Pizza, Anyone?

Wrapping paper
Pizza
Citrus Fruit
Pies
Tote bags
Chocolate bars
Cookie dough
Gift cards

It’s school fundraising time. Your school PTA is choosing products and events that they feel will be supported by the school community. Monies raised support programs within the school. We are all used to this. Nothing new here.

Just to belabor the obvious for a moment: we as taxpayers supply much of the money for our schools. And yet we also are asked to provide additional money in yearly fundraisers because somehow the taxpayer funds are not enough. It’s still us. Either way.

Am I missing something? We start with providing monies through taxes which give a certain amount to each school and then we are asked to give money again through fundraisers which then make the financial resources of each school wildly unequal.

Well, yes, it is far more complicated than that. We haven’t begun to talk about what happens in Annapolis. Legislators decide how tax money will be spent and then the Governor may or may not approve their decisions.

You may have heard about the Kirwan Commission and the Maryland Blueprint for our Schools. Essentially, Maryland’s schools are underfunded to the tune of 2.9 billion dollars annually. There are very concrete things we could be doing to support our students in Maryland that aren’t happening. This is not some amorphous “throw more money at the schools” idea. It’s a very well thought out plan with research and data behind it. It is a plan to change the status quo in Maryland Education and open up significant opportunities for students and support teachers, too.

Yes, this is a lot of money. Yes, implementing it will be a challenge. But look at the system we have in place now. We are in a never ending cycle of funding from Annapolis that is never enough, and perpetual fundraisers that make rich schools richer. Which leaves the poorer schools behind. We keep doing the same thing, hoping it will somehow be better this year.

I’d say that’s the funding model that’s unrealistic.

The most recent Goucher poll found that Marylanders support paying more in taxes to improve public education. The word used in Luke Broadwater’s Baltimore Sun article is “overwhelmingly” support. On the other hand, a majority didn’t know anything about the Kirwan Commission. That needs to change.

The folks from Maryland Blueprint are hosting community forums throughout the state to help people learn about the legislation and what it means for our schools. There was one at Patapsco Middle School last week. To find more, click here.

I’m probably buying pies, by the way. How about you?

True North

I learned a few things from yesterday’s blog post. Probably the most telling was that no one who commented said, “Yes, it does seem odd that we are singling out developers and no one else.” Not big news in Howard County: developers appear to have no defenders.

Some years back someone attempted to discredit my opinions by claiming I was married to a wealthy developer. (I’m not.)  But just the suspicion that I might associate with the dreaded developer crowd was enough for some to mock my point of view. That’s some powerful stuff. The demonization of developers in Howard County is widespread.

Some of my readers have personal experiences with particular development projects. I don’t dispute their lived experiences. I am aware of community members who have educated themselves on issues of land use and have put in the time to get involved. I respect that.

It just seems too simplistic to me to blame everything that is wrong in Howard County on developers. It feels as though so many have decided to reorient their entire worlds so that this is the true North of their compass.

When we do that we inevitably push to the side other important issues in Howard County: racism and poverty, for instance. What if we made addressing those issues our true North? How would that affect what we educated ourselves on? How would we choose to spend the hours we have for community advocacy? How would we put in the time?

How would it change the kind of laws we want to have for developers if our first cause was anti-racism and anti-poverty?  It would change what our priorities are, what we value, and what we want to promote.

I am not saying there should be no rules, just as I am not saying that we shouldn’t look at money in political campaigns. But I am saying that changing our focus would change how developers fit into the bigger picture.

And I do think there is a bigger picture. I think we have gotten into such a rut that any problem that comes down the pike is automatically blamed on developers. (When all you have is a hammer...) But what if many of these problems of symptoms of something bigger and we are missing the point by not addressing it?

Is it time to reset the compass?

Big Bucks

An op-ed in the Baltimore Sun has been the topic of local conversation this week. Written by Ellicott City resident Jack Guarneri, its premise is as follows:

Developer donations should be branded as conflict of interest in Howard County

I’m not an expert in campaign finance. I do have questions. How do we decide what entities can and cannot donate? Do we propose sanctioning the acceptance of certain donations, or do we prohibit the act of making the donation by particular entities?

Is it only developers we need to exclude? Anybody else? Will any other businesses have issues come before politicians as they do their jobs as public servants?

Wouldn’t all of them?

Why exclude developers as a group? Why not everybody? Won’t everybody have a particular special interest?

Well, maybe we can allow small individual donations, because 25 dollars over a campaign can hardly be thought to be undue influence. But what happens if we ban all large donations. I mean, a large donation must mean you want something, right? It seems silly to say that only applies to developers.

If you don’t like large donations, then make it so they cannot happen. Don’t paint politicians as shady for accepting them.

Or maybe it’s just the large donations from developers you dislike. You’d just like to draw a big circle around that and ignore everything else.

As I said, I don’t know much about this, but I think it’s a whole lot more complicated than that.

Everyone has their own particular opinion about how campaigns should be financed, whether politicians are influenced by donations, and do on. While we are talking about it I’ll throw in something completely unrelated that’s been only my mind: I think any local politicians who have received donations from Seth Hurwitz should give them back.

What’s your view on campaign donations?

Weekend!

This weekend kicks off with the annual Oakland Mills Fall Festival. The Oakland Mills High School Band starts the festivities at 11 am. Be there! Just don’t talk to me while the band is playing. Better yet, don’t talk at all while the band is playing. Show the high school students some love. You’ll have plenty of time the rest of the day to mix and mingle and chat.

Just my two cents.

A reminder, this a is a free community event, open to all. You don’t have to be from Oakland Milks to attend. Here’s all the information about the day.

From 12 to 5 you can head over to Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods for the Hops and Harvest Festival. Buy tickets here. There’s tons of info about beer, entertainment, and food here if you want to get a feel for what’s in store. Tickets are substantially less expensive for designated drivers, by the way.

I’m hearing rumors that we may actually get some Fall weather this weekend. And not a moment too soon!

I’m ready.

Justification

From my Facebook memories, 2013:

@tomgara: I'd just like to recommend, as a general idea, that maybe America should consider shooting less things.

I don’t remember what was happening six years ago that would give context to that tweet, but I certainly know what’s happening now. In Howard County we have had two recent tragedies involving the use of firearms. Lives lost, other lives forever changed.

The local Republican Club is hosting an event to help people learn when they are legally justified to shoot people.

Join us on Wednesday, October 9th from 6:30 to 8:30  at The Hawthorne Center, 6175 Sunny Spring, Columbia, MD 21044 to learn when you are legally justified to defend yourself or your loved ones under Maryland Law. US Law Shield Independent Program Attorney Terrence Decker will be covering this topic along with the Castle Doctrine, Civil Liability, and how to interact with police after a critical incident. This is a free event for members of the Howard County Republican Club and Howard County Republican Women Club, use the promo code FRIEND when registering at the link below. Seats are limited and will fill up fast so reserve yours today!

It sounds as though they are expecting a line out the door, doesn’t it?

I wonder if they will discuss Gerard Espinosa or Stephen Michael Tucker. Perhaps they’ll discuss how a police officer received a sentence of only ten years for shooting a man in his own living room. It’s hard to say. It seems unlikely that they will discuss how all of these situations would have been different if no one had guns.

I do know that somebody, somewhere, made an assumption that there are either a) no Jewish gun owners or b) no Jewish Republicans. Why?

They’re holding this event on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.

Ready for Anything

It might have been easy to miss, what with all the local controversies and national upheaval, but Howard County has completed a new Emergency Preparedness plan. From the Office of Emergency Management:

The Howard County Office of Emergency Management is proud to present the Howard County Comprehensive Emergency Response and Recovery Plan (CERRP), which was promulgated by Howard County Executive Calvin Ball yesterday, September 26th, 2019.  The CERRP updates and replaces the 2015 Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and incorporates lessons learned from the 2016 and 2018 Ellicott City floods.  

The CERRP encompasses emergency preparedness, response, and recovery tasks, and guides a more seamless transition from response to recovery. The development of the CERRP included all County Departments and various external partners who have a role in emergency response and recovery and reflects a very lengthy process to improve the emergency response capabilities within Howard County. 

The CERRP Base Plan can be viewed on our website here: http://ow.ly/EzoW50wtqD2 

Emergency preparedness is not always at the forefront of my mind but I imagine that, for those in Old Ellicott City, it’s never far from their thoughts. Seeing this announcement was a reminder to me that the work of county government is going on all the time in so many different areas. Preparing for something that may or may not happen - - in fact you really hope it won’t happen - -  takes a special kind of skill.

Of course, you can’t please everyone, and one reader responded with the following:

....but does it include a Zombie Apocalypse response?

While I haven’t contacted the Office of Emergency Management to get their official response, I did do a bit of preliminary research. If the OEM should decide to add Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness to their comprehensive plan, they need look no further than the CDC, which has published their own guidelines. 

Still, some folks may not find this approach comprehensive, but it works for me.

A Girl Who Sang the Blues

This just in: a moment for a musical interlude.

Most people who know me know that my college degree is in music. It’s no surprise that music, in one way or another, has figured in many of my blog posts: music in the County Schools, Music Education as a powerful tool in reaching at risk students, community music events, concerts at Merriweather and beyond, the influence of music in old age.

Since childhood music has been intertwined in every aspect of my life: school, church, my professional life, my leisure pastimes, the self-chosen soundtrack of my car rides, cooking sessions, parties,  hours of writing papers in college and hours of labor in the hospital before our younger daughter was born. One thing you’ll never find in my life or in my blog is any hint that music ought to be combined with violence. 

Yet that’s just what I have been accused of by members of an online group opposed to the Superintendent’s plan for redistricting. This is what I wrote:

I saw so many posts on social media yesterday about the Wilde Lake High School band that I began to imagine what might happen if the musicians (from a school that many of the opposition have smeared) intersected with the protestors. Nothing would have made me happier than a serendipitous confrontation between the anti-redistricting crowd and the Wilde Lake High School Band in which the band prevailed gloriously and the protestors dispersed in confusion.

I thought it would be humorous for the protestors to have to face down a bunch of earnest, fresh-faced high school musicians. The assumption being that they’d come to their senses and go home, embarrassed by their misplaced anger. Music would be the medium to reveal the inherent innocence of the Wilde Lake students about whom they have been incited to disparage and fear.

‘Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield.

I’m a musician. To me, music and love are made of the same stuff, embedded in the creative life force of the universe.  In my world, music always wins.

Instead, my words were twisted by people whose goal is to perpetuate fear and anger. One smoothly likened me to someone who beckons the innocent into ovens, (WTAF?) then suggested:

Even more interesting about this blogger is her hint at promoting violence.

And: 

Perhaps violence was not her suggestion, but I’m not sure what other kind of confrontation she may have sought.

That was enough the start the fiery rolling of trolls through the Internet, claiming that I was promoting violence and should be “exposed.” (Doxxed, if you will.)

Those who drop a lighted match into the dry kindling and walk away know full well what the consequences will be. No matter how  reasonable they may sound, or how carefully they tailor their message from day to day, don’t be fooled. They know what they are doing.

The truth is that on a day of sheer madness I imagined - -  music. If you think that’s sappy you are probably right. But it’s not the least bit surprising to anyone who knows me or reads my blog. 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.