Tax dollars at work

I don't know anything about a wild-ass government spend frenzy on goods that are wasteful and useless. But did you see the new glorified golf cart that the Sheriff's Department spend $18,000 on?

Picture time

Both Wordbones and Columbia Compass recently blogged about the expansion of the Columbia Presbyterian Church. While Wordbones took a more agnostic approach to whether or not approval for the expansion was good or bad, Columbia Compass seemed to lean toward the approval as a bad decision. The post that he wrote in response to the church expansion is quite good. In fact, he has some great photos of the traffic on Ten Mills road near 108, which is right around the corner from the church. Traffic concerns are why many neighbors oppose the church expansion.

Frankly, I was surprised to see that much traffic on that road. So surprised in fact, that I made a point to take that way home. At about 6:00pm, this was the view from Ten Mills Road looking past the intersection with West Running Brook towards the light at Rt. 108.


The mild traffic in the above photo is a significant contrast to the photos that appear at Columbia Compass. During the time this photo was taken, traffic on Rt. 108 was pretty heavy. Obviously, Columbia Compass has documented evidence that the traffic on Ten Mills can be congested as well and I am not trying to dismiss anything that he wrote. But I would use caution in drawing a hasty conclusion from his photos, because there are times (even during rush hour traffic) when traffic volume is light on that road.

An ollie of reasoning

I have already blogged about the skate park, but Explore Howard posted another article about it. This article includes, along with a picture of Ken Ulman in an exaggerated pose, an indirect quote from Mary Kay Sigaty. While Sigaty’s point is completely ludicrous, it is probably a commonly held view:

While the Columbia Association operates a skate park facility, it charges fees to use it and its hours are not always convenient for young people, Sigaty said.

Sigaty implies that the CA skate park is less than desirable because it charges users a fee. The implication is that the Howard County skate spot, on the other hand, is “free”. As Robert Heinlein said, “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Or as I like to say, “gas, grass or ass, nobody rides for free.” The Howard County skate spot appears to be free because the money used to pay for it was stolen from the public in the form of taxes. This is wildly different from direct user fees (and even different than CA dues which were voluntarily agreed to by each Columbia property owner as a condition for owning property in a planned community). The Howard skate park simply charges the user fees to people that are unlikely to actually use the park.

Her second point about the hours of the CA skate park being less than convenient is just as invalid. Of course the hours at the County skate park are better, because the thing is a giant free-for-all. A park ranger drives by every now and then to check on it. So basically, the skate park is open during day and the equipment is at the mercy of the unsupervised public. If the assets are vandalized in any way, tax dollars will simply be used to fix it. That money practically grows on trees anyway.

Gary Arthur, the Director of Recreation and Parks, is so casual as to the oversight of the park that he simply told neighbors to call the police if they see anyone there after dark. Hey, I guess that’s outsourcing the security, right?

Swine flu

Health officials are asking doctors and hospitals to be on the lookout for patients who display swine flu symptoms, he [Beilenson] said, and the health department will be on call to perform tests to confirm it.

Lord Dhanwantari forbid that the swine flu should affect any more people, but I’d love to know how long it will take the County Health Department to turn around a swine flu test. If I was concerned that I had swine flu, just about the last thing I would want my doctor to do would be to mess around with the county Health Department. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s cute that county “health officials” are advising doctors to be on the lookout for swine flu. But when the rubber meets the road, these “health officials” need to know their place. If lives are at stake, there is no room for government nonsense.

You lost me, Bob

Ehrlich then enumerated a dozen points that he said distinguish Republicans, starting with recognizing the threat posed by "Islamic fundamentalism" and moving through familiar GOP themes such as low taxes, less spending, school vouchers, gun rights, free markets, marriage only between a man and a woman, conservation and legal reform.

I truly do not understand how you could advocate for low taxes, less spending, school vouchers, free markets, etc., but at the same time support government regulation of marriage (be it between two or more members of opposite sex or otherwise). Why is government regulation necessary for marriage? What does the state know about love that private individuals don’t know?

Skate park

A $130,000 skate park was recently unveiled at Centennial Park. Not surprisingly, I don’t think this park is a good use of tax payer dollars. I don’t have a thing in the world against skateboarding. In fact, I think it is pretty cool to watch skaters do their tricks. However, like much of what the Department of Recreation and Parks wastes our money on, a skate park is far too narrow of a niche to be built with public funds.

According to Gary Arthur, the Director of Howard County’s Department of Recreation and Parks, the skate park was built on an under-used basketball court at Centennial. I am curious to see how well utilized this skate park will be. County government has a poor record of anticipating public demand, as evidenced by the basketball court that the skate park has replaced. As cool as the skate park may be, I doubt that many skaters will want their very uncool moms and dads to drive them there. It will be much more convenient to skate somewhere in their own neighborhood. For those skaters who drive, we’ll see how long it takes them to get bored with the park.

The Department of Recreation and Parks has a $30 million operating budget, which translates to about $110 per county resident. I’m still waiting for a County-funded strip club.

Bobo ethics complaint dismissed

The ethics complaint against Liz Bobo was dismissed by the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics. CA is considered a private homeowner’s association by the committee, so according to the committee there is no ethical problem with Bobo using a taxpayer provided resource (her official delegate e-mail address) to stump for whoever she wants for the CA board.

I am not an attorney and I don’t know the relevant ethics rules, but from a common sense standpoint the dismissal of the ethics complaint on those grounds seems a little absurd. Can Bobo or any other delegate use their official e-mail address and/or letterhead to advocate for a board member of Black and Decker or any other private corporation? According to the ethics committee, I guess so.

I would not expect this matter to end here, so stay tuned. I’m not Raj Thomas, but that’s what’s happening.

Serious environmental problems in Howard County

Since it is Earth Day today, I thought I would write about an environmental problem in Howard County that seems to get little attention. It is the high levels of dihydrogen monoxide in lakes and streams in Howard County. Dihydrogen monoxide can be deadly to both people and wildlife, as it can accumulate in the lungs and cause suffocation. In less extreme levels of exposure, it can cause frequent urination. Sometimes it is used as an additive in beverages, and it has been linked to breakouts of E. coli. The effects of dihydrogen monoxide on youth is not certain, but it has been found at every recent school shooting.

I suspect that Centennial Park has been contaminated with high levels of dihydrogen monoxide, as I have seen dead insects and other wildlife that appear to have succumbed to overexposure. It also appears to be corroding some of the park benches.

It can be very dangerous, and very little is being done to ban it. Contact the local government and make sure they pass laws that require other people to do something about this problem.

This is how we do it

Spring is here. People are mowing their lawns. Dandelions are blooming, bees are flying, robbins are singing. Seventy degree days are becoming more common. This is drawing more people to public parks to jog, play with their dogs, etc. Given this, do you think that the water fountains have been turned back on at Centennial Park?

Of course the water fountains are still turned off.

This is how the government runs things.

Non sequitur poster child

The Choose Civility program has produced a series of posters featuring people from the community supporting some of the so-called 25 rules for considerate conduct that underly Choose Civility. The posters take the format of a picture of someone in the community, with a quote from that person which embodies the particular rule for considerate conduct that they are advocating for.

One of these posters does not make much sense to me. It happens to be the poster featuring Ken Ulman (.pdf). Ken is supposed to be advocating for rule #3, "assume the best". This is the quote from Ulman telling us why we should "assume the best":

I think the key to our success is the strength of our community. As individual threads, each is susceptible to breaking. But when woven into a fabric, our strength is unparalleled. It is truly an honor to serve this great county.

That is great political rhetoric and all, but what on Earth does that have to do with assuming the best? This poster is completely non sequitur. If anything, that seems to weakly represent rule #5, be inclusive. However, the actual poster produced for rule #5 is much better than this one.

I don't know anything about how the quotes were selected. I assume that Ulman did not specifically approve this quote for this purpose, but rather someone took a round quote and used it fill a square hole. However it was done, the resulting poster is rather strange.

Uh, about that

The free-market system, as we've all seen lately, has its drawbacks.

This is how an opinion piece recently started on Explore Howard. The piece actually has more to do with the profit motive rather than market regulation. The gist of the article was that we all know how the “free market” or profit motive is often a failure, but every now and then something good can come from it. An example of this was that 67 movie theaters are now having monthly showings of movies in a “sensory friendly environment”, meaning that patrons with physical conditions (autism, etc.) can view films in the theater without disturbing patrons who lack such disabilities. The piece concluded by reminding us that “no government had to step in to make this happen.” This good was created by the profit motive.

I honestly feel sorry for whoever wrote this op/ed. The simplistic world view expressed just does not reconcile to my experience of the world at all.

Although I am not making the case that the “free-market system” is Nirvana, it cannot be said that it is the primary culprit behind our current economic troubles. Underlying our “free-market system” is the most anti-free market force imaginable- a central bank. The central bank kept interest rates artificially low for a very long time. Interest rates balance consumption now with consumption in the future. By keeping interest rates low, investors were signaled to invest in long term assets that are interest rate sensitive (gee, like houses, the construction of which was also encouraged by other government interventions) as well as making saving less desirable given the low interest returns on savings, so people consumed more rather than saved. Like trying to fill a two gallon pail with one gallon of water, this does not work. There were simply not enough resources to go around. Eventually the chickens came home to roost and here we are bailing out (bailouts are not free market activities, btw) banks, GM, etc. So I’d hardly say that the “free-market system” has shown us drawbacks. The root cause of our troubles was not governed by free markets.

Furthermore, the profit motive has solved more problems than any other force in the world. The reason we have the technology to produce movies at all- let alone the ability to download them over the internet and watch them at home- is the result of the profit motive. The reason we have medical technology to care for those with autism is because the profit motive. The reason poor people today enjoy technologies that could not be had at any price a few decades ago is a result of the profit motive, not government intervention. That is why I find it hard to accept that anyone would be surprised that the “free market” did something good for people with disabilities.

Governments are good as solving the free rider/public good problem, a problem which makes things like private roads difficult to build on a large scale. But the government solves this problem at a significant cost- our freedom.

Most good in the world is perceived to come from government, while everyone believes that the free market sets out to screw the less fortunate. More likely, that view is the exact opposite of what actually happens in the real world.

Pay up suckers

As I write this, April 15 is almost here. That means that your taxes for 2008 should be filed (or at least paid) by now. You should know that none of the money you paid in taxes will be wasted by the government on useless things. No pork barrel spending at all.

Here's a tax related joke:

The IRS decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney.
The auditor said, 'Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, Which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable.
'I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it,' says Grandpa. 'How about a demonstration?'
The auditor thinks for a moment and said, 'Okay. Go ahead.'
Grandpa says, 'I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.' The auditor thinks a moment and says, 'It's a bet.'
Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it.
The auditor's jaw drops. Grandpa says, 'Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.'
Now the auditor can tell Grandpa isn't blind, so he takes the bet. Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye.
The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa's attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.
'Want to go double or nothing?' Grandpa asks. 'I'll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and piss into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.'
The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again. Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor's desk. The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Grandpa's attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.
'Are you okay?' the auditor asks.
'Not really,' says the attorney. 'This morning, when Grandpa told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and piss all over your desk and that you'd be happy about it.'

Why Warren Miller scares the hell out of me

In the wake of several screw ups by SWAT teams in Maryland, most recently the incident in Howard County where a tactical team broke down the door of an innocent man's trailer and shot his dog, a bill was introduced to make these tactical teams accountable to the public.

The bill requires jurisdictions to report to the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention every six months on how many times a tactical team is deployed, along with the location, reason and legal authority for the deployment.

Police and sheriff’s departments will have to state whether they made arrests, whether property was seized and whether they made forced entry, fired their weapons or injured a person or animal.

Four members of the Howard County delegation voted against the bill.

Four members of the Howard County House delegation were among those who voted against the bill, including state Dels. Gail Bates and Warren Miller, both Republicans, and state Dels. Steven Deboy and James Malone, both Democrats.

Warren Miller explained his opposition to the bill:

“It’s additional overhead and it takes away from (law enforcement agencies’) real mission,” Miller said of his opposition to the bill.

Can you believe this? He opposes the bill because it would be an administrative hassle to police agencies? There is nothing more dangerous to a free society than a police force run amok. We would be far safer not having tactical teams at all than having them be unaccountable for their actions.

I have no idea why the other three delegates voted against the bill, but I am sure their reasons are just as mindless.

The police still have not finished investigating the shooting of the dog in Elkridge even though they were on the freaking scene and, in fact, THE ONES WHO SHOT THE DOG. What could possibly be taking so long?

While I think Warren Miller gets it right on wanting low taxes, I have no patience for his support of government intrusions into the lives of private citizens.

Funny show

I don't watch much TV, but I did make a point to catch the show Parks and Recreation. The show is freaking hilarious. As you may surmise, it is about a local department of rec and parks in a small town in Indiana. The dept even has its own fake website.

The department head, ironically, thinks that parks should be run by private corporations for a profit. I guess that is supposed to be funny, but I think it makes a lot of sense. He basically took the government job because he couldn't get hired at Chuck E. Cheese. On his desk, he has a sawed off shotgun that was owned by a bootlegger, as his way of mocking the government. Awesomeness!

Liars figure

One of the things I find interesting in reading library section of the proposed capital budget is how every single project is justified by referencing the “Library Facilities Assessment/Master Plan of December 2004”. Basically, the description or justification for each project says “hey, we’re doing this because the Library Facilities Assessment/Master Plan of 2004 says that we should.”

I took a look at the executive summary of the LFA/MP which is posted on the library website. This document contains what I consider to be a significant distortion of library use statistics:

One noteworthy comparable area is the “percent of population who have library cards and the circulation of library materials per card holder.” Ninety-five percent (95.4%) of Howard County residents have library cards. Each of these cardholders borrows on average at least 21 items a year. [Page 3]

…and later…

The need to increase the library space for Howard County is especially significant given the extraordinarily high proportion of residents who use their libraries regularly, which at 95%, is among the highest in the nation. By the year 2030 the County’s population is projected to grow to 320,000. At that point the Library will need a total of 320,000 SF of library space to adequately serve County residents. Therefore, HCL needs to add at an additional 142,000 SF of space over the next 25 years. [Page 8]

The library reports that 245,000 people have library cards. I believe that is about 90% or so of the Howard County population. I also agree that the AVERAGE number of items checked out per cardholder is about 21 items per year. However, I think the point of these statistics is to leave the impression that the majority of county residents are using the library on an annual basis. This is plainly false, and library management is certainly aware of this. In fact, library documents admit that less than one third of library cardholders check out even a single item from the library in the course of a six month period. I doubt that even half of library cardholders check out a single item in a year.

I would love to see detailed statistics of library use, because I strongly suspect that a relatively small number of residents are using the heck out the library. But I guess that is too much to ask when we are deciding how to spend only $100 million in a county where money grows on trees.

What's going on?

I wonder what the status of this police investigation is? I have not heard if they recovered the weapon nor have I heard if any of the officers were punished for the unprofessional way in which the raid was handled. Few things are scarier than the police being able to bust down the door of an innocent person, shoot his dog, terrorize his family, and take their sweet time investigating any wrongdoing.

Penny wise, Pound foolish

Sometimes I wonder if the people in charge of spending our money get it. By "it", I mean reality. I am sure that Ken Ulman could tell us all about environmental sustainability, but he appears to have no concept of fiscal sustainability. Ulman has $14 million in the proposed capital budget this year for the new Miller Branch library, and is going to spend a total of almost $100 million to build new and renovate existing libraries over the next 5 years. Ulman has also given Rec and Parks a fairly obscene amount of money to build new projects.

Ironically, one of the things that Ulman is considering cutting is library hours and park maintenance.

"Everything is on the table," Ulman said, speaking on Dan Rodricks' radio call-in show on WYPR. "You're going to see some reductions in services -- parks not maintained, some reduction in library hours."

I have no objection to cutting hours at the library or park maintenance, I think it's a great idea. But why spend millions to build new parks and libraries when it is necessary to cut services from those that exist now? What is the guy doing?

2008 Bobo e-mail

I had already posted a link to the text of the first e-mail that Bobo sent in support of her preferred candidate for the CA board in 2007. Below is the text of the second e-mail that was sent in 2008.

E-Mail From Bobo 2008

Publish at Scribd or explore others: How-to-Guides & Manu marketing online

I have to say that I am surprised that someone who has been around the block as long as Bobo has would use an e-mail address provided to her with taxpayer resources in such a blatantly self-serving manner.

Unrelated to this particular matter, does anyone know what the rules are with respect to an elected official using a personal e-mail account to circumvent PIA requests? By that I mean conducting official business and perhaps using an official title in the signature of a personal e-mail, in order to avoid having to produce e-mails related to PIA requests from citizens? For example, what if Bobo would have sent this e-mail from a personal gmail account but signed it "State Delegate Bobo"? Or what if Councilperson 'X' is making deals/promises/etc. with certain parties using a personal e-mail account? I certainly don't know of any such instances, I am just curious.

Gov't and tech

On average, government is probably about 20 years or so behind private industry with respect to technology. However, certain guvmint agencies are slowly starting to make limited use of social media.

How long will it take for guvmint to allow citizens to initiate referendums on facebook or some similar platform? If you think about it, there is nothing more stone age than going to a grocery store or some other place and asking someone to sign a petition. And the rules on signatures are so crazy nuts that the freaking Board of Elections barely know what they are. Wouldn't it be simpler to join a cause on facebook rather than deal with a bunch of paper signatures? Of course, the "signature" threshold would have to be raised from 5,000 to something more reasonable.

Also, the relatively simple technology that underlies social media could also make an idea like this one very possible. I think that would be pretty awesome.

Spend first, ask questions later

Here is an interesting fact about library usage:

According to page 3 of this document, only 69,280 individual library patrons had checked something out of the library in the six months prior to September 30, 2007. Also, there are were 290,766 customer accounts at the library (cardholders?) which I believe is more people than actually live in Howard County. I think we have around 270,000 residents currently.

Current library statistics tell us that there are currently about 245,206 library cardholders (not sure what caused 45,000 people to close their library accounts between 2007 to 2008). If that figure of approx. 70,000 unique users over a six month period held for 2008, this means that less than a third of library cardholders actually checked out at least one item from the library in a six month period.

These dismal usage figures have not stopped Ken Ulman from spending money on libraries.

One of the most expensive items on the list is $14.4 million for the new Miller Branch Library and Historical Center in Ellicott City. The library, which is already in the site plan and design phase, is the only library construction project on the list.

“That’s a project that’s much needed for the county, especially in the Ellicott City area,” said Ulman, who went to middle and high school near the library. “It was crowded when I grew up here. It hasn’t gotten any less crowded.”

I would be willing to bet that a detailed analysis of library usage would show that a small number of people use the heck out of the library to check out movies, TV shows on DVD, and children's books.

Before he spends millions on more libraries during a severe recession, perhaps it would behoove Ulman to study exactly how libraries are being used by the public. Right now, I don't think that anyone is asking the right questions about library usage.

GGP to liquidate all Columbia assets

Predatory lenders have finally caught up with GGP and forced it to liquidate all its land assets in Columbia. The County government has agreed to purchase the assets for the $12 billion that GGP owes to both stimulate our economy and protect us from incompetent development/unmitigated greed. Economic self-interest has proven itself not to work, so we are now trying political self-interest. This has never been tried before.

A county official who will be charged with overseeing the development had this to say about the deal: “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, knick-knack paddy whack, give a dog a bone.”

More on the deal available here.