Who was F. Leonard Dunn?

Every time I jog around Centennial Lake, I always notice the F. Leonard Dunn Amphitheater and wonder who the person was that this amphitheater is named after (until I forget all about it 10 seconds later).

A quick Google search turned up nothing, so can anyone out there in the interwebs tell me who F. Leonard Dunn was (or is) and/or what he did?

Update June 2: FAIL. I am surprised there is no one who can or no one who is willing to shed light on this. A search of the Balt Sun archives suggests that maybe he was a council person in the 1970's? There is no historical list of HoCo council people (shows where they rate, I guess) so I will just be left to wonder.

Dear Mom and Dad, please send money

Howard County will receive $610,000 from the feds to cover the cost of the December storm, and are hoping to get more to defray the cost of the February snowpacolypse.

Almost $610,000 in federal money is headed to Howard County to help cover costs of a December storm that dropped almost two feet of snow on the area.

County budget administrator Raymond Wacks said the money, part of nearly $4 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency relief funds earmarked for Maryland, will be applied to a $6 million shortfall in the fiscal 2010 budget caused by snow removal costs.

County officials are still waiting to find out how much money they will receive for the cleanup of two February blizzards that crippled the area within a week of each other, Wacks said.

If the Federal government is stupid enough to pay us, I guess we should take the money. However, this just shows how ridiculous the federal government has become. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, a few feet of snow that inconvenienced us for four days is not. If local governments cannot take care of themselves after snowstorms, they should not get a bailout from the feds under the guise of "emergency relief". Instead, voters should either elect local people who can get the job done or recognize that they will have to pay higher taxes or receive few services somewhere else.

Suit against SWAT team dismissed

Well, a judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Howard County Government and three SWAT team officers over a 2008 botched raid and dog shooting.

I am displeased that the suit was dismissed on the grounds that there is a discrepancy between which specific officers that the cops say shot the dog and/or roughed up the home's occupants as opposed to who the victims say shot the dog and/or roughed up the occupants. If the judge would have found that the police did nothing wrong and/or that their actions were warranted, I would be fine with that. But that is not what happened:

U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis dismissed the suit with prejudice — meaning it cannot be refiled — after county attorneys argued that the members of the SWAT team had probable cause to search the home and that the officer accused of excessive force couldn’t have committed the acts because he wasn't there at the time.

This is a case in which justice has not been done.

Stepping back from all the violence that may or may not have occurred during this raid and the emotions raised over the shooting of a family pet, the raid was over marijuana. A small amount of marijuana and a pipe was all that this raid yielded in terms of evidence of wrongdoing against any of the home's occupants. A commenter on the Explore Howard article raised an excellent point in asking what probable cause was presented to the judge who signed the no-knock warrant, because it is unlikely such a warrant would be signed over a dime bag. This seems to point to the possibility of shoddy police work.

I wish I could say I am surprised by the way this all turned out, but I am not. My opinion of the Howard County Government and the Howard County Police Department in particular is already so low, that I almost expect this sort of thing.

There is still one more lawsuit to go. The Elkridge botched raid and dog shooting is next on the docket. I am hoping for justice to be done at least in that case, but we'll see.

Fix it with policy

I read in a Washington Post article that Howard County has a law that prohibits discrimination based on looks:

We also have enough experience with prohibitions on appearance discrimination to challenge opponents' arguments. Already, one state (Michigan) and six local jurisdictions (the District of Columbia; Howard County, Md.; San Francisco; Santa Cruz, Calif.; Madison, Wis.; and Urbana, Ill.) have banned such discrimination. Some of these laws date back to the 1970s and 1980s, while some are more recent; some cover height and weight only, while others cover looks broadly; but all make exceptions for reasonable business needs. [Emphasis mine]

The actual law is here. Here's the gist:

Sec. 12.200. Public policy.
I. Equal Opportunity in Howard County. The Howard County Government shall foster and encourage the growth and development of Howard County so that all persons shall have an equal opportunity to pursue their lives free of discrimination.
II. Discriminatory Practices Contrary to Public Policy. Discrimination practices based upon:
Race,
Creed,
Religion,
Handicap,
Color,
Sex,
National origin,
Age,
Occupation,
Marital status,
Political opinion,
Sexual orientation,
Personal appearance,
Familial status, or
Source of income
are contrary to the public policy of Howard County.
III. Eliminating Discriminatory Practices. The Howard County Government shall direct its efforts and resources toward eliminating discriminatory practices within Howard County in:
(1) Housing,
(2) Employment,
(3) Law enforcement,
(4) Public accommodations,
(5) Financing, and
(6) Any other facets of the lives of its citizens where such practices may be found to exist.
IV. Encouragement of Voluntary Affirmative Action Programs. The Howard County Government shall encourage the adoption and maintenance of voluntary affirmative action programs.
(C.B. 2, 1983; C.B. 138, 1991; C.B. 68, 1992)

Value of a life

During the hearing for the legislation requiring sprinklers in every new home, Mary Kay Sigaty made the argument that although the sprinkler mandate would force people to spend $4,000 on a sprinkler system that they may not want, the sprinklers may save lives and you can't place a value on a human life. Recently on HoCoRising's blog, someone else made a similar argument about the money spent on the Health Howard Access Plan with respect to the life HHAP may have saved.

Well, if you are reading this blog and you are not at the gym running on a treadmill, you have placed a value on your life. And according to some, you must not think much of yourself. The people making this sort of argument are heading down a road leading to absurdity.

The video below addresses this issue extremely well. The context is corporate responsibility rather than government programs, but the logic and principles are the same in either case.

Do something nice

Explore Howard reports that Days End Farm Horse rescue has taken in 26 abused horses, bringing the total animals in their care to 80. I know what you're thinking: can't these horses be enrolled in Healthy Howard? Sadly, no, because they are from Garrett County.

So please consider throwing Days End Farm some money so that they can continue to do their charitable work. You can tell a lot about someone (and a society) by how they treat animals.

It HHAPpens

An additional $500,000 was approved for HHAP with the approval of the 2011 operating budget. This means that taxpayers have paid and committed $1.5 million dollars to the program that has helped a few hundred people get access to health care over a three year period.

Greg Fox nicely summarizes HHAP:

“As we ask others to do more with less, Healthy Howard, Inc. continues to seek to do less with more,” Fox said during his closing remarks.

Health Officer Peter Bielenson provided interesting testimony to the Senate about HHAP(.pdf) in early 2009. He makes several claims, including that there would be 2,200 enrollees in the first year, the program would be extended to 15,000 enrollees if it works, and the program would be made "sustainable and self-sufficient". HHAP has been an epic failure on all three of these counts.

Obviously, at this point the HHAP is not about helping people so much as saving political face for Ken Ulman. Our tax dollars will keep this boondoggle afloat until federal regulations finally kill it in 2014, at which point it will be framed as successful stop gap health care measure instead of the failure it really is.

Loopholes

This has nothing to do with anything local, but someone gave me a copy of the Lancaster Farming newspaper, and on the front was the photo below. Tradition and culture forbid the Amish to use tractors, but they have a horse-drawn contraption that has an engine and a PTO so they can run a modern round baler or other modern implements. I have also heard that some Amish sects can use modern tractors as long as they have steel wheels. So you might see a brand new John Deere combine with steel wheels on it, which is just bizarre to us outsiders.

Everyone is looking for a loophole. Often, one is found. This is why it is hard to fix social problems with policy.

The tax man cometh

It's that time of year again for the Preakness Celebration Balloon Festival at Turf Valley. One of the companies participating, Friendship Hot Air Balloon Co., is based in Howard County.

I found this tidbit on their website interesting:

ANNOUNCEMENT:
Our long standing community service of providing donations and contributions(silent auctions,etc.) of Hot Air Balloon Flights is now ended. This is because Maryland Comptroller's Dept. is imposing and enforcing a state admissions and amusement tax (7.5-10%) on our business in direct violation of a federal law and a US Supreme Court ruling. Comptrollers refuses to recognize that 'States are preempted by federal statute from assessing any taxes on gross receipts of aircraft flying in 'air commerce'. Further, they do not want to realize that a hot air balloon is an aircraft regulated by the FAA.

To read about this illegal back tax and future tax on my hot air balloon company, please review www.BallooningUSA.com/taxmatter and give me your thoughts! A pending (and much delayed) date for my Tax Court pre-trial hearing was finally received. It was April 14 and a Merits hearing date has now been delayed until September. It goes on and on!!!

All other states in the country do not collect such a tax and are in compliance with federal law! Maryland is not in compliance with federal law. The full financial burden of legal fees is on me as I continue to pursue setting legal precedents and to prove that we are RIGHT in our fight!

I remember reading about this case a few years ago. The Maryland Comptroller is trying to collect a 7.5-10% amusement tax on gross receipts. Note that this is a tax on gross receipts, not net income. A tax on gross receipts is EXTREMELY regressive. Gross receipt taxes would hurt a grocery store with a thin profit margin much more than, say, a law firm with a high profit margin.

As the federal stimulus money runs out, state and local governments will probably make more of a nuisance of themselves as they try to loot the tax base to pay for the budget deficits.

Doggie style

The Missouri dog shooting (I blogged about it here) has gone viral on the interwebs. The only thing unusual about it is that there was actually video showing how unnecessarily violent the police can be.

That same scenario has gone down twice in Howard County in the past three years. The Howard County Beta Police, of course, refuse to talk about it.

The Missouri Police Chief now hates the internet as a result of that video. If Chief McMahon says the same thing about me, I guess I'm doing my job. :-p

Strange investment for Al Gore

Hmmm, it's interesting that Al Gore paid nearly $9 million for a villa bordering the Pacific Ocean in Montecito, California, a town in which the minimum elevation is at sea level. In Al Gore's book (page 196) he writes:

If Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea- or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or broke up and slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by between 18 and 20 feet.

He goes on to quote Sir David King as saying "the maps of the world will have to be redrawn."

I guess Gore thinks that scenario described in his book is pretty unlikely. Or maybe this is his way of sticking it to his insurance company (talk about moral hazard).

Btw, the house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms. Say what you want about climate change, global warming, etc. Mr. Gore's actions seem to be incongruent with his dire predictions.

What's HHAPpening now?

The Sun reports that HHAP is likely to get the $500,000 that Ulman put in the draft budget, although Fox may try and trim some of that back. Here is a re-cap of the stats:

According to figures presented to the council, the program has screened 6,089 people and found that 3,789 were eligible for existing insurance plans. Another 789 enrolled in Healthy Howard, but 178 dropped out for a variety of reasons including changes in income and the cost of the program. Participants pay from $50 to $85 a month for comprehensive medical services, though it is not insurance.

Since HHAP was unable to get any significant private funding, they are putting a limit of 750 patients in place. They currently have only 621 members. Recall that $50,000 was recently spent (paid for by a private grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation) to organize an advertising campaign for HHAP. This means that Annie E. Casey Foundation paid $50,000 to get HHAP at most 129 additional members:

Guy Moody of St. John United Methodist Presbyterian Church in Columbia said Beilenson helped arrange a $50,000 Annie E. Casey Foundation grant. The money is paying for the door-knocking campaign, including coordinator Jessica Jones, who is working toward a goal of knocking on 4,000 doors by Labor Day to find more people who may be eligible for Healthy Howard, but who don't know about the program.

And it's politics as usual in discussing HHAP at the council meetings:

Fox seized on early studies of the program's patients that showed they had no more serious health problems than the general insured public to mean the program hasn't added anything special. He contends the thousands who learned they qualify for existing insurance by applying to Healthy Howard could be served in other, cheaper ways.

But Terrasa and program officials rebuffed that idea, saying that the program is serving as a vital "portal" for those without insurance and who have limited incomes. Getting nearly 3,800 people insurance is exactly what the program should be doing and is a major success, they argued, not a liability.

My irritation with Terrasa's point about HHAP hooking up 3,800 people with health insurance is that the software to do that is already in place and already paid for. HHAP does not need $500,000 to continue to do that. It needs the $500,000 to pay for health coaches and other expenses unrelated to linking people up with health insurance. So when looking at the marginal benefit of throwing another $500,000 at HHAP, we should not consider their ability to hook people up with health insurance since that framework is already in place.

Someone said on HoCoRising's blog that "blogs are least likely venue for rational discourse of any sort." I don't think that statement is true. The least likely venue for rational discourse of any sort is in the County Council meeting room.

Take down the sign

As you may recall, sometime last year the West Friendship Volunteer Fire Department moved a few miles down the road from their old location on Rt. 144 to a brand spanking new firehouse just off of Rt. 32 on Old Frederick. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the county ended up being the new owner of the old firehouse on Rt. 144.

This afternoon I drove past the former firehouse and I noticed that the old sign is still out front even though all the personnel and equipment have moved several miles north. I don't know why the good folks at WFVFD didn't take the sign down before they left, but given that they did not, it seems like the County (or whoever the new owner is) should definitely take down the sign now.

The last thing the county needs is to be sued because someone in need of urgent medical attention died in the parking lot of a vacant building thinking it was a firehouse instead of calling 911 on their cell phone. I know that scenario is fairly unlikely, but still reasonably possible. It just seems like a problem waiting to happen.

Video of police raid tactics

Below is a video of a raid on a family in Columbia, MO (i.e. not in Maryland) in which a police SWAT team serves a warrant and shoots a family dog. Just for an extra nice touch, there were children present. Oh, and the raid was over marijuana.

These are the exact type of police tactics that the Howard County Police with the implied consent of County Executive Ken Ulman use on Howard County citizens. In fact, two family dogs were shot in this manner since Ken Ulman has been County Executive.

Obviously, I don't think Ken Ulman or anyone in the police department likes it when dogs get shot. In fact, I am quite sure that no one in the county government is pleased about this. However, by doing nothing about it, the message is that this sort of behavior during these raids is tolerated.

Know your customer

The more I read about Healthy Howard, the more obvious it is that Ulman and Bielenson did not understand the market niche they were attempting to serve. They predicted 2,000 enrollees in the first year, and to their credit they did receive applications somewhere close to that magnitude. However, the vast majority of those applicants were eligible for actual health insurance through existing government programs. In fact, 3,000 people who have applied for HHAP over the last two years ended up qualifying for health insurance through existing programs (but I wonder if those applicants actually got this insurance? That would be an interesting analysis. Given all the innuendos coming out of the HHAP camp I would not just assume that the 3,000 applicants did get the insurance they qualified for.)

So the real lesson of Healthy Howard is that existing government programs do not do a good job of reaching the people who are eligible for them. If this is true in Howard County, it may be true across the entire country.

Now the problem, according to Beilenson, is that the people who are eligible for HHAP work two or three jobs and do not read the newspaper, so they don't know about the program:

Healthy Howard is not insurance, but offers comprehensive health care at low monthly rates, plus preventive care through the use of health coaches to county residents earning too much money for Medicaid but not enough to afford commercial insurance. Beilenson has said many people eligible for help work two or three jobs and don't read newspapers. They don't know about the program despite publicity, which is where PATH's volunteers come in.

It is interesting that Howard County was able to give away over 2,000 trees in a few days through a lightly advertised program, but they can't reach people who are supposedly eligible for HHAP despite advertising on TV, newspapers, internet, social media, and door to door campaigns. So again, I wonder: do the HHAP architects understand their target market?

I remember asking myself back when HHAP first started: "if this is such a good program, why has no one else done it?" The past two years of HHAP's operations has answered that question. The skeptic in me thinks that HHAP has become less about helping people and more about saving face.