It has been mentioned in countless news articles for the past few months and now it appears Dennis Schrader has set up a website for his much rumored run for County Council.

Interestingly, not a lot of the incumbent candidates for the County Council have gotten around to setting up web pages for this elections. Courtney Watson appears to have just opened hers although it appears to be a rehash of her 2006 site with the pictures from that campaign. Greg Fox’s website appears as if it has not been touched since the 2006 primary election. I could not find any actives websites for the campaigns of incumbent Calvin Ball, Jen Terasa or Mary Kay Sigaty. Republican challengers Bob Flanagan and Anthony Jordan do have websites up and running.

It was around 11:15 this morning when I heard the sad news that one of my fellow colleagues on the Howard County Republican Central Committee, Peg Browning, had passed away. Now clearly she had a lot more to life than politics and reading through many of the statements from a wide variety of people on Facebook today, she touched a lot of people in many different ways for the better. However, my contact with her was strictly in the political world.

I did not know Peg as well as others, but one thing that came to mind when I heard the news this morning was that Peg Browning was basically the first person in Howard County Republican Party I met in that context. It was about ten years ago when I showed up at a meeting in the basement of the church on Route 108 across from Centennial Park (I forget the name of it). Before I even could introduce myself to anyone, this older women was thrusting a “Paul Rappaport for US Senate” button at me telling me to put it on. I didn’t know who she was at the time, but she was damn persistent. She also was very vocal in her way pushing the Republican party and how we need to work for them despite long odds. This was two years before anyone had thought a Republican could become Governor in this state.

Through the years as I got to know her, I found her to be a tireless worker for the Republican party despite her physical limitations. I’ve been an active part of the Republican Party ever since that first meeting in 2000 and when it came time to select a person to fill an open Central Committee seat last year, she was one of those who gave me her vote. I felt honored.

For a number of years, the Howard County Republican Party has awarded the Peg Browning Award each year to the women who is considered the top woman volunteer of the year annually at the Lincoln Day Dinner. We all hope to match her tireless volunteering and devotion….

According to the comments over at HoCoRising, there was a representative of TAG at the Howard County Republican Club Happy Hour. Honestly, there were so many people there that I completely missed the person if he was there gathering signatures. I did also see that HoCoRising attended the Happy Hour, but again other than a quick handshake, I did not get a chance to talk with him at all.

Interestingly, in a lot of people I talked to where this issue of the referendum came up, they seemed to have a similar opinion to me where they may be in favor fo the downtown development but are also in favor of the issue going to referendum. Not because they are afraid the referendum will win , but more to have a final conclusion to the issue overall. Well at least those that cared about the issue. As we were closer to Western Howard County, I will say a lot of people could have not cared less or really had no clue about downtown Columbia development, which I think is unfortunate.

Anyway, TAG is having a few open houses this weekend, but if it was true they obtained 40 signatures last night alone, then getting to the threshold of 2,500 by April 3rd and 5,000 by May 3rd may be easier than I would have figured it to have been.

It’s that time of the month again where a bunch of Republicans in Howard County get together to be happy. It’s the First Friday Happy Hour from the Howard County Republican Club, so feel free to stop by at Mangia Italian Grill and Sports Cafe in Woodstock, MD. Yes, the HCRC has completely outgrown every bar in Columbia and Ellicott City and needs to move out west…and we are still eight months away from the election. Soon they are going to have to start renting out ballrooms to fit everyone in….

I am not trying to turn this site into a site only about the group Taxpayer’s Against Giveaways, but I did notice they have now opened up a new website and it can be found here.

The site is not exactly a graphical marvel, but it does have the important basics. Of note, they do have a copy of the petition form they are circulating so we can now truly find out what they are attempting to bring to referendum. here is a copy of the form.

For those who want to engage in some constructive dialogue regarding the Council Bills 58 and 59 and the referendum efforts, a new Yahoo! Group was set up by Russ Swatek to foster this dialogue. It can be found here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HoCo_CB58n59-2009/.

It just started this morning so there are not a lot of members yet, but hopefully we will be able to get regular updates on the progress of the petition drive there. My understanding is that it is an open group, so anyone can join as long as you have a Yahoo! account.

Brian Dunn at Columbia 2.0 has a report (albeit from his point of view which is not too kind towards the pro-referendum group) from the volunteer meeting held over the weekend. HoCoRising has some opinions on the Columbia 2.0 approach to opposing the referendum, which I must say I mostly agree with.

Somewhere along the line, I have been added to the new Taxpayer’s Against Giveaways” group that is spearheading the effort to bring Council Bills 58 and 59 to referendum. I got an email last night indicating they are having an organizational meeting today at the home of Russ Swatek.

Some of you have already heard of the new group Taxpayers Against Giveaways (TAG) which has formed to run a Petition effort to take the recently passed Howard County Council Bill 59-2009 to Referendum. It is our belief that this bill is not good for Columbia nor the Howard County taxpayer, and that a better deal can be achieved that does not burden the County with higher taxes and increased congestion. Our initial Press Release is the first attachment if you have not already seen or heard of our formation.

Some of you have also seen an Invitation to Help this effort. Again our Invite is the second attachment if you have not seen it.

Sorry for such late notice, but I hear another storm is headed our way and thought we should get this done before it hits. I am hosting an Open House at my place for those that simply want to learn more about CB-59 or the Petition effort, and for those who might be willing to help. The Open House will be tomorrow (Sunday 2/28) from 2 PM to 4 PM at:
ADDRESS WITHHELD
This address is north of MD-175 and 6/10 mile east of Snowden River Parkway.

Hope to see you,
Russ Swatek
Taxpayers Against Giveaways Spokesperson
Preferred contact: swatek1@yahoo.com
H: 410-799-1497 C: 443-864-8830

I withheld the address as I don’t think it is proper to publish his address for the world to see. But if you are interested in helping out this group, I am sure you can get a hold of Russ Swatek above by email or phone and get his address.

As I said in a previous post, I hope that this effort to put the issue on the ballot succeeds even though I will vote against it in the future.

I mentioned the new “group” Taxpayers Against Giveaways last week. We now have the copy of the first press release from this “group” that was apparently released last Monday.

February 15, 2010 (Columbia, MD)

A new group, Taxpayers Against Giveaways (TAG), has formed to take to referendum portions of the recently passed Council Bill 59, the Columbia Downtown re-development Zoning Regulation Amendment.

“CB 59 as passed provides huge giveaways to General Growth Properties (GGP) in the form of an enormous zoning bonanza with open-ended tax exemptions,” said Russ Swatek, TAG’s spokesperson. “However, there is no requirement for GGP to provide any significant portion of the necessary infrastructure. The massive development will increase traffic congestion and impose future additional burdens on Howard County taxpayers and Columbia Association lien payers.

“TAG plans to recruit petition-carriers to collect the 5,000 signatures needed to put the referendum question on the November ballot,” Swatek said. “The law as passed obliges all Howard County taxpayers to bear the costs of road upgrades, new sewer projects and parking garages as well as other features typically paid for by developers. These costs will be hundreds of millions of dollars to be ultimately paid by the taxpayers.

“We are taking this extraordinary action as Howard County citizens because the County Council and the Executive abdicated their public responsibilities. The Council/Executive allowed GGP to write a private zoning bill bestowing on GGP hundreds of millions of dollars of untaxed zoning benefits without the corresponding requirement to provide the necessary infrastructure. Although there were many last minute amendments to the bill as originally written by GGP, they were not substantive and did not materially alter this large giveaway to GGP. This puts Howard County taxpayers in the same position as ‘sub-prime borrowers’ – all the debt and no appreciated value.

“Over the next several weeks TAG will detail how CB 59 grants huge tax windfalls to GGP, relieves GGP of infrastructure obligations typically incurred by other developers, substantially and permanently exacerbates traffic congestion, continues the exemption from State Forest Conservation requirements required of other developers, and fails to provide any environmental sustainability requirements for new construction.

“The County Council has awarded the developer a multi-million dollar windfall in return for few citizen benefits and piled huge costs onto the taxpayers of Howard County. This means our quality of life will go down and our property tax bills will go up,” Swatek said. “We think that the Council and County Executive made a serious error and that citizens deserve the right to vote on this ill-advised bill.

“In the next few weeks TAG will recruit dozens of public-spirited volunteers to carry referendum petitions to every corner of Howard County,” he said.

Russ Swatek
Taxpayers Against Giveaways Spokesperson
Contact: h: 410-799-1497; c: 443-864-8830; email: swatek1@yahoo.com

I’ve been going back and forth in my mind as to whether I support the efforts to bring the recently passed Council Bills 58 and 59 to referendum and have decided that it would be a good thing for multiple reasons. Before I get to far, I would personally vote against a question that asked whether these bills should be repealed, but from a purely political viewpoint, I think it could be beneficial for everyone, both to help define our candidates on a local issue and to help definitively determine how the people of Howard County truly feel on this issue.

Up until now, other than the incumbent councilpeople who actually voted on this bill a few weeks ago, many of the candidates have never had to really take a definitive stand on these bills. They were able to give indicating they support parts of the bill, or support the goals of the bill but not necessarily the implementation, or tell us how they would change the bill, etc. In other words, they never have really had to state for the record how they would actually have voted on the final product Council bills 58 and 59. If this issue makes it to the ballot, then that all changes. Since these bills are now law, every politician running for office will have to state for the record whether they support repealing the two council bills. There will be no in between. Either you support it or you don’t.

In addition, many of the groups on both sides of the issue have tried to declare they speak for a majority of Columbia/Howard County residents. No one really knows for sure who speaks for majority, but that hasn’t stopped either side from claiming otherwise. If this issue is brought to a ballot, then the answer will be given in pure black and white on how the people of Howard County feel about the current law regarding the development of Downtown Columbia.

This issue is also one that cannot be easily defined by party label. A unanimous County Council, Democrats and Republicans, voted in favor of Council Bills 58 and 59. I know for a fact that he positions among various Republican candidates running for election this year is split on the bills. And some of the loudest anti-development groups who opposed these bills (HCCA for one) are run by people who have given heavily to Democrats over the years even though the bills were passed with the help of the four Democratic councilpeople and the Democratic County Executive that the same people running these groups have supported in the past. And because there is a ninety-day time limit from February 10th bill signing to obtain all the required signatures, we should know whether this issue will be on the ballot by around the middle of May. This means that there will still be plenty of time for primary challenges to the incumbents as well as already declared candidates and this could lead to intraparty debates on this issue, which I think is great.

Anyway, let’s first see if this “group” Taxpayers Against Giveaways can even muster enough signatures to move to the next step.

Just a quick shot from the Eric Wargotz for US Senate event in Howard County last night at a home in Fulton.

I won’t endorse anyone in the primary on the Republican side, but Wargotz seems like a capable candidate and he won’t be someone who mails it in if he were to get the nomination. The event was mainly a social event, so no real long speeches were given and it was really just a place to meet and greet people and for Wargotz to get to know people in the area (he is from Queen Anne’s County). I do know Larry Carson from The Baltimore Sun was there and interviewed Wargotz for what will probably be an article later. The only other candidate I have heard thus far was Jim Rutledge, who came to a meeting at the Howard County Republican Club last month and seemed just as capable. Obviously anyone going up against Barbara Mikulski is going to have a tough race (no more word on that rumor she is retiring). The latest finance report at the FEC shows Wargotz with $156,000 on hand. Rutledge only had $4,000 cash on hand. Mikulski, by comparison, has over $2 million cash on hand.

Also at the meeting were Delegate candidates Ed Priola and Jeff Robinson, Howard County Executive candidate Trent Kittleman and Councilman Greg Fox. Just a note that their attendance doesn’t necessarily imply they endorse Wargotz (I don’t know whether they do or not), just that they were there to meet him and hear from him.

Here is the website for Eric Wargotz
Here is the website for Jim Rutledge.

Hard to believe this scene is from 16 years ago.

A scene from Cheers can only mean one thing, it is time for the monthly First Friday Happy Hour hosted by the Howard County Republican Club (ignore the date on the flyer, it is tonight). But wait you ask, today is actually the Third Friday of the month. Well thanks to the little fit of “Global Warming” that God blessed us with, the Happy Hour from February 5th was postponed until today. Tonight’s Happy Hour will be held at Serafino’s on Route 40 in Ellicott City for those in the neighborhood.

These events have been getting larger and larger of late to the point where the HCRC has had to find places large enough to even hold the amount of people coming out to these events. And if you are looking to latch onto a campaign or even just meet some of the candidates and elected officials in one place, no better places to do it than at this type of event.