What Ever Happened to Local Courtesy? Who is the Roadblock to an Elected School Board in Harford County?

The fate of the elected School Board bill goes down to the wire in Annapolis. For the latest updates, check out the comments to this article…

When a majority of delegates from a local jurisdiction sponsor legislation affecting their jurisdiction alone, the custom of the Maryland General Assembly is to approve it as a “local courtesy.” The bill proposing an elected Board of Education in Harford County should be a good example the Annapolis political tradition.

When the bill establishing a fully elected board was amended to create a partially elected, or blended school board, http://mlis.state.md.us/2008rs/billfile/SB0306.htm, it got the support of all three Harford County senators, unanimous approval in the full state senate and unanimous approval by a vote of the Harford County delegation - although Delegate Mary-Dulany James, a staunch opponent of elections, was not present for the delegation vote (remember this for later).

With no recorded votes in opposition to the partially elected Board of Education legislation and overwhelming public support for it, the bill should be well on its way to passage, courtesy of local courtesy. Why, then, are two members of the House of Delegates from outside of Harford County trying so hard to kill it? Continue reading What Ever Happened to Local Courtesy? Who is the Roadblock to an Elected School Board in Harford County?

Concierge Family Practice: A Minor Trend Sparks Major Ethical Questions

Less than one year ago, Dr. Richard Maffezzoli was CEO of Clinical Associates, a group of 70 doctors based in Towson, Maryland. Today, he’s waiting for word on whether his list of about 100 patients will grow enough to keep his new concierge family practice afloat.

Maffezzoli is unruffled as he sits in his third-story office on a Friday morning, explaining his decision to switch to a concierge practice in which patients pay an annual retainer fee. The 66-year-old – in a stylish black dress shirt with vertical gray and brown stripes and silver, stamp-sized, cowboyish cufflinks – is philosophical about his future.

“Will I have enough patients to pay my overhead?” Maffezzoli, an endocrinologist and onetime chief resident at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, asks rhetorically. He’ll need at least 200 on the rolls. “Beyond that I don’t really care. I’m not really doing it because I need the money.” The doctor, whose income is largely bolstered by his ownership of several care dealerships, later declared, “I don’t want to keep rushing around like a madman. It was either retire or do this.”
Continue reading Concierge Family Practice: A Minor Trend Sparks Major Ethical Questions

Bill To Make Day After Thanksgiving “American Indian Heritage Day” in MD Close to Passing

Del. B Dan Riley (D - District 34A) tells The Dagger that the House of Delegates managed to come together around an issue today. “Think we finally passed a bill, in the House Of Delegates, which will be acceptable by those of any political persuasion,” Riley wrote in an email today. “The day after Thanksgiving, which most people have off, will now be a holiday honoring Native Americans. Only 2 delegates voted against the bill.” The bill effectively makes Black Friday a paid state holiday. See it for yourself here: http://mlis.state.md.us/2008rs/billfile/HB0083.htm

HB 83 was sponsored by Delegate Talmadge Branch, District 45, Delegate Kumar P. Barve, District 17 and Delegate James E. Proctor, Jr., District 27A. The state senate has not acted on this measure.

Aegis Launches Ink-Saving Campaign - Truncates Week-Old Letter

Homestead Publishing Company, parent of the Aegis and Record newspapers, announced Friday morning that, in order to save ink, letters to the editor would be arbitrarily truncated – particularly if those letters make mention of a certain local news and commentary website peopled largely by ex-Homesteaders.

In order to save costs at the printing press, The Aegis today cut a few words from a letter to the editor written by former legislative aide and former District C county council candidate Brian Young. The (almost) same letter was published here February 19.

Here’s the closing paragraph from Young’s letter, as posted on The Dagger:
Continue reading Aegis Launches Ink-Saving Campaign - Truncates Week-Old Letter

The Elected School Board Stunt of the Week

Take a wild guess – throw a dart with a blindfold on – and you might divine that I’m not a big fan of establishment politics. Nor am I big on PR stunts. The problem with PR stunts is they are inherently deceptive. The stuntmen and stunt women want us to believe what we’re seeing is real. The problem with establishment politics is that society’s pressing need – “the children,” for instance – always ends up playing second fiddle to flaccid businessmen and guileful dealmakers.

PR stunts and establishment politics go hand in hand. One such stunt, designed to protect the status quo against what has become a groundswell of support for an elected school board in Harford County, played out in Annapolis Wednesday.

Del. Mary-Dulany James (D-District 34) considers herself a stalwart of the community’s educational institutions. She has every right to. Not just because her father helped found Harford Community College, but because she’s been a voice of reason during heated education debates past – and because she’s been a defender of the liberal bastion of education in the conservative bastion of Harford’s suburban farm country.

Continue reading The Elected School Board Stunt of the Week

Why I’m Sick To Death of Sly Stallone

As a writer and a movie-lover, I’ve long admired Sylvester Stallone’s brilliant early effort as the writer, star, and visionary behind the first Rocky movie.

Back then, a still-poor Stallone famously held out against studio offers that would have cast a more well-known actor as the lead while lining his pockets with a huge payday.  In the end, he got to make the movie he wanted; the result is a moody, realistic, and inspirational film.

In the decades since, Stallone has unapologetically rested on the laurels of his bold, early success.  There was one scene, I admit, in the latest installment of Rocky that got to me.  But that moment came well before the old fighter stepped into the ring and took his shirt off, where he quickly made Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds look like steroids taste-testers. Continue reading Why I’m Sick To Death of Sly Stallone

2008: The Merciful End of The State Quarter

In 1999, I was traipsing somewhat aimlessly through my early college years, playing in rock and roll bands, working the register at a music store, and writing heartfelt vignettes about my blissful suburban childhood. And, I was excited about quarters.

The 50 State Quarters Program had just launched – nay, galloped – into the American consciousness with the Paul Revere-esque Delaware edition, which depicted the brave, ailing Caesar Rodney, blazing through the night en route to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to declare the nation’s independence.

My dad had long since bequeathed to me his collection of bicentennial quarters, which are forever locked in a square, glass-block coin bank. Now, instead of keeping an eye out for the rarely-passed-on 1976 favorite, I would have nine years’ worth of new quarters to collect. At first I carefully dropped the new state quarters into the glass bank, letting the Massachusetts Minuteman and the Statue of Liberty mingle with the stoic Continental drummer of the 1976 edition.

Back then I would trade my own regular quarters for the new State quarters. Now, on the cusp of 2008, the grand finale year for the State Quarter project, I’m sick of the whole thing. Continue reading 2008: The Merciful End of The State Quarter

Men of Many Hats

We heard along with the rest of the world Wednesday morning that Harford County Executive David Craig had joined Team Rudy, signing on as Maryland co-chair of the Giuliani presidential campaign (http://www.joinrudy2008.com/article/pr/1007).

Craig joins his old buddy, ex-governor Bob Ehrlich and Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold as supporters of the 9-11 hero.

What I’m wondering is whether anyone saw or remembers the spoof-quality Fred Thompson for President video shot on Main Street in Bel Air this July featuring, among others, Craig’s boy-wonder Director of Human Resources, Scott Gibson.
Continue reading Men of Many Hats

Painted With An Obscure Brush

From the field office, comes this weird one, as if many of you hadn’t already seen S. Fred Simmons’ most recent defacement.

What’s different this time is the vandal’s literacy. Supplanting the anarchy symbol and goofy, tagger-style lettering of the preceding spray-painting is a quote from Ayn Rand’s more obscure philosophical ramblings: “The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it too.” I suspect the vandal chose this quote because it sounds like something a bad sport would say to someone he or she had defeated in, say, a local election – or dodge ball.

Read in context, however, this cryptic quote means next to nothing unless you’re a member of the rarified, crusty, Randian faithful (Alan Greenspan is in this group, if that tells you anything). Some say it has tangential ties to Aristotle, but a cursory, meaningless Internet search for the nature of the great philosopher’s connection to this cursory, meaningless quote turned up little.

The thing that has us a bit puzzled on this one is, it takes some real moxie to climb up and deface a billboard that’s out in the open on Route 40, and has been tagged at least three times before. I’m picturing a middle-aged person, pulling his or her car over to the side of the road, and just going for it – or a young punk reading off a cheat sheet some middle-aged person gave him along with a $20 bill to carry out the misdemeanor.

At any rate, this detail comes to The Dagger from a local journalist, a friend of ours who notes, “The workman who was getting ready to cover up the latest mess told me it was the fourth time he’s replaced the billboard, so the State Farm ad was going to be moved to a higher billboard up in Churchville and a public service announcement put in its place.”

His nameplate removed from the dais, his big black truck no longer parked outside city hall, his 15-foot head no longer greeting travelers from the north, and his Wetlands annexation ally, Sam Smedley, arrested on gun charges, it seems that – for the moment – the only indelible mark Simmons has left on the city from his two years as mayor is the large bell hanging in the council chambers.

Why Billy Will Stay Put

Barry Glassman, after years of biding his time, playing it cool, and largely avoiding major election-year face offs many thought he could have won (the Heltons came awfully close to ousting David Craig last year, after all) looks poised to assume the position of Harford’s Northern Senator. With Hooper set to step down before the end of the year due to failing health, Glassman’s competition for the gubernatorial appointment to replace him looks slim – in the early stages at least.

The real question will be, Who Replaces Barry. It will not be Council President Billy Boniface, who would be nuts to give up his seat in Bel Air. As a friend of The Dagger so eloquently put it, “the chief of seven is better than the freshman minority of a circus of 143.” Former Del. Joanne Parrott, after being booted just last fall, and letting her public image slip a bit beforehand, is less than likely to win the support of the county’s Republican Central Committee. Former council prez Rob Wagner, who we can’t imagine wanting to join the throng on the House floor (and who’s had some image problems of his own), lives outside the Northern district.

As The Dagger hears it, central committee members Teresa Reilly and Chad Shrodes, in his first year as a county councilman, are both considered serious early candidates to replace Glassman. Reilly, in the vein of her husband, Clerk of the Harford County Circuit Court Jim, is a political construct who has served on enough committees, campaigns and fundraisers to be considered for the delegate spot (for more case history on the rise and fall of a political constructe, please see Sheryl Davis-Kohl).

Shrodes is a Democrat turned Republican who might be itching to move on up - especially with whispers former county councilman Lance Miller, the man who formerly occupied his seat - is eager to get back into the game.

God knows we’ll probably hear from Bob Thomas before this one’s over, as he’s so far yet to reject his role on the committee as He Whom No One Wants To Let In Out Of The Rain. In fact, a parade of failed candidates and up and comers will likely ask for the spot.

Perhaps the two fine young Republicans most hoping for an untimely death or well-timed political scandal to escalate their political careers are former county councilman Mike Geppi and current Bel Air Mayor Terry Hanley.

Unfortunately for them, neither lives in Glassman’s Northern District 35A, so any interest in political ascension would have to be to take on Barry for Hooper’s senate seat. Geppi was once the GOP golden boy and was rumored to have formerly boasted of making a run for council presidency, which never materialized. For Hanley to move on up he’d have to take on a former colleague at nearly every step - ‘Cap’n’ Jim McMahan at the county council and Del. Susan McComas in Annapolis, both were former Bel Air Town Commissioners. His try for Hooper’s senate seat would likely just be to garner future name recognition and credibility.

As if that wasn’t enough, it’s likely the entire cast of characters who ran against Shrodes in his bid for the Northern District D seat on the Harford County Council - Charles Burns, Amy Hopkins Daney, Jason Gallion and Doug Howard - are opening exploratory committees. We won’t be holding our breath on this one.

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