(9/27/07) “How come we don’t have any action in the Park,” said Dandy Dan Raley at the weekly secret backroom meeting of the St. Mary’s Commissioners.  “People are beginning to talk and you know what that means.”

“Yeah, we get to appoint 15 people to a task force and send them out to lunch a bunch of times and this time I want to be invited and I’m bringing my doggie bag,” said Commissioner Dement.

“I’m talking about Robin and why we don’t have anything going in Lexington Park,” said Dan. “We have more street lights burned out than ever, there are no decorations up along the roads at Christmas, our grand government scheme has systematically eliminated virtually all low income housing in Lexington Park and we are doing nothing but shoving the poor people around into a revolving door from one place to another and that damn Rag is starting to nail us for being so stupid, and lots of people agree.”
 “Don’t worry about a thing, Capt. Dan,” said Jack Russell (No Terrier).  “My wife is in my office at this very moment sending me text messages of what to say, just like she does at all the commissioner’s meeting, having these dang Blackberries is a lot better than trying to write all this Governmint stuff on my hand, I tried once and my notes ran right up my arm, across my chest and down to my other elbow.  It looked like I was scratching myself every time I wanted to check my notes.”

“Danny, we have Leonardtown making us look sick,” said Tommy Mattingly.  “In Leonardtown they have new businesses going up left and right, a new town hall, a huge new bank, another shopping center and Best Western, a new town waterfront development, new restaurants opening every month, more private investment than you can shake a stick at and what do we have in Lexington Park where we commissioners allowed Hambone to talk us into “urban renewal”. We don’t have a daggone thing in the Lexington Park development district.  Putting the new library across from the worst slum in town was really dumb, we have the crazy bums sleeping in the woods next to the library and having the firehouse next door is no help, heck Bay District is lucky to have some of the old guys around to run fires, they aren’t much to make the library safer.”

“I thought Robin Finnacom was the guru of modern government marvels,” said Commissioner Moonbeam Jarboe. “She was going to wrap up a developer into a model of public private partnership and twelve other buzz phrases of techno-speak eco-develop lingo.”

“Say what,” said Kenny.

“He said she was supposed to be a miracle worker,” said Dandy Dan,” but the only miracles she has performed is moving tax money into her paycheck.”

“How come Leonardtown has a 3-story motel with retail on the first floor replacing the old crack house motel and we can’t do anything but tear things down in Lexington Park?” said Mattingly.  “We tore down the old Lexington Park hotel and the whole block of retail stores.  We tore down a couple hundred cheap rent homes, we closed the library and rented out the fine brick building for a buck a year.  We didn’t even put it out on bid but the people of this county are so dumb no one ever held us to task for breaking the law.”

“Hey, be careful, that could still happen, but I had nothing to do with that, you boys pulled that one without me onboard,” said Jack Russell (No Terrier).

 “It was Hambone’s fault, it was all his idea,” said Mattingly.

“I see no reason to mince words here, after all this is a secret meeting and no one will find out what we are talking about back here in this secret meeting, “ said Dandy Dan. “As long as Larry keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t tell the Rag, we can talk about anything back here, after all, this is litigation, we can be sued for anything we say or do, so what’s wrong with talking about anything?”

“Dan, you know better than that and besides, I don’t have to tell the Rag nothing, they have this place bugged and have had it bugged for years, this whole meeting is likely going to be in the paper so I need to think up something bright to say so I look good,” said Larry.

“Well no one expects anything bright from me,” said Kenny, “I am no rocket scientist, I just told people to vote for me and I would listen to them, I never claimed I would understand anything. That works for me, I vote right a few times and there is no way I would ever vote for another tax hike after that damn 911 tax, but I listen to a few smart people and I vote right and people like me.  It helped to run against a stone communist and a woman with a squeaky voice.”

“Do you think we can hire those Leonardtown people to come down and show the Lexington Park crew how to rebuild an old worn out commercial area?” asked Dan.

“Why not just drop our option and let the owner sell to someone who knows what they are doing, like Rachelle Millison,” said Mattingly. “We have played developer and we have one side of town that has renovated buildings, retail space that stays full, nicely kept landscaped properties, new office buildings and attractive sidewalks and lighting.  Where we built the new street lights, they don’t work, we put in a new sidewalk in front of Lindas and no one from the county bothered to put in any trash containers, the weeds are back to growing through the cracks in the sidewalks and the word I have is that its going to be another two years for anything to be done.  The firehouse area looks like hell and we have bums bothering people at the Methodist Church. Its so bad even the soup kitchen moved.”

“How long did it take to build the Pentagon, the world’s largest building,” asked Kenny.

“Just two years, but don’t bring that up now, Kenny, it just makes what we have done look that much more stupid,” cautioned Commissioner Moonbeam.

“I’ve got it, lets turn the whole block into a ball field, I could have teams playing there every day, it would bring a crowd,” said Kenny.  “We could let Robin sell hot dogs to the crowd to make money.”

“Hey, we deserve some credit for Lexington Park, we have the Toyota dealer abandoning Great Mills Road to move up to Rt. 235, that’s good, isn’t it,” said Kenny.  

“NO, it just gives us another empty building along Great Mills Road,” said Danny.  “How much have we spent on options and this Lexington Park Development Corp.?”

“Shhhh.” Said Mattingly, “I’ll write it down, Larry is right, the Rag has this room bugged but I don’t think there is a camera in here.”