Delegate Smigiel’s Official Blog Moves to New Address on the Web

I created a blog to share information directly with 36th district constituents late in 2008. Readership grew rapidly as I became aware of the value this new medium provides for communicating directly with citizens. Thus I am moving the weblog to its own address on the World Wide Web and I have done a complete redesign of the site. Using a friendlier magazine format, it is designed to help anyone trying to stay informed about matters in Maryland. My hope is that this improved product will provide you with better, easier to find content and help you find the information you need. I will expand upon this magazine theme in the months ahead, adding more features to help with open exchanges. Feel free to communicate with me by posting your thoughts. I read every one of your posts.

Click here to go to my new blog.

Please add this new site to your visits and check in at the new address often as all posts will now be done at www.delegatemike.com I will continue to maintain the first WordPress address in order to archive the original posts and comments.

The Governor’s, Taxpayer Web Site Hides Public’s Concerns From Public View.

Governor O’Malley is requesting that the citizens of Maryland go to his state web site and give the Governor suggestions on how to address Maryland’s current fiscal crises. 

When I first heard about this, I thought, What a great idea! Unfortunately, like most things in government, the devil is in the details.

To my surprise, I could not read what people were writing to suggest that the governor do about our fiscal crises because the web site does not allow citizens to view what other citizens have had to say to the State’s highest elected official.  So much for the claims of transparency in government.

It is not hard to allow the public to view and participate in an online conversation.  Just look at the end of this blog, there is a comment location where you click to leave a comment or to view the comments others have left and to perhaps respond to the comments of others, if you so choose. It costs nothing for me to do this and is easy enough to learn how to do.

Instead of sending a signal that the O’Malley administration is open to hearing from the citizens of Maryland how they would like to see our fiscal situation corrected, the governor has sent out a message that he does not want the public to know what people really think of his fiscal policies.

I fully expect that we will soon hear that those contacting the governor are telling him to raise fees, tolls and taxes, yet we will never be able to see those suggestions or to comment on them ourselves.

Likewise, we will not be able to read the many good suggestions to save money by cutting truly wasteful programs.

You can visit the governor’s website by clicking here.

Since you can not share your suggestions or comments with the rest of the world at that site, I ask that you please copy and paste your comments to the governors site, also at my comment section below.  This way everyone can see what others have had to say to the governor about taxes and government spending in Maryland.

For those who need a few ideas on what message you can leave the governor I have suggested a few below.

1. Stop saying everything is ok because we have a triple A bond rating.  All that is needed to get a Triple A bond rating is a willingness to raise any tax, on any one, at any time.

2. Write to each of the millionaire’s you chased out of Maryland with the millionaire’s tax and tell them, it was just a joke. Tell them we would like for them to come back, start a business and hire some employees.

3. Eliminate the newly formed department of technology and transfer the duties back to the departments that have handled them previously.

4. Reject Marx and Engels and embrace John Locke and Adam Smith. In fact, why don’t you buy copies of “The Wealth of Nations” and require your staff and Agency heads to read it.

5. Stop saying you have reduced the size of government when you have added just as many new jobs as you have eliminated.

I have many other suggestions but will hold back so that those sending suggestions to the governor can leave copys of their suggestions in our comment section below.  Let the governor and or I know what you think the elected officials in Maryland should do to reduce the size of government and lessen the tax burden or if you prefer tell us why we should continue down the road to socialism and bankruptcy. (I know I slanted that a little but its my blog I get to be opinionated some times)

Cecil Courthouse Garden

Standing outside my office one beautiful summer’s day last week, I watched as they began digging up the new garden outside the Elkton Courthouse. As I wondered what the end product would look like, a woman approached me. Turns out she is one of the folks who got the project going, Ms. Julia Hodge.

 

Ms. Hodge began telling me about the process that she and her team had gone through to get the money and the various approvals to see the project come to life. She is currently a bit frustrated because people are under the (erroneous) impression that the garden is funded with taxpayer dollars.

 

According to Ms. Hodge and an article in the NY Times last year (here), the garden is ENTIRELY funded through private contributions and not public dollars. An organization called TKF Foundation (here) funded most of the project. TKF, according to their website, is “…a private grant-making foundation whose purpose is to create ‘Open Spaces, Sacred Places’. It partners with organizations to create sacred places which increase a sense of community and contribute to a deepening of human connections.”

What TKF didn’t fund, Julia Hodge’s team is making up for in local contributions and in-kind donations.

 

The project is also an opportunity for some middle ground between jail time and getting off scot-free for some kids.  The garden gives judges an option to have children with legal issues work in the garden when they can’t send them to jail but don’t want them to just go home as if they’d done nothing wrong. The really cool thing is that the garden is meant to be a place of meditation and here is a chance for some problem kids to give to the community and contemplate their options if they continue down the same path that brought them to the court system.

 

So, the next time you drive past our courthouse, please stop in and enjoy the new garden. It serves as a fine example of private initiative for a public purpose.

The Maryland League of Conservation Voters “Scorecard” Gets An “F” On Its Rating System.

The Maryland League of Conservation Voters has lost all credibility since allowing its “scorecard” to become nothing more than a partisan tool meant to make Democrats look good and Republicans look bad. Now, before you decide this is just the rhetoric of a Republican upset with the lower ratings Republicans get, read the reasons for my having come to that conclusion.

Each year various organizations publicize a rating for all the legislators based on votes they had taken the previous session. In an effort to inform the public about the voting record of legislators on the topic of the environment the Maryland League Of Conservation Voters publishes its own “scorecard”. Ostensibly, the score a legislator is given should somehow be related to whether the legislator made a good or bad vote on bills which effect the environment.

For the purposes of this blog I am not going to address the “scorecard” votes that should not be counted because they are arguably conflicts of interest for the League of Conservation Voters to be scoring legislators on, such as those bills that are meant to direct money to the League of Conservation voters, directly or indirectly, so that the League can then spend money in support of those legislators who voted to direct taxpayer dollars to their agency. Those conflicts will be discussed in a later blog.

This blog will instead examine the bills used by the Maryland League of Conservation Voters to establish the “scorecard” rating for State Legislators. Unfortunately, there is no effort to try to limit the bills being “scored”, to environmental issues.

For instance, three years ago, in the 2005 – 2006 “scorecard” the League rated legislators on whether they were good or bad environmentalist based on how they voted on the “early voting bill” (SB-478) and a second score was given on whether the legislators voted to over ride the Governor’s veto on the “early voting bill”.  At that time, I had voted correctly, according to the league of conservation voters, on 5 of 7 votes being rated upon. I had a 60 % rating lifetime and was receiving a 71 % for the year. The League wrote the following about that, so called, ”environmental bill”: “SB 478 allows for limited early voting. Under this bill, registered voters will be able to vote in designated early voting centers prior to the election. This bill was vetoed by the governor.”

There was no requirement that the early voting take place in a wetland or in the critical areas, so I have no idea what early voting has to do with the environment or more importantly what early voting has to do with the predisposition of elected officials towards the environment. At the time I asked for anyone at the League of Conservation Voters to answer my questions as to what early voting possibly had to do with the environment. No one has ever gotten back to me with an answer. Why has no one ever tried to explain why votes on early voting were being counted on the environmental “scorecard” as pro environment votes? Simply because such action is indefensible.

I can only conclude that it is no accident that these two votes, which have nothing to do with the environment, were rated as pro environmental votes to make sure Republicans got at least two more bad votes on the environment than their Democratic counterparts. You don’t have to take my word on this, you can click onto the website, www.mdlcv.com and check the archive “scorecard” from 2005/2006.

This year, the scoring system failure was not as blatant as scoring legislators on bills that clearly have no relation to the environment. Instead, the approach is just a little more subtle, in how certain votes are scored by the League of Conservation Voters so as to help Democrats and hurt Republicans. I don’t know whether this is a new or old policy, and it really doesn’t matter because the effects are just as discriminatory.

While this year all the bills upon which legislators are being scored, at least deal with the environment, the League of Conservation Voters does something inexplicable that usually will help Democrats and hurt Republicans. The League of Conservation Voters is only counting the first vote on bills and not the later vote on the same bill, after amendments, which is passed and then sent to the governor for his signature, where it then becomes law. It would seem if your intent is tell the public where a legislator is on the environment it would be better to tell them where he or she ended up and not where they started out. It is much more likely that Democrats would vote for a bill that is full of what Republicans may consider to be excessive regulations or taxes when it is first introduced. It is usually after a public hearing and an opportunity to amend bills in committee and on the floor that Republicans would come on board and find that the bill, having gone through compromise, is now acceptable.

It would seem a more appropriate measure of the environmental inclination of legislators to count the vote they take when the bill is in its final form. Otherwise you end up with situations that are similar to that which I am in this Session. I missed three of the six votes with an excused absence because I had was in the hospital, thus, the League only counts three of the six bills I voted on. HB-295, which I voted “no” on March 28, 2009 was counted against me but I actually voted for the bill after it was amended and it later became law after I voted for it on April 8, 2009.

Despite myself and many other Republicans voting for the “scorecard” bill which passes the house and is signed into law, we are still recorded on the League of Conservation Voters “scorecard” as having voted against the bill. Two of the six votes appearing on the League’s “scorecard” are votes, which I voted “yes” on, and were bills that passed and became law. In addition to HB-295, there was HB-1569 which I received an excused from voting on because of illness on March 28, 2009. On April 10, 2009 the bill came back before the House and I voted for the bill, which passed the House and was eventually signed into law.

So, to recap, 6 bills on the scorecard, 2 of those bills, HB-315 and HB-1305, I receive an “E” on, which means excused absence and they are not counted for or against the legislator. Two bad bills I did vote against, HB-176 and SB-666. The last two bills, I voted for and they were signed into law. So out of the four votes that I was being graded on I voted for half of them. Two out of four would normally be a 50% rating, for some inexplicable reason, I asked and have not received an answer, the league of conservation voters ends up giving me a 0%.

Even after receiving the 0% this session I still have the 2nd highest lifetime score amongst Republicans on the eastern shore, the 6th highest lifetime vote amongst Republicans in the House of Delegates and the 7th highest lifetime score in the entire legislature amongst Republicans.

The problem is I do believe in a clean environment and believe we can work with homeowners, farmers, and business to achieve significant progress towards the goal of a cleaner, healthier environment. I also want to believe that organizations like the Maryland League of Conservation Voters are truly motivated by the same goal and that they can put partisanship aside in pursuit of that goal.

Readers of this Blog will know that when the Town of Elkton refused to do anything about the homeless individuals who had moved in under the Walter Baker Bridge on route 213 in downtown Elkton, I posted pictures of the pollution of the river the town was allowing to occur and I contacted the State of Maryland Authorities and eventually we were able, to have the area cleaned up and posted. You can see the photos by clicking on the “under the bridge” story.

Last year after a headline appeared in the local paper saying that the Bohemia river had been rated one of the most polluted in America, I said, “not on my watch” and set up a meeting at my local district office to address the matter. Representatives from DNR, MDE, various river watcher associations, citizens groups and I came up with a plan to attack the problem. The citizens followed through and last month we had the first meeting of the Bohemia River Association where over 60 people attended. Nowhere in the League of Conservation Voters “scorecard” will that effort or commitment show up. That is why it is important that care be taken by those organizations doing ”scoring” that they score legislators in such a way that they actually inform the public about the legislators true vote on bills important to the environment and that they not score legislators on bills that have nothing to do with what their organizations stand for, such as an environmental group that rates legislators on whether they vote to change the state voting laws and then double the injury by counting the same bill a second time when it comes to over riding the governor’s veto of the early voting bill.

The Maryland League of Conservation Voters are not the only group scoring legislators, the Maryland State Teacher’s Association (Soon to be renamed the Maryland State Education Association) also publish legislative scores, as do a variety of business and other special interest groups. I invite my readers to share with us any problems they see with the rating system used by any other group or organization.

From Delmarva Dealings: Don’t File an Ethics Complaint in Cecil County

From Delmarva Dealings —–

Here in Wicomico County, we’ve seen our share of frivolous ethics complaints lately.  That said, they are part of the price you pay in an attempt to receive good local government.  It appears that the people who govern Cecil County aren’t too interested in that.  Perhaps that is why they attempt to intimidate those who file ethics complaints.

Del. Mike Smigiel notes Cecil County now has a provision in their ethics complaint process which prohibits complainants from discussing the matter with ANYONE.  If they do, they are subject to a $5,000 fine and up to a year in jail.

In reality, this is much ado about nothing.  State law prohibits the county from doing this.  Therefore, its unenforceable.  However, how many people filing ethics complaints are lawyers and / or know that.  Since the “Penalties” are clearly stated on the complaint form, how many people have been intimidated from filing a complaint – frivolous or no?

This sounds like something out of the Barrie Comegys school of governance.

Click here to go to the article

Cecil County Ethics Board Accused of Unethical Intimidation Of Those Filing Ethics Complaints.

Every once in a while a constituent  brings a matter to my attention that I can’t  really believe. Such was the case when Ms. Billye Jo Jackson brought to my attention her concern that the Cecil County Ethics Board had added new language to the decision one receives after having filed an ethics complaint which places a previously unknown requirement on  a citizen who files an ethics complaint about an elected official. 

This blog is not about who she was complaining about or what she had to say about them.  This blog is about the process a citizen of Cecil County is now being asked to subject themselves to in order to file a formal complaint about an elected official’s alleged unethical behavior.

The County recently added a section to the decision letter a citizen receives after a complaintant has filed an ethics complaint. The new language notifys the complaining party that they are prohibited from telling anyone else about the ethics complaint they had filed. The penalty for telling someone you filed an ethics complaint can be up to a year in jail and $5,000 fine.   The basis for the information being put on the form is Cecil County Code Section 166-6C.

The State Attorney General’s Office back in 1981 addressed the question and opined that commissioner counties have the implied authority to enforce local laws or ordinances adopted as required by State Ethics law and further stated that a commissioner county would need express authority to define violations of the public ethics provisions as crimes or to impose fines, penalties or forfeitures for the violations of those ethics provisions.   

The reason local governments can not control the placement of  political signs even when there are sign restrictions in place is because political signs are considered “political speech”.  Political Speech has been declared by the  courts to be the highest form of free speech. 

Citizens have a right to complain that they believe the activities of  local elected officials to be unethical conflicts of interest or that the public official is unethical because they don’t pay their JC Penny Credit Card bills, because they have been accused of abusing their spouses, or discovered is some other unethical or illegal behavior.  A citizen can stand on the Court House Steps and yell all day long and as long as they are not violating some other law, the speech is protected for the most part. There may not be protection if the public official can show the citizen knew the matter not to be true and made the statements in public with that knowledge. It would be argued in such a case that the citizen was malicious in spreading untruths about the public official.  

The public policy in having an ethics board, is to encourage citizens to come forward and report perceived conflicts of interest or unethical behavoir of government officials.  Threatening citizens with the possibility of jail and a large fine for coming forward and later telling someone about their having filed a complaint  is certainly counter productive to the public policy goal of encouraging  the public to participate in such public discourse. 

The Attorney General’s office was asked to review this Cecil County policy and issued a letter stating they agreed that Cecil County can not enforce a criminal sanction against someone who violates this Cecil County Code Provision.  

In light of this, the Cecil County Commissioners should contact everyone who received information telling them they could face potential fines and penalties as a result of their having reported what they perceived to be unethical behavior by a public official and tell them that information on the decision letter was incorrect.  The County should also remove this information from all future communications to the public.

Why Speed Cameras Are All About Raising Money And Not About Public Safety.

Speed camera acceptance is sold under the guise of Public Safety, yet, this is a fiction. The argument is that if the cameras are placed in strategic areas such as school zones and construction sites then the issuing of tickets by a State machine to a privately owned machine will some how change driver speeding behaviorand thus reduce accidents. No empirical evidence is presented to show this theory works. In fact, the state already has increased fines and penalties for speeding in school zones and construction sites. If fines were effective in changing behavior there would be no need for the addition of speed cameras.

 At least, under the current system the fines and the penalties attach to the person driving the car. Under the new system there is no incentive to change behavior for the driver unless they also own the car. Even when the driver is also the owner of the car there is lessincentive to comply because there is no criminal penalty attached with the speed camera citation, no points assessed by the MVA.

 The reason there is no criminal penalty is because our Constitution requires the state to allow a criminal defendant the ability to confront their accuser. This would require that someone would have to show up in court and prove that the speed camera was operating correctly. Instead of arguing about having to comply with Constitutional principles such as Due Process, the State has created a new legal fiction whereby, the State’s machines (speed cameras) can determine if your privately owned machine (your car) is violating a State law and regulation.

 This is where the Governments argument fails. They are doing little to change the behavior of the person responsible for the infraction, the driver, is not the one to whom the penalty is directed. With speed cameras it is the car (not the driver) which is ticketed. The actualowner of the car, whether they are a parent, friend, employer, or a corporation, receives the ticket and the actual driver receives no penalty.

 No matter who is driving, the penalty is given after the event has occurred and does nothing to prevent the occurrence. Speed bumps would actually reduce speed and thus actually protect the individuals whom the State claims it wishes to protect.

 Further proof that speed cameras are about revenue generation and not about safety, fi found in the fact that the legislature rejected an Amendment to the speed camera bill that would havelimited the operation of the cameras to times when construction work or school activities were actually taking place, the Amendment was rejected because the State wants the revenue.

 Now is the time that we, the citizens of Cecil County, must let the County Commissioners know of our opposition to speed cameras. We need to tell them we know that these devices are much more about revenue enhancement than they are about safety. The County Commissioners must realize that the citizens of Cecil County view speed cameras as another infringement upon our personal liberties, thus, while we can’t always stop what happens at the federal level, in Washington D.C. with the deterioration of our liberties we certainly can and will hold our locally elected officials accountable.

 Enough is Enough! While our elected officials can break their promise about raising our taxes and tell us there was nothing to do because “services” to the public took precedent over keeping their promises, in the case of speed cameras the trade off of individual freedom is not acceptable. The one thing we know for sure is once the camera’s are allowed is the area they are allowed in will expand, the speed of the areas they are allowed in will grow beyond the 25 mph areas currently planned and the fines given will increase. If there is a traffic flow problem in front of schools or construction sites there are other ways to address the concerns other than speed cameras, the county can use speed bumps or place officers in the area so there is an immediate notice to the person driving, and responsible for the violation, that they have violated the law.  Currently, if your daughter drives to school and speeds through the speed zone every day for a week, neither you or she would know it until the first of the five or six tickets started arriving in the mail 7 to 10 days later. If the officer was there the behavoir would immediately be corrected and not allowed to continue for a week.

 To protect against any future group of the County Commissioners deciding to place speed cameras in Cecil County we are going to collect signatures to give to the commissioners to let them know the citizens are not willing to so readily give up their rights.

Call your commissioners and sign the petitions if you see them to tell our locally elected officials we do not need nor do we want speed cameras in Cecil County.

CC SPCA Director Deeming Launches Character Assasination Campaign Against State’s Attorney.

The Executive Director of the CC SPCA, Ms. Jeanne Deeming wrote a June 2, 2009 letter to the Maryland Department of Agriculture’s, Maryland State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, Executive Director, Laura C. Downes regarding the agencies investigation into the allegations against the CC SPCA veterinarian Dr. McDermott. Ms. Deeming attached several pages to her letter, which amount to little more than a collection of irrelevant, mistatements and attempts at character assasination.

You need not read any further than the second attached page to the June 2, 2009 letter of Mrs Deeming, Director of the CC SPCA to see just why the citizen, volunteers and employees are afraid to try to report or get involved in any matter involving the CC SPCA because of the resulting charachter assassinations that take place. In what appears to be some sort of press release attached to the letter the first page mistates and selectively reports on the Jonathan Newell, June 1, 2009 letter. On the second page, Ms. Deeming addresses the findings of Mr. Newell which find fault with the manner in which the CC SPCA is operating. In doing so she ends her argument in her defense with the totally irrelevant attempt to now smear the reputation and motives of the State’s Attorney Mr. Newell by writing that Mr. Newell is a Republican in a County that Delegate Smigiel represents half of as a Delegate. Then in a total lack of any relevance and a clear attempt to assassinate his character Ms. Deeming writes:

 “It is also a matter of public record that Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled 7-0 in March 2009 that Mr. Newell could not violate the free speech rights of two women working as victim witness coordinators in his office by firing them because they had supported the candidacy of Mr. Newell’s Democratic election opponent.”

Please explain to me what that has to do with anything related to the care or treatment of animals by the veterinarian at the CC SPCA. If we are not to believe Mr. Newell because of his alleged bad character when he says something bad about the CC SPCA why should we believe anything he said in favor of the CC SPCA. Everything said by Ms. Deeming in her letter to the Veterinary Board is irrelevant to the allegations of abuse and neglect at the CC SPCA.

 Delegate Smigiel’s office was presented a plethora of complaints about animal abuse and neglect at the CC SPCA. These allegations came from former employees, volunteers and citizens who utilized the facilities. Several of these complaints come from eyewitnesses to behavoir by the Veterinarian Dr. McDermot. There are documents from the agency that support many of the allegations of professional malpractice.

The eyewitnesses have offered to take polygraph tests regarding the allegations they have alleged. There are witnesses to botched operations, neglect and failure to provide follow up care. There are witnesses to nonqualified personell being allowed to perform operations on animals and witnesses with supporting documentation to support veterinary medicine performed by nonqualified individuals on animals treated at the CC SPCA. Delegate Smigiel’s office provided the Veterinary board with documents alleged to have the forged signiture of Dr. McDermott and an internal E-mail from Ms. Deeming herself complaining about Dr. McDermott. None of the specific allegations are addressed by Ms. Deeming, instead she engages in a misdirection of the question to the character of those making the allegations and to a debate of the possible motives for various individuals, (interesting enough, herself included) to have said things about Dr. McDermott’s failure to appropriately provide veterinary care to the animals at the CC SPCA. All the Animal Control Officers have refused to be polygraphed and no one has asked Ms. Deeming or Ms. Schwertzler (The President of the Board of Directors) Susan Maldonado, or Dr. McDermott to take a polygraph. Sure, they might have said no also, but any investigation of allegations of such incompetance should seek to find the truth.

Regardless of whether the CC SPCA personnel volunteer to be polygraphed there certainly is no excuse for refusing to accept the offer of the eyewitnesses who worked, volunteered or utilized the services of the CC SPCA. Ms. Deeming’s letter is devoid of any attempt to address the material facts alleged by the various constituents who came forward with complaints.

Mrs Deeming herself had some interesting things to say about Dr. McDermott in an E-mail she sent to one of the employees who came forward with allegations against the agency. If the State Veterinary investigator had any questions about what was thought of the Doctor’s ability he could have them quickly addressed by reading the E-mail from the CCSPCA director, Ms. Jeanne Deeming of December 6, 2008, where she wrote the following about Dr. McDermott:

“His type of medicine is the reason that we have so much problem with the spays/neuters and sickness. He just doesn’t care about any of the animals, to him it’s all about his money . This is not something that he hasn’t been told about in writing so I am not talking behind his back.”

I am sure the investigator received the same report of the Vet’s abilities from Ms. Deeming and then obtained and reviewed all the documents that “were put in writing” telling the Dr. about his deficiencies. Which begs the question, If the management of the CCSPCA felt this way about their Vet, Why did they continue to use him and promote him to the public? Did they also care more about the money than they did about the animals?

For now, we and the State investigator also know what Ms. Deeming thinks of one of her current accusers, from what she wrote about her former employee in the same E-mail, ”You on the other hand, do care about the animals, are very pleasant with the clients and do your job the best you know how.”

I trust the State will have taken into consideration the credibility assigned to the accused and accuser by the Directer of the CCSPCA before she herself became an accused. We will have to wait and see if the Veterinary Board does it’s job and sends a message to other Veterinarians who may care more about money than they do the care of the animals they are in-trusted with.

We will also have to wait and see if the veterianary board looks beyond the attempts at character assasination and seeks anwers to the questions raised by so many citizens.