 election.
Perhaps Palin has also looked at some of her potential competitors and found that being in office is not so important. Mitt Romney will have been out of office for over five years by the time the 2012 Republican primary season heats up. Newt Gingrich resigned from the House of Representatives shortly after he won reelection in 1998, giving up his role as Speaker in the process. Perhaps Palin plans to use him as a shield.
But political strategy aside, Palin’s decision and her comments are just plain strange. One particular section jumped out at me:And so as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn't run for re-election and what it means for Alaska, I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks... travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade - as so many politicians do. And then I thought - that's what's wrong - many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and "milk it". I'm not putting Alaska through that - I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? [sic] That's not how I am wired. I am not wired to operate under the same old "politics as usual." I promised that four years ago - and I meant it.
As best as I can tell, Palin is essentially saying that governing is about elections. If she is not going to run, she cannot govern. I suppose the good news is if she were to win two White House terms, she would step aside in January of 2017 since as a lame duck she would have no purpose.
Maybe more to the story will come out. There could be a scandal. Perhaps she is planning to challenge Lisa Murkowski for the US Senate or Michael Steele for the RNC Chairmanship. Maybe she has plans for a think tank. But whatever her plan, resigning before her term is complete strikes me as strange. There may be no single action that disqualifies someone from the presidency, but turning your back on those you represent is probably pretty close.
Big-Time Interest in Electricity Savings (Updated)
Our post on saving money on electric power is drawing a lot of attention. At the moment, 48% of all of our traffic consists of direct visits to that post. Some of the visitors are coming from the Facebook pages of Delegates Saqib Ali (D-39) and Kirill Reznik (D-39), both of whom are alerting their constituents to this opportunity. Thank you, Delegates!
Update: Gaithersburg City Council Member Ryan Spiegel has also linked to this post from Facebook and is quoted in an article on consumer choice in today's Town Courier.
How to Save Money on Your Electric Bill Right Now
Over ninety percent of Marylanders can save money on their electric bills right now. You don’t need to write the Governor. You don’t need new legislation. You don’t need any help from politicians. You can do it NOW.
First, let’s understand how Maryland’s electricity market works. Under deregulation, utilities like Pepco and BGE do not generate their own electricity. They buy it from other suppliers. Sometimes those suppliers are subsidiaries of the same parent company (as is the case with BGE’s parent, Constellation Energy) and sometimes they are not. But you as a consumer have the right to choose your generating company and your utility will then distribute the power to your home or business. If you do not choose a generator, the utility will sell power to you from its suppliers under a Standard Order of Service (SOS) price. Ninety-seven percent of state residents do not exercise their right of choice and instead purchase SOS, but you don’t have to be one of them. The SOS price is not always the best price. Sometimes, you can find a better one.
The state’s Public Service Commission website allows you to find the power generators who sell in your area. In Pepco’s service territory, there are currently five suppliers you can choose: BTU Energy LLC, Clean Currents LLC, Horizon Power & Light LLC, Pepco Energy Services and Washington Gas Energy Services. BGE’s service territory has ten suppliers. All of the suppliers’ websites are listed and you can find out their offers.
How do you shop? First, find out your utility’s SOS price to compare, which is the average cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity generation and transmission. Utilities report this figure on their websites. Pepco’s SOS price to compare for residential customers is currently 12.51 cents per kWh. If you are receiving SOS – Pepco’s default supplier – this is the average price you are currently paying.
If you are a residential customer receiving BGE’s SOS, you are currently paying an annual average of 11.97 cents per kWh.
Now let’s check two of the alternative suppliers in Pepco’s service area. Let’s start with Clean Currents, a company based in Rockville which specializes in supplying wind power. Clean Currents is now offering both Pepco and BGE customers a rate of 11.2 cents per kWh for power that is 50% derived from wind energy and a rate of 11.7 cents per kWh for 100% wind power. That means Pepco customers can save 10.5% off their power bill and BGE customers can save 6.4% and simultaneously increase their use of wind power by switching to Clean Currents.
It gets better. You can save even more money with Washington Gas Energy Services (WGES). In Pepco’s service area, WGES offers electricity at a base rate of 10.8 cents per kWh. The rate goes up if you want higher percentages of wind power. That same base rate of 10.8 cents is available in the Baltimore area. That means Pepco customers can save 13.7% off their power bill and BGE customers can save 9.8% by switching to WGES.
These rates will not be in effect forever. But by looking for the best deal every year or two, you can save a bundle of money. Deregulation, which was intended to lower prices through competition, did not work when competitors were not present. But now they are in both the Washington and Baltimore areas. And now you know how to make this market work for you.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that some politicians in Annapolis are trying to take away your ability to save money. We’ll reveal how tomorrow.
Monday, July 06, 2009
DC Madam Lives Again
This belongs in the category of "Can't make this stuff up." We have had a handful of readers access our "Washington Post Readers Erupt Over Dinnergate" post by searching for the term "DC Madam." Indeed, a Google blogsearch on "DC Madam" currently ranks our post fifth on the search results page.
Jim Smith is Not Running for Comptroller (Updated)
Courtesy of WBAL, following is a statement by Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith announcing his decision not to run for Comptroller. That's an interesting decision given his recent appearance at a Committee for Montgomery meeting and this fundraising speech strongly hinting at a run. So what is going to happen to his nearly million-dollar war chest? Will Smith's Chief of Staff, gubernatorial brother Peter O'Malley, have a say?
Update: Jim Smith probably won't be running for Senate because he lives in District 11, currently represented by Democrat Bobby Zirkin. We would not be surprised if Smith wound up in Governor O'Malley's cabinet. There are currently openings in Transportation and Labor.
Update 2: The Baltimore Sun is now speculating on the fate of Smith's war chest.
#####
After much deliberation, I have decided not to run for Comptroller in the 2010 election. Although this has not been an easy decision, I am confident that I am making the right choice. Having spent many months thinking about the duties of Comptroller in the State of Maryland, I have concluded that it is not a position to which I aspire. I have never pursued any elected office because it was expedient. I always sought the opportunity to serve because I thought I could make a real difference-as a councilman, a judge, and currently as County Executive. I did not feel that passion when considering a run for Comptroller.
To those of you who have supported me as County Executive, and encouraged me to consider a statewide run in 2010, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your enthusiasm is amazing, and I am truly grateful for your counsel and support. Rest assured that I remain committed to public service, and I look forward to finding new ways to serve in the future.
Working together with the people of Baltimore County, we've created a renaissance that is visible from one end of the County to the other. I am excited about what we've accomplished, and I am energized by the work we have left to do. There are eighteen months left in my term as County Executive, and I am focused on completing what we started.
Washington Post Readers Erupt Over Dinnergate
The Washington Post’s readers are roaring with fury at the newspaper’s Dinnergate scandal. As of this writing, nearly 700 comments have poured into Howard Kurtz’s article on the debacle, more than 200 have been posted to the Ombudsman’s story and almost 600 have descended on the publisher’s apology. Here’s a sample of what the readers are saying. Mark our words: after this, the Post’s endorsement is going to matter a whole lot less next year than it did in 2002 and 2006.
Post reader comments:
I have never seen a news organization self-destruct more quickly than I have the Washington Post today. You just flat-out offered flattering stories in exchange for $250,000 bribes. Unbelievable.
This is shameful, just shameful. The Washington Post has lost whatever journalistic integrity it had left. No wonder newspapers are dying.
This hurts. Up until now, I considered the Washington Post to be one of the few outstanding news sources in the world. Now, I will have much less trust in its reporting. This is not the fault of marketing. This is the fault of the publisher, who obviously knew all about this money grab. I can’t help but believe those in charge of the newsroom knew about it, too. Remember, credibility is very fragile. This episode put a huge crack in the credibility of the Washington Post. What a shame.
Would someone please explain to someone far outside the Beltway why a newspaper thinks it should broker interactions between government officials and those seeking favorable treatment from the government?
What’s black and white and red all over? Answer: a blushing Washington Post. And well you should be embarrassed with the disclosure of a newspaper running a salon for-profit special interest escort service. Your bankrupt journalistic ethics are now exposed for all to see.
The Washington Post only found this story fit to run in the Style section today. I'll bet if it happened at the Washington Times during the Bush years they would have run it on the top of the front page.
The Post does a lot of excellent reporting of difficult and complex issues. There’s a lot of great journalism there, and a lot of honest people. But this! This is shameful! It calls into question everything the Post reports. Now every time I read a Post article (if I continue to read the Post at all...), I'll have to wonder, “Did any special interest groups pay tens of thousands of dollars for off-the-record access to the article's author or to its editor, and if so, did it influence what I'm reading?” The answer to both questions may very well be, “No.” But once I have to ask those questions, the answers doesn't really matter; the damage is done by the need to ask. If decision makers at the Post can't understand how completely wrong this was, they have no business running such an important newspaper.
Obviously, Pelton is taking the fall for what is an - appalling - idea of Weymouth’s. These “salons” are a disgraceful idea, and they are a symptom of how the Post is a) desperate for revenue, and b) no longer the swashbuckling institution that it was in the Watergate era. The Washington Post was a national treasure back in those days. In the past 20 years, however, it has become everything bad about everything bad.
Ridiculous? Last week I would have said so, but after today... ehhhh, not so much. After all, if the Post would sell space in its publisher’s own living room to raise money, then it’s certainly capable of selling space on its Op-Ed page, isn’t it?
Now we know why WaPo editorial board member Ruth Marcus just came out opposing a health plan which would allow a government entity to compete with insurance companies. Clearly you can’t sell tickets to big insurance companies if they think that you support a plan which would compete with them. It is incredible how sleazy the Post’s relationship with those in power has become.
Let me get this straight...the Washington Post charges special interests ten to twenty thousand dollars to attend “parties” with Post newsroom reporters. Do the special interests have to pay more to actually write the articles that appear in print? How much would it cost me to write a Krauthammer editorial?
It seems to me that the Post’s staff’s objections amount to arguing about the pattern on the skirt worn by a sh***y pig. This tale suggests that privileged access (and its consequences) is endemic at the Post and in Washington’s political culture. We need to realize that the reporting on health care is probably no more honest than that of the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Would that we had half the courage of the Iranians.
So you’ll be taking big bucks from insurance industry executives and lobbyists so that they can dictate the talking points to your stenographers - I mean columnists - so that they can catapult the propaganda - I mean opine - on what a very bad, terrible, horrible, socialist, fascist and communist thing it would be for 47 million Americans citizens to have a public option for their healthcare. Got it.
REPORTERS COMPLAIN ABOUT STRESS OF JOURNALISTIC PROSTITUTION (WASHINGTON DC) Embittered Was Po reporters complained about the stress of Journalistic Prostitution. “You have to write 2 stories, say one praising Obama and one criticizing Obama.” “The articles have to be posted on a secure online website for bidders only before the NYSE opens at 9 eastern.” “Then if someone buys the Deletion rights or worse yet demands a fictitious source, you have to get the rewrites ready immediately or your future price as a reporter will track down,” complained a dispirited reporter. Reporters were pleased, however, with their pay under the new contingent fee arrangement for the revenue streams generated by Wash Po articles traded on the NYSE futures market. And since the scandal occurred before a holiday weekend, no one will remember by Monday.
I looked at the Politico story a second time....one of the most striking portions is this: “She made it clear however, that The Post, which lost $19.5 million in the first quarter, sees bringing together Washington figures as a future revenue source.” In other words: the Washington Post is perfectly happy in being the pimp between lobbyists and the White House.
So, if the National Rifle Association would “sponsor,” say, $250,000 worth of these “salons,” could we buy some fair coverage? I would think so. Is there any other way to read it?
What’s the big deal? This was just an attempt to formalize WaPo’s role as pimp arranging trysts between wh*res (gov’t) and their johns (lobbyists).
They got caught, plain and simple. It was not a mistake. It was not an oversight. They got caught.
Presstitutes.
This boondoggle is not conspiracy, as some suggest. It’s gross incompetence. The Washington Post is just a public high school but with a little more money. There are a few highly-overpaid and idolized superstars around which all business turns. Aside from that are the masses of hard workers who somehow still have their jobs, but will never get any recognition, a raise or a “thank you.”
If pimping out the Post is done in such plain sight, one shudders to think what journalistic malpractices publisher Weymouth executes behind closed doors.
Newsboy yells out: “I got your Post for sale, right here! Post for sale.” Bystander: “Tell me boy, what’s the headline.” Newsboy: “Mister, that is the headline.”
So who’s getting fired for this? You’ll let go talented journalists for downsizing, but your idiotic marketing clowns get to come in to work on Monday? Everyone involved in this should get the ax. Maybe the Weekly World News is hiring.
How much to spin George Will’s bowtie?
I’m a former editor of a (very) small local weekly. There is NO WAY that Katherine Weymouth DID NOT know about this. I refuse to believe that her marketing team would EVER put such an idea onto paper without her knowledge and consent, even if it was just a “trial balloon.” So, there are only two possible conclusions to be drawn - 1) either Weymouth is totally clueless about how the newspaper business is supposed to work, or 2) she is absolutely desperate to increase revenues. I opt for the latter. But if that’s true, and she’s willing to even entertain the idea of compromising the Post's integrity for cash, things must be very, very bad indeed.
Good lord! This is nuts. Now, anyone attempting to contact a Post reporter will have to wonder whether their calls would be returned more quickly - or at all - if only they had paid to sponsor a salon.
The Post’s credibility on local news was destroyed long ago by sloppy, inaccurate reporting. The editorial page has been biased and excessively influenced by certain Montgomery County politicians like Councilmembers Andrews and Trachtenberg. The Post is so bad that I cannot rely upon it for accuracy in any matter. Therefore, this is no surprise, but interesting to see the Post brass try to spin and worm out to avoid full responsibility for what this is: disreputable, shameful, unethical conduct.
I do really like the part about $250K for “non-confrontational access.” The simple translation of that deliciously accurate phrase is “We’ll kiss your ass for $250K; you just tell us how hard.”
Gee, and here I thought all the grammatical and spelling errors this newspaper has been making lately were serious problems. Thanks for putting it in perspective, Washington Post.
If Katherine Weymouth had any integrity she would now resign as publisher of the Post. Of course, if she had any integrity, she would not have been pimping the Post in the first place.
Unbelievable. It doesn’t matter what you call it, this is prostitution. It would be nice if news organizations actually felt their loyalty was to the readers, but I guess those days are long gone.
The DC Madam lives!
Now that Ms Weymouth has had to cancel the Salons, what’s she going to do with the 10,000 cocktail weenies and the 500 pounds of imitation crabmeat that are in her freezer?
People are going to remember today as the day the Washington Post died.
Big Daddy and the Millers
Republican Ron Miller, who was crushed by Senate President Mike "Big Daddy" Miller by 40 points in 2006, is running against him again. Ron Miller put out a press release today announcing his candidacy and slamming his opponent for advocating a gas tax increase. It figures that the Republicans are going after Big Daddy on the one issue on which he is indisputably right.
Now if we really wanted to have maximum name confusion, we could get soon-to-be-retiring WSSC Wild Child Juanita Miller to run. Big Daddy spanked her by 29 points in the 2002 primary. (Want to bet that Mike Miller's thundering WSSC letter was not driven in part by the actions of Commissioner Juanita?) But we will have no such luck as she is running for the Prince George's County Council.
So what happens if Juanita Miller wins? Big Daddy and the Wild Child will have to work together hand in hand for the people of Prince George's County. Yeah, we'd pay serious money to see that!
Why CCT Supporters Should Give BRT a Chance
Some backers of the Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) may be disappointed by a recommendation from the Planning Department staff that the project be constructed as bus-rapid transit (BRT). But CCT supporters should give BRT a chance for one simple reason: it may be the only way to make the project competitive for federal funding.
In order to be built, the CCT must qualify for funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which shares the cost of transit projects with applicant states. FTA gives proposed transit projects overall ratings of high, medium-high, medium, medium-low and low, with only projects receiving a medium or better rating considered for funding. The overall rating is the average of two sub-ratings: project justification and financial commitment, with each being ranked using the above five scores. Project justification is in turn an average of five component ratings on mobility improvements, environmental benefits, operating efficiencies, cost effectiveness and land use. If a project scores low on any of these categories, it must make it up with higher scores in one or more of the others. Any project with an overall score of medium-low or low will not be financed.
FTA makes the ultimate decision on each of the above ratings. But one of these ratings is already known for the CCT as well as the Purple Line and Baltimore’s Red Line: cost effectiveness. FTA defines cost effectiveness this way:In its evaluation of the cost effectiveness of a proposed project, FTA considers the incremental cost per hour of transportation system user benefits in the forecast year. Transportation system user benefits reflect the improvements in regional mobility - as measured by the weighted in- and out-of-vehicle changes in travel-time to users of the regional transit system – caused by the implementation of the proposed New Starts project. The cost effectiveness measure is calculated by (a) estimating the incremental “base-year” annualized capital and operating costs of the project (over a lower cost “baseline” of transit service), and then (b) dividing these costs by the projected user benefits. The result of this calculation is a measure of project cost per hour of projected user (i.e. travel-time) benefits expected to be achieved if the project is added to the regional transit system. Proposed projects with a lower cost per hour of projected travel-time benefits are evaluated as more cost effective than those with a higher cost per hour of projected travel-time benefits.
Here is how different levels of cost effectiveness are associated with ratings:
The goal of any transit project should be to have a cost per hour of user benefit of $23.99 or lower, with the lower the better. Projects with higher costs per hour must get rankings of medium-high or high in one or more of the other categories to have a shot at an overall medium ranking, without which federal money will not be available.
The CCT will be competing with the Purple Line and Baltimore’s Red Line for funding. Few people believe that FTA will fund more than one of these projects at the same time. Few believe that Maryland can afford to pay its share of the cost for more than one of these projects at a time. (Some believe the state may not be able to afford any of them!) Each of these projects has several options for construction. Some options use BRT while others use rail. Some options use more tunneling than others. Some have different alignments than the others. But every option has a cost effectiveness estimate. Here’s how all of these options compare for the CCT, Purple Line and Red Line.
The only option to receive a medium-high cost effectiveness rating is surface BRT on the Purple Line using the Capital Crescent Trail. No one is particularly enthusiastic about that proposal. Of the eight medium cost effectiveness ratings, two are for BRT on the Purple Line, two are for rail on the Purple Line, one is for dedicated surface BRT on the Red Line, one is for dedicated surface rail on the Red Line and two are for BRT on the CCT. The two rail options for the CCT, as well as all the tunnel options for the Red Line, fall into the “low cost effectiveness” rating because they cost more than $30 per hour of user benefit. The Purple Line’s rail options generally do better than rail options for the other two projects because 1. population density on its route is greater than on the CCT, and 2. the cost of tunneling through Downtown Baltimore is very expensive. If the state chooses rail for the CCT or tunneling for the Red Line, those projects must be rated medium-high or high in one or more of the other categories to have a chance at federal funding.
Cost effectiveness is not everything. But it’s worth remembering that FTA initially rejected Virginia’s Dulles Metrorail extension in part because its cost effectiveness exceeded $31 per hour of user benefit - a low rating that is comparable to the cost of the CCT rail options. So if CCT supporters really want to see their project get built, BRT will give them their best chance of success.
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