Bubba Deal for Bell Motors for Unneeded Garage
Board
Sticking to Plan to Shun Constant Yield to Negate
Obscene Tax Assessments Increases as
Perfect Storm in Economic Disaster Overtakes Nation
This
garage which served as the used car showroom and shop for Bell
Motors for years was recently closed and all the used vehicles moved
to the main showroom in Leonardtown, according to a sign in the
window. Now, in changing the use of the non-conforming use of
the property, which is zoned residential, the shop has been leased
to St. Mary's County for $60,000 per year in an action passed on a
4-1 vote on Tuesday. No opportunity for other property owners
was given in any type of public advertising of the 'need' of the
county for garage space. St. Mary's has a history of leasing
empty space from local businesses and expanding the scope and size
of county government while taking care of pals of the politicians in
Bubba Deals. Such deals have included the leasing of the old
Sparling's Department Store, owned by local bigwigs, for the school
system; the leasing of the Guyther building for years for office
space for the State's Attorney; the old Miedzinski building was home
to the Planning and Zoning Department for years and now this
building is going to house three trailers for the county. Just
wait until the bureaucrats decide the building needs to be
renovated...the best is yet to come. Below are the trailers
that the St. Mary's Commissioners don't want to let stay out in the
rain...like the trailers in the back yards of many local residents.
ST. MARY'S TODAY photos
WALLED CITY FLEECE JOB:
The late Tommy Bell of Bell Motors, was
a frequent critic of wasteful spending and would have been the first
to denounce the action of the St. Mary's Board in renting the
unneeded space at the closed down Bell Motors used car lot in
Leonardtown. Above, Tommy Bell in a familiar pose at a budget
session protesting tax hikes. Tommy Bell had changed to Republican
and held the local, state and national Democrats in low esteem.
ST. MARY'S TODAY photo
By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY’S TODAY
LEONARDTOWN (April 23, 2008) --- It was a double-banger for
Democrats this week at the St. Mary’s Commissioner meeting and
public hearing later in the night, coming just a few days after
local Democrats feasted while they bragged about the ‘greats’ of the
local Democratic Party, but their actions will likely lead to a
Republican sweep of elections in two years.
First, in the morning, the Democrats on the Board, plus Republican
Kenny Dement, who is increasingly acting more like a Democrat and
less like a Republican, approved a Bubba Deal for a local business,
to park some of the expensive tax-paid for equipment that the county
has gained through the Homeland Security boondoggle programs and
then at the public hearing when they paraded through the non-profit
groups who have been coming to the county for money rather than
raise funds themselves.
At the budget public hearing, three citizens appealed to the board
to negate the increases in the tax assessment by the state tax
assessors, which will result in the tripling of many area homeowners
real estate taxes by cutting the tax rate. The process of offsetting
the tax hikes is refereed to as “maintaining the constant yield”.
Mike Hewitt, of Hollywood, told the board that he had examined the
county budgets over the past four years and was disappointed that
they had not allocated the funds correctly with an over-reliance on
$27 million in miscellaneous funds, money coming in from sources all
connected with the now collapsed real estate industry.
Hewitt told ST. MARY’S TODAY on Wednesday that the area’s economic
downturn is the most serious we have experienced in his lifetime and
the commissioners should adjust their spending, eliminate cost of
living increases for senior staff and maintain the constant yield.
But the problem at hand for St. Mary’s County taxpayers is that two
members of the Democrat majority on the board are term-limited and
cannot run again.
Short of having their heads lopped off by angry taxpayers who could
parade around Leonard Hall with the dripping heads stuck on pikes,
which was a popular way to handle arrogant officials in the golden
age of Europe, St. Mary’s County will have to go through two more
budget cycles with Taxing Tommy Mattingly and Dandy Dan Raley,
joined by the colorful environmental turncoat Jackie Russell in
continuing to raise taxes.
Now that the Board, on a 4-1 vote, has decided not to cut costs,
they will be forced to raise taxes or cut employees in the next tow
budget cycles.
What the Board should be doing this year is cutting discretionary
spending to make up for an expected huge shortfall in federal and
state dollars, less income to the county from sources which have
fallen off such as retail sales tax, transfer and recording taxes on
real estate sales which have plummeted and other factors which means
less revenue for the county.
By not making cuts in outrageous spending, such as $125,000 for a
portable stage so the pompous politicians will have an elaborate
built in speaker and light system to showcase every ribbon cutting,
announcement and other pseudo campaign stunt that they can devise,
as Russell tries to run for reelection and Mattingly attempts to
unseat Del. Johnny Wood, the Democrats are simply cementing their
demise.
To top off their glory days, the Democrats came up with one more
Bubba Deal, where good old boy politics is joined with the county
treasury for a deal and a payoff.
The various trailers and gadgets that the county has picked up from
Homeland Security funds, more than $1.8 million worth of gear, much
of it redundant and will likely fall apart before it is ever used,
is stored around the county’s office buildings and garages.
Commissioner Tommy Mattingly’s (D. Leonardtown) son is given a
$24,000 truck to drive home every day at taxpayer expense, with the
truck purchased with Homeland Security tax dollars, with all of the
gas paid for by county taxpayers, in his role as a supervisor at the
911 center.
The people who work at the 911 center were supposed to be in charge
of running the phones, radios and communications but somehow over
the years, someone decided it was good to give them a mobile command
center, which they have, a mobile haz-mat trailer loaded with
supplies, which they have, and trucks to drive around in with
flashing lights, which they have. Of course, while the real first
responders, the police, the rescue squads and the fire departments,
who actually are not bureaucrats with big rear ends and really do
real rescue chores in actual emergencies, have to “coordinate” with
the 911 officials.
Now Mattingly wants to come up with a multi-million dollar building
to house all of the boondoggled equipment landed by the county.
But in the meantime, the county, without any bidding process,
decided to bail out a local company by renting their empty garage.
At Tuesday’s meeting, a surprise Bubba Deal was announced and
approved on a 4-1 vote, with only Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R.
Golden Beach) voting against it, to rent out the closed up Bell
Motors Used Car Building in Leonardtown for storing the Homeland
Security equipment.
The various trailers, buses and trucks are all painted with the same
automotive quality paint that all taxpayers have on their vehicles
and Jarboe asked the bureaucrats if they have considered putting
some of the pre-fabricated truck carports that citizens have over
their RVs, campers and trucks and of course the answer was no. No
one mentioned if it was possible to simply keep a good wax job on
the vehicles.
But the Bubba Deal, which is usually a little more under cover, came
when Bell Motors old used car lot garage was picked up by the county
at $60,000 a year.
Bell Motors, a long time advertiser of this newspaper, like all
other local businesses, has been battered and beat up by the economy
with sales of new and used cars falling off and repairs of customers
delayed.
But the person who would have been first in line to condemn the
wasteful spending of the board for renting a huge garage which is
unneeded and a waste of money would have been the late Tommy Bell.
Bell, is likely turning over in his grave to see his family
participating in a Bubba Deal with the hard-earned money of the
taxpayers being wasted in such a way. Bell was also an advocate for
open bidding and fair treatment of the taxpayers when purchases were
made for legitimate expenses.
Woe to the taxpayers of St. Mary’s County over the next two years as
the last Democrats to hold office as commissioners for the next 20
years spend and spend and spend.
What the Democrats at last week’s gala didn’t say was that most of
the old time Democrats that they honored would never have done what
today’s liberal Democrats on the Board are doing, that most of the
Democrats of old who are still alive have been voting Republican,
donating to the GOP and in some cases, such as former three-term
Sheriff Wayne Pettit, have already changed their registration to
Republican.
Kenny Dement continues to make the wrong decisions and become a
profound disappointment for taxpayers.
The GOP won all five commissioner seats in 1994 and a rerun of that
election is on the horizon, thanks to the Democrats who think that
they can ignore the perfect storm of $4 gas, higher milk and grocery
prices, evaporated home equities, small businesses on the rocks,
more jobs being lost to the plunging real estate market and the
economic hard times rolling through the local government contractor
community like a roller coaster out of control.
The St. Mary’s Commissioners have but one champion of the taxpayers
in their midst; Commissioner Larry Jarboe. It’s the Three Stooges, a
confused Mad Hatter and Larry guiding the good ship St. Mary’s in
this perfect storm and Larry is the only one who understands what it
takes to be a good captain and guide the ship through shoals, high
winds and dangerous rocks. While Larry tries to steer, Kenny checks
to see which way the wind is blowing; the Three Stooges and their
Bubbas are drinking the rum.
A St. Mary's Public Safety vehicle sits in the parking lot of the
911 center. All the years that the old civil defense and
"control center" were located in the old underground command post,
which also served as the Maryland State Police Barracks until the
1980's, the staff of the communications center used their own
vehicles and gas to get to work. Then Phil Cooper was hired
after he retired as a deputy sheriff and being used to having the
taxpayers pay for him to ride in style, he soon insisted on a truck
with lights and sirens to get to the fresh donuts faster, perhaps.
Since that time, the agency now stocks the staffers with two of
these vehicles and the county taxpayers pay for the staffers who are
assigned them, to travel back and forth to work. Maybe, once
in awhile, they get to turn on the lights and sirens. When they get
to work, they sit behind their desks and once in awhile, they get up
and walk around and look at the 911 dispatchers who are doing the
work in answering emergency calls. When an emergency takes
place, the dispatchers radio the police, fire and rescue who
actually handle the emergency where it takes place around the
county. Thus, the question: why have these trucks?
Part of the answer might be that two of the St. Mary's
Commissioners, Raley and Mattingly, have children who work at the
agency. Dangerous Dave Zylak, who was
defeated as Sheriff in 2006, was hired by his fellow Democrat
commissioners and given a raise to run this center with the salary
of $86,000 on top of his retirement pay from the Sheriff's
Department. ST. MARY'S TODAY photo
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Bell Motor Co.
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SEE MOST WANTED BY FBI FOR TERRORISM
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