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A Monday Morning Tell-All


 Three things.

1. Congratulations to local journalist Ethan Ehrenhaft for winning the MDCC Rookieof the Year Award. 

Ethan Ehrenhaft wins the MDDC Rookie of the Year 2022 prize for new journalists for his sharp, clean writing across a variety of disciplines, from breaking news to election coverage to community features and obituaries.  He has become an “indispensable” member of the team covering the Howard County community.

Of course he is indispensable. He writes the entire paper these days, and we are lucky to have him. Make sure to paste his photograph in your local journalism scrapbook before he gets away.

2. A warm welcome back to the written page goes out to Jenny Solpietro of Howard County Progress Report. I’m a little late on this, but, I highly recommend her come-back post:

Moms for the First Amendment , Jenny Solpietro, Howard County Progress Report

3. The most recent write-up of the CA Board’s activities by Michael Golibersuch on The Merriweather Post made me laugh. I probably shouldn’t, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.

Columbia Association Board of Directors Unable to Agree on a Single Chair, Michael Golibersuch for The Merriweather Post

Here we are, concerned about whether the heretofore dysfunctional CA Board can make any progress whatsoever, and they can’t even agree on a dang chair at the first meeting. The image of Eric Greenberg and Andy Stack circling the last chair in a game of Musical Chairs came quickly to my imagination.

Several completely non-serious solutions come to mind here. In the case of an impasse the winner should be decided through:

  • Feats of strength (perhaps arm wrestling?)
  • A written test 
  • A spelling bee
  • An epic quest
  • A coin toss
Then something else came to mind. The only reason we have this predicament is that we have an even number of villages. This will never do! We must either add one new village or vote one off the island. That will solve all problems rooted in inconvenient tie votes. 

So - - any suggestions for a new village? Or is any one village so large that it could be reasonably divided in two? I heard long ago that Emerson had wanted to be a Columbia Village but was rejected. If the powers that be had realized how troublesome tie votes could be, they might have let them in.

On the other hand, if it became necessary to boot one out…if it were a matter of last-hired, first-fired…that would take out River Hill. (And Mr. Greenberg as well, now that I think of it.) Then there is the troublesome matter of that Village that can’t decide if it’s Columbia or Ellicott City. Hmm…

It’s not at all nice to consider breaking up the family. Please rest assured that this line of thinking is purely for a bit of comic relief. After all, the members of the CA Board are adults who are there to serve the community. They should be able to work together, collaborate, and engage in the necessary compromises that come with the job.

Perhaps Mr. Greenberg can be chair on the even days and Mr. Stack on the odd days. Then they can do and undo each other’s work from meeting to meeting all year long.

And the long-suffering Mr. Golibersuch will tell us all about it at The Merriweather Post. Perhaps it will merit a journalistic mention from Mr. Ehrenhaft in the Columbia Flier, too.

The CA Board: truly committed to doing the work of Sisyphus.

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