The Town Hall Alliance slate of Larry Jarboe, left, Rich Johnson, Danny Morris, Jarboe and Randy Guy and at right, Mike Hewitt, expected to file for president of the St. Mary's board, this time as a Republican, after losing in 2006 as a Democrat. 
ST. MARY'S TODAY photos

By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY’S TODAY

LEONARDTOWN — This is the way we have always done it.
The big money boys gather for breakfast, set up a time for a cocktail party and then after the spunky ones in the crowd decide it’s time for them to become anointed, line up lots of support from others in their contingent of base honchos, defense contractors, local business owners, a few bigwigs at the college, the long ago-defeated state senator, the former delegate, the smattering of local lawyers who either aren’t in jail, or not yet in jail, some insurance guys, a couple of realtors and bankers and heck, it’s time to play election year politics in St. Marys County!
Yee-haw!
Over the years, there used to be about five factions of the above politicos in the Democratic Party and everything got decided right there. There used to a 4-1 registration advantage for the Democrats and once in a while things didn’t work out too good with one group so the late Paul Bailey would get elected even though he was a Republican. It worked out for Sen. Bailey four times, in 1946, 1950, again in 1966 and in 1970.
Bailey got slot machines legalized in 1947 and in 1974 got a bill passed to allow a referendum on a proposed oil refinery at Piney Point and then led the fight against it.
If Sen. Bailey did anything else in those 16 years in the Maryland Senate, no one can likely recall it since Walter Dorsey died last December and took much of the political memory of the county with him to the grave.
All of the new people in the county who came with the Navy to the base and those who followed in the years afterwards as the base caused the county’s population to explode from around 23,000 to 100,000 today, have had a bumpy relationship with local politics, with most of the time, not having too much of an impact, leaving the good old boys to fight among themselves for power, money and … power.
This year marks the first local election since 1962 when a slate of candidates has formed to elect a Board of Commissioners.
The Town Hall Alliance, formed to give Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R. Golden Beach), a team to vote with him on holding the line on taxes and concentrating the resources of the taxpayers on providing for good schools, good roads and adequate public safety instead of endless wasteful and extraneous ways to blow tax money.
Jarboe’s slate is universally hated by the Country Club Republicans, the liberal Democrats, and the moneyed interests of developers and power players in local politics.
Jackie Russell (D. St. George Island), a conniving and scheming tool of the developers who was very creative in fooling the environmentalists and local tree-huggers into supporting him in the last election when he beat Mike Hewitt in the Democratic Primary, has filed to run for another term as commissioner president.
Russell has a good hustle with his skipjack, which he turned into a non-profit foundation, appointed a board of directors and then had him and his wife hired to work. Russell got the “foundation” to rent his boat, rent his oyster house and rent his dock to tie up the boat and pay him to do maintenance on his own boat.
Wow, perhaps someone can form a foundation for their farm and get paid to cut their own hay!
Russell’s main achievement since becoming commissioner has been to dole out favorable zoning and sewer decisions to developers and to raise taxes by failing to maintain the constant yield, thus directing property taxes to soar.
Mike Hewitt, now sees Russell as a lame duck, mortally wounded politically by his own stupid decisions.
In order to put on a successful campaign this year, Hewitt has used his bountiful funds to hire consultants to tell him what to do.
In 2006, Hewitt depended upon spending lots of money to win the post as Commissioner. It didn’t pay off then in the Democratic Primary, and now Hewitt clearly doesn’t like that the Town Hall Alliance has the possibility to block him in the 2010 Republican primary election.
If you have never been invited to the cocktail parties of the local landed gentry or participated in their $500 per person fundraisers, there is a reason for that. They don’t really like you unless you have big money to throw around.
In 1974 the county enacted a zoning plan, which was really an endowment fund for crooked politicians, political power brokers, certain developers and full employment plan for a few well-connected engineers and land planners, as well as several key lawyers and realtors.
State law calls for a periodic revision of the zoning maps and the designation given every parcel of land. This revision, which is currently being completed by the out-going board of commissioners, has enabled them to slip in extreme zoning changes at the last minute, without public review or comment.
Worse yet, the pathological liars on the board, most notably Tommy Mattingly (D. Leonardtown) and Russell, have repeatedly proclaimed that there has been public review and comment on the massive changes to TMX in Charlotte Hall and the designation of the industrial zoning on 620 acres in Hillville.
Most residents of St. Mary’s didn’t even know that there was a bump in the road known as “Hillville”, which consists mainly of an old crossroads designation between Hollywood and Oakville, which are themselves barely a blip on the radar of civilization.
After a huge public outcry about plopping down industrial zoning on land owned by two developer-construction company owners, the Board last week said forget it. Paul Facchina and Bubby Knott, who own the former site of a munitions plant, pulled back their proposed deal and had an employee try to explain what a deal the public was missing out on.
The sanctimonious Board, with the exception of Jarboe, all pontificated as if they were messengers of God himself, endowed with infinite wisdom and due to scandalous lies being spread by tabloids and rabble rousers, the public was really going to miss out.
Mattingly spoke of having visited a power plant in Brandywine, on another one of his self-appointed missions to created back room deals, and he found nothing wrong with it.
But, as usual, Mattingly missed the point.
The outcry wasn’t about the opposition by the public to a possible power plant, as everyone needs power, it was the sneaky way that Mattingly and his fellow four-flushing bozo commissioners cut the public out of the decision making process by not having an opportunity to review the ramifications of changing the zoning on the large parcel of land, now in a rural district.
Mattingly, Raley and Russell are simply egotistical elitists while Dement is just stupid.
In any event, the process by which they have been elected is exactly the problem, and folks like Tommy “Hambone” McKay, Brandon Hayden, Mike Hewitt, Art Sheppard and Todd Morgan would like to emulate the process of backroom-selection of candidates.
These folks don’t like Jarboe’s slate, for one good reason.
Jarboe’s slate of running mates is out in the open, has an announced agenda, and they put their campaign platform in writing and set up a website which explains it black and white.
This open process is a prelude to bringing open government to St. Mary’s County, where the public has a say. The commissioners are elected to carry out public policy and have an obligation to do so, but they also have an obligation to conduct business in the open.
Commissioner Dan Raley (D. Great Mills) and Mattingly have devised all kinds of ways to avoid public meetings.
One of their favorites is to have just one or two commissioners meet on a Thursday with a department head or another official and report back to the rest of the board by phone or email. Decisions made on public business in such a fashion is a direct violation of the open meetings law.
But Raley, Russell and Mattingly have decided that, just like Obama and the clowns in Washington, that they know what is best for all of us.
Now, in Charlotte Hall, Commissioners Raley, Mattingly and Dement have voted to allow an increase in the intensity of the zoning on land owned by developer Sonny Burch. This will allow a huge amount of new homes and stores on Golden Beach Road, which is already overloaded.
Commissioner Jarboe (R. Golden Beach) asked the Board to hold a special public hearing at the Northern Community Center but they refused to hold a vote on whether or not to let the public be a part of this decision.
Has there been an outcry from Tommy McKay, Brandon Hayden, Mike Hewitt, Todd Morgan or Art Sheppard? No.
These potential candidates would have made the same decision and they also are not big fans of the any public participation in the process of government. They are all elitists and part of the same social and political groups that have been playing monopoly with St. Mary’s County for decades.
The last-minute sneaky deal for increased zoning density is the same kind of sneaky and fishy deal which was made for the Hayden Farm purchase. Note that Brandon Hayden, who sits on the Planning Commission, is part of the Hayden Farm family owners which were paid twice the value of the property by the Board of Commissioners. Perhaps Brandon Hayden is now coming to get the rest of the county treasury.
Mike Hewitt was crying at the Republican Club meeting last week that he doesn’t like the Town Hall Alliance. He is prepared to spend over $100,000 on this election campaign and he wants to know that his money will be well spent, not like in 2006 when he, as a Democrat, lost the primary to Jackie Russell.
St. Mary’s County voters showed in 2006 that when a candidate decides to blow a half million bucks on a campaign the way McKay did, that the candidate can learn an expensive lesson. McKay got beat by Sen. Roy Dyson by a 2-1 margin.
Jarboe’s slate of candidates may not be real polished, or have decades of experience sitting on county boards and agencies, may not be part of the hob-knobbing set of social elitists or attend parties at the estates of the large developers.
In fact, Jarboe, Johnson, Morris and Guy all work for a living and live a modest lifestyle, worry about the cost and size of government and recognize the impact of ever-increasing taxes on every family.
Unlike Hewitt, who gets a new Jaguar every year, they all four also drive pickup trucks, not just during election years.
There should be no surprise that Hewitt, McKay and their country club Republican pals don’t like the Town Hall Alliance. Time will tell if the public likes them.