Government: For the People or For the Person?

Musical Chairs

There is a huge debate going on in our country that’s described in many ways; red v. blue, left v. right, liberal v. conservative, tax v. spend, big v. small government.  

Thankfully, a city like ours avoids most of the  insane partisan silliness.  However, every community needs rules so that people can live together better. How do we choose the rules?

The City Council makes Laurel's rules by writing ordinances.  How should this property be zoned?  Who should get a tax break?  Which pothole gets fixed?  Which business gets approved?  Do we buy a new snowplow or another police cruiser?  

Councilmembers make hundreds of votes every year.  Most council members have a basic philosophy that they use to decide.   For me, the toughest votes often came down to a choice between what seems to be best for a person or a small group and what was best for the city at large.   

Robert Fulghum, author of “Everything I know I learned In Kindergarten”, tells a story that perfectly illustrates how decisions about rules can shape our world.  Fulghum once taught a high school philosophy class in Seattle and on the first day of classes he had his class play musical chairs. 

You know the game.  You arrange the chairs and then play Souza music.  Everyone marches until the music stops.  Then everyone finds a chair and sits down.  Then you bring some reality into the game.  Resources are never infinite you know.  Chairs are removed.  

The music plays again.  Marching commences.  When the music stops, everyone struggles to find a chair.  The clever kids hover near a chair or kick a chair and scramble after it when the music stops.   The stronger kids just muscle others out of their way.  Anything for an advantage.  Those without chairs when the music stops are sent to the wall to watch the rest of the game.  They are called the losers. 

More chairs are removed and we keep playing, round after round.  A growing line of losers are on the wall.  Finally, one kid wins and conquers the last chair.  He throws up his arms in victory.  Don’t think for a minute that the losers on the wall feel any happiness for him.

For the next game, Fulghum passes an ordinance - players may now sit on each other's laps. Pretty soon, the kids figure out that even when resources are the scarce, they can always find a lap or a knee to sit on.

The players quickly adjust their tactics.  The rules focus them on a cooperative strategy. When only one last chair remains a kid sits down.  Then two kids sit on his knees.  Then four kids sit on those two pairs of knees, and so on.  Everyone gets a seat.  There are no kids on the wall.  Each kid provides a seat for two more.  The music stops and everyone has a seat.

They all win.  No one loses.  They all throw their arms in the air!  It’s a perfect lesson in how rules and laws shape the game. 

Cities can make laws like that.  Even a small city with lots of people and only a few resources to spare.  Even if all we have are a few loaves and fishes and our only miracle is human cooperation. 

It doesn't need to be left or right, small or big, tax or spend, blue or red.  We get to decide.  Do we want our laws - our government - to be for the person or for the people?

Twitter: News or Not?

I apologize for only sending a tweet last night during the police search activity in OldTown Laurel.  My smartphone lets me forward tweets to the email lists but the formatting gets corrupted.  This caused a lot of confusion for people on the email lists. 

Kudos to Joshua Garner at laurel.patch.com for getting some information out to the community last night 30 minutes after the helicopters were in the air. 

I've come to really like Twitter for breaking news stories.  I wish more people, reporters and even PIOs would use it instead of email, or waiting for a reporter to ask them questions.   Twitter using the hashtag #laurelmd for breaking local stories would help get information moving quickly. 

Remember it's lector caveo! It's breaking news and we all need to be a savvy internet news consumers.  I call it "online literacy".  This means you gotta know your tweeter.  I'll listen to any random guy in a bar spout off investment advice, but I go to a pro when I want to invest for she-who-must-be-obeyed's retirement survivor's benefits. 

Breaking news also means that a story will surely evolve.  If we want verified news of record, we will need to let the professional news organizations have the time to do their thing, i.e.,  report, edit, check and then publish.

Like I always tell my boss.  "Good, fast, cheap, pick any two. It's impossible to do all three."   If you want your news fast and cheap and maybe wrong but evolving, read Twitter.  If you are willing to wait for verified facts, then avoid Twitter and wait for a reputable news organization.

Unfortunately, as local news organizations struggle to survive, Twitter may soon be all we have when the sirens wail and the chopper's spotlight circles overhead.

I find Twitter fascinating.  It's almost like being there, but without the need to get in the way.

rick

Inducing Emotions

Induced Emotion, Re: PANIC

A woman from my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, was arrested for "inducing panic" at a local drugstore.

  

It seems that she became frustrated waiting for a clerk to ring her out.  So she screamed that the store was being robbed.  Her screams quickly brought a clerk to the checkout.  However, after the store crew realized her ruse, they called the law.  They had the impatient woman arrested for "inducing panic."

This story has made me wonder about all of the other possible crimes of inducing emotion.  Can I have my mother arrested for inducing guilt? Should my robo-calling elected official be arrested for inducing anger?   Should Max at Pasta Plus be arrested for providing such a great meal that he induces  gluttony and then lethargy?  And what about other small town bloggers, who are so much better chroniclers of local stories that they induce my envy?  

I say, "away with them all."  Anyone who causes such strong involuntary emotions should have to do at least a few days in the Laurel city jail, or some community service to help them kick their inducing habit.  

I will be waiting on my porch for Laurel's lawmen to book me for inducing boredom.  You may be called to testify.

The Giant Pool of Money: Housing Bubble Explained

According to the proposed FY2009 budget, the property within the city of Laurel is worth a total of $2,288,481,268. But of course this value is based on property assessments that were calculated while real estate in this region was surfing the housing bubble. The challenge will be to see how our residential and commercial real estate values fair over the next few years.

I have been trying to figure out this housing bubble business for months now. Two years ago, real estate prices were climbing to dizzying heights. Today they are wiping out in a death spiral.

Why? Where did all the money go? Who caused this problem? Should I blame West Laurel for this irrational exuberance? Is it Jack Johnson's fault? Will approving slots make it better? Why would banks arm wrestle each other to see who got to give a $400K interest-only loan to my unemployed tabby cat in 2005? Who got paid off? Why did we get left holding the litter box?

I'm a big fan of a radio program called "This American Life" hosted by Ira Glass. It is one of the best shows on public radio. They recently broadcast a show that answered all of my questions called, "The Giant Pool of Money." The show runs an hour and I recommend it to anyone trying to understand what caused the housing credit bubble. I found their experts easy to understand and compelling.

You can listen to the show on your computer or download it to your portable mp3 player via iTunes. I found it to be a valuable way to spend an hour. Besides, I don't have much else to do since my tabby cat's house went into foreclosure last month. Does anyone need a used litter box?

Main Street 2008

I've got a secret that I know I share with many of my neighbors in Oldtown. Please don't tell the Laurel Board of Trade organizers because they work so hard to put on a good festival. But I like it when it rains on the morning of the Main Street festival.

Over the 27 years I've attended the Main Street Festival I've learned that a soaking morning rain knocks down the crowds just enough. The festival is better when the crowds thin out. You can walk down the street and see the booths. You run into more of your neighbors and can have a chat without getting pushed downstream with the unceasing flow.

This morning's festival started in a heavy rain. The organizers, police, public works team, and the ever faithful Laurel Police Auxiliary were already working at o'dark thirty in a cold downpour.

I wish I had taken a photo of Auxiliary Police Officer Wayne Dzwonchyk this moning about 8am. He looked like a mud soaked dough boy in the trenches of France in WWI. The rain was running off of his hat and down his face as he sleepily flagged away yet another vendor's box truck.

The parade was soggy but everyone still had a good time. I especially liked the lawn mower racing team. All of our local elected folks made it out for the Parade. The ever dutiful 21st delegation from Annapolis braved the rain along with our County Councilman, the County Sheriff, our Mayor and all of the Laurel City Council members and marched down the street. Kudos too to the LHS marching band and the West Laurel Ragtaggers, they were all wet but still sounded great.

The skies cleared by 11 and the crowds were good but not unbearable. She-who-must-be-obeyed forced me to walk back up to Main Street at 3pm to eat a sausage sandwich and have a lemonade. Chalk up another Main Street Festival and Happy Mother's Day to all.

A few more quick pictures: http://flickr.com/photos/laurelnow/sets/72157604988638451/

Laurel Leader Barely Gets The Story

The Laurel Leader's web-only story about Laurel City Council member Mike Sarich's ethics case left me barely informed this week. Their headline says, "Ethics panel clears Sarich — but barely." Unfortunately, the Leader never tells me that the panel decided unanimously in Sarich's favor. In other words, he was found innocent of committing any ethics violation. Not one member of the five person panel voted for finding a violation.

How does a unanimous decision rate a barely? Woman found pregnant, but barely ... makes about as much sense. Guilt or innocence, pregnant or not, these conditions demand a yes or no vote. It is not fair or even ethical to vote for one side but then turn around and call it the other.

I'm not taking sides on this case. I agree with the Laurel Ethics Commission that the rules on soliciting non-profits needs to be rewritten, both in Laurel and in Prince Georges County. The rules that allow our elected officials to act as bag-men for developer dollars has got to be stopped. If developers want to give money to local organizations, let them do it all by themselves.

The Mayor was doing his duty as chief executive officer of the city in bringing the case to the commission. But as far as the Sarich case is concerned, the allegation was made, the evidence was weighed and the panel voted. No ethics violation was found. The process worked.

I hope the Laurel Leader does the ethical thing and they fix their story in time for next Thursday's print edition.

Your comments are always welcome. Click the comments link below to post your opinion on this issue.

-rick

Update 5/5/2008. The Leader changed the story on their website today. The comments to this post are flying furiously. The Sarich effect has returned. Anonymous is even back! See the comments section for the complete discussion. - grw

Hopeful Sign of Spring

A Sunday afternoon walk along the Patuxent River. The first sign of spring? Thanks to Gary H. for pointing them out.

Does anyone know what kind of flower this is? The flowers are about 1 inch long.

Sunday Stroll in Riverfront Park

This is the little steel foot bridge fifty yards east of the Avondale Mill site in Riverfront Park. Its metal surfaces have rusted to match February's colors.

We bought a new digital camera. It has more buttons than I can possibly learn to use in a year. So if you see me walking along trying to read a manual and squinting at a camera, you'll know that I'm trying to learn a few more buttons this weekend.

Do you have any interesting pictures of people, places or incidents in or near Laurel? I'd be happy to link to them. Please contact me via g dot rick dot wilson at gmail dot com.

N.B. (You can click here for a much larger image. )

Bella Rosa Cafe Opens

Coffee is a necessity. It's simply not optional. It's as important as food or air. Coffee is one of those self-evident truths that made America a great nation. Coffee is vital for public safety, that's why you see so many policemen hanging around donut shops.

I'm happy to announce the grand opening of the Bella Rosa Cafe at 504 Main Street. Meriem and Kass Atouani opened their cafe in the building that previously housed the Something Special Coffee Shop. The Bella Rosa Cafe offers plenty of hot gourmet coffee, fresh pastries and whole beans for your grinding delight.

Members of the Laurel Yacht Club participated in this morning's grand opening festivities. The Laurel Yacht Club, founded in 1995, is an informal collection of Main Street oddballs, malcontents, neo-luddites and occasionally, a few truly decent human beings. Not having any real boats, they hang around coffee shops and speak in nautical terms.

Their literature says that they, "... are a club without pier, concerned with plain folks, interesting people, strange places, insignificant facts, a story well told, fat-free muffins, politics, politicians and other scary things that go bump in the night. But mostly, they savor a good time, a great cup of coffee, and the warm company of friends and trusted shipmates."

Laurel is fast becoming the breakfast capital of the Mid Atlantic. I highly recommend that you check out the Bella Rosa for a cup of coffee with a splash of Oldtown community flavor. Stop in, introduce yourself to Meriem, wave hello to the Laurel Yacht Club and remember that ... Coffee is a civic duty.

102 Posts

The Laurel Connections Blog was born 102 posts ago on February 13th, 2005. A bit of a landmark for me so I wanted to take a brief moment to thank all of you loyal readers. Your continuing visits here and your comments to me privately and publicly on the blog have made this little experiment in citizen journalism satisfying for me and I hope useful for you.

Since that first post in 2005, this blog has hosted over 11,746 visitors and 21,521 page views. My goal has been and remains to find post topics that are relevant to Laurel and that help make an already wonderful community just a tiny bit better. I also hope that you have found a little value and maybe a smile or two over the past 30 months.

I intend to continue the experiment. I hope to add new voices and guest bloggers. I'll also be adding more podcasts and introducing video and real-time interactive call-in technology to the blog in the future. See the neat new poll gadget that Blogger just introduced on the left column of this page. Internet production and delivery has matured so fast that I can't help but mix multimedia with citizen journalism just to see what happens.

Please let me know what works, what doesn't and what you would like to see, hear or read here the future. Please use the comments section or email to me: g dot rick dot wilson at gmail dot com. You'll need to replace the"dot" and "at" with "." and "@" and then moosh it all together.

Thanks again for visiting. - rick

Arrest, Judgement and Repentance?

For a map of this location, see here.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

The Mayor and City Council will introduce a resolution at the April 9, 2007 meeting that will authorize the Mayor to proceed with negotiations and financing to purchase First Baptist Church, located at 811 Fifth Street, for the purpose of relocating the Laurel Police Department. Mayor Moe is asking that public hearings be held on this purchase on April 9, April 16, and on April 23, 2007. Approval of the purchase could occur at the April 23, 2007 meeting.

Mayor Moe advised that the only response to the City’s November 27, 2006 announcement seeking proposals from the development community to provide the City with a new police facility of at least 25,000 square feet was received from Ms. Barbara Maher, legal counsel representing the Contract Purchasers of First Baptist Church. The Contract Purchasers were seeking to partner with the City for the entire First Baptist Church Fifth Street holdings, which include the church structure and adjoining school, its parking lots, apartments located at Fifth Street and Gorman Avenue, and other Fifth Street properties directly across from the church. In this arrangement, the City would purchase the church structure and the adjacent north and south parking lots for renovation to become a police station. The Contract Purchasers have revitalization development plans for the remaining portions of the property.

Mayor Moe stated that identifying property that would be suitable for a police department has long been the challenge in the goal to provide a new facility. He stated that First Baptist Church is more centrally located and it is expected that the size of the facility will accommodate growth of the department for the next 15 to 20 years or longer. The church property is also very conducive to accommodating the current Police Department outreach programs, i.e. PAL, Citizens Police Academy and its Alumni Association, Police Explorers, Police Auxiliary, and the Department’s efforts for future expansion of outreach programs.

Mayor Moe stated the purchase price for the City’s portion of the property is $2.5 million. It is estimated that an additional $3 million will be needed for renovations. There is still much work to be done in building design and construction, if the purchase is approved. It is anticipated that it will be eighteen months to two years from purchase to completion of construction before the Police Department will be fully operational at the Fifth Street location. Mayor Moe noted that the $5.5 million for purchase and renovation is far less than the approximately $7 million presented in the City’s Capital Improvements Program.

Mayor Moe explained that time is of the essence if this opportunity is to move forward. His office and staff have done an exhaustive four-month review to determine the viability and suitability of this property for use as a police station. He noted that the City has an excellent track record with the adaptive reuse of older structures, adding that the existing police station was originally built for use as a grocery store. He further noted that the Municipal Center is a former junior high school, and that the Department of Parks and Recreation had been headquartered in the Anderson-Murphy Armory Community Center before relocating to the Municipal Center.

Mayor Moe shared that he is looking forward to public input and participation in the consideration of this purchase. He added that he is excited about this opportunity to provide a centrally located facility that will serve the City’s police needs and the citizens’ expectation for quality police service for many years to come. Chief David Crawford expressed his excitement at the prospect of a new, modern facility for the men and women of the Laurel Police Department in their service to the citizens and businesses of Laurel.

Persons interested in receiving a package of prior press releases on this matter, and a copy of the CIP project page, may contact the City Administrator’s Office at 301-725-5300, Ext. 203.

The NEW Mall at Laurel

It's not often you get to see the hidden hand of the market. But tonight the market manhandled the old Laurel Mall and proposed transforming it into something totally unique.

A standing room only crowd gathered at Laurel City Hall to hear and see renderings of the new mall. An impressive team from Somera Capital Mgt (developer and owner), AEW Capital (owners), General Growth (leasing and development), and Callison (architect) described the project and provided the back story for the redevelopment.

The developers explained what the community said in focus groups about the old mall and it was not pretty. Dead, dirty, disgusting were the nice words. One person was quoted as saying that the existing mall was a big disappointment for new folks and an embarrassment for the community. After establishing the low water mark, the team turned towards the transformation concept.

The architect presented a slide show explaining how they turned to Laurel's unique history for new design elements. Georgian architectural elements lifted from the train station. Brick facades and stone are reminiscent of Laurel's early mills. Lots of brick, wrought iron and features from turn of the century color palettes. The pageantry of Thoroughbred horse racing lend an air of fun and color to a children's playground.

Mayor Craig Moe introduced the team and explained how the city is committed to redevelopment. Karl Brendle, Laurel Director of Development and the Mayor created a form of land use planning called a revitalization overlay zoning that was one of the first of its kind in the state. The City Council approved the award winning approach by quickly turning it into law. This is the kind of amazing and innovative policy wonk stuff that Laurel does so quickly and well. Mega kudos to the Mayor, Council, Bob Manzi the city attorney, Karl Brendle and the whole city team. Kudos also to the capital providers and developers for having faith in Laurel.

Here is the Leader's awesome same day coverage of this story.

More to come from me but here are the architect's renderings. Please use the comments section for your comments and questions.

UPDATE - I forgot to mention the new 16 screen state of the art movie theatres!

Boat Shoes, No Socks

Did you get outside Thursday? Unbelievable. Welcome to far North Miami.

I love global warming. Laurel will have waterfront property as soon as the ice caps melt. Anne Arundel County will be called the Annapolis shallows.

[Note to Public Works Director Ted Dulaney: Quick, sell all the road salt, we'll need to buy a used beach sweeper.]

Joanne has been nagging me about having a sailboat drydocked in our back yard for the last 20 years. It turns out I'm not eccentric, I was just getting ready to be Laurel's first harbormaster.

Mayor, do I need a building permit for a dock? Do PODS float?

Pina Colada's are half price at Captain Oliver's Main Street Marina tonight. Wear your boat shoes, no socks please.

Where Are Laurel's Best Christmas Lights?

Laurel's neighborhoods twinkle with Christmas lights. From Main Street to Montpelier, from West Laurel to North Laurel, homes are aglow with the Christmas spirit. Or at least the kind of glow that helps our good friends at BG&E earn large annual bonuses from our electricity use.

I'm not a real Christmas kind of guy. I do enjoy the family time but I can't understand some of the wacky traditions. Such as cutting down a tree, sticking it in your living room and watching it die a slow death. That seems unseasonably cruel to me.

And then there is Christmas caroling. A group of strangers encamp in your yard and then threaten to keep singing until you give them drinks and cookies. What else can you call it except Christian terrorism?

But I do enjoy all the lights. I'm sure many of you enjoy driving around town to see the Christmas lights as much as my family. The magnificent Kuckhuhn tree (shown in this bad photo) on Brooklyn Bridge Road is a long time Laurel tradition for us. My neighbors in the 400 block of Montgomery Street have set a new standard for awesome holiday displays, and this year with synchronized music.

So this is where we can help each other. Where are the best Christmas light displays in the Laurel area?

Please post your favorites in the comments section or send them directly to me at g.rick.wilson at gmail.com and I'll post them to the blog as a convenient driving map. (Please replace the "at" with @ in my email address.)

Merry Christmas from the Laurel Connections Blog.

Peaceful Palette

Don’t you love the way they smell? Is it more of a musty or a dusty smell? Or is it just the memories of blue sky, crisp air and being at peace with the earth? Throwing great fistfuls of them into the air and leaping into a pile are some of life’s great joys. Even if your pushing fifty instead of five.

Short work with a rake and we had a fresh palette of harvest wheat, yellow ochre, brick red, burnt sienna, and dying green colors at our curb. I love the fall. Especially fall in Laurel.

The leaves are three quarters down in Oldtown. Only the oak trees have nearly full crowns. My neighbor Eric’s oak tree slowly drops its brown, crinkly leaves all winter. A hopeful installment plan to guarantee our next spring.

We have a sixty-five foot dawn redwood tree that is the last to drop its leaves in our yard. It's a very confused, deciduous-evergreen tree. It always drops its needles during Thanksgiving week. For nineteen years, I’ve raked mounds of needles in the morning while waiting for Joanne to finish our turkey feast. The picture on the right is how our redwood looks this afternoon.

Eleven geese just flew over the tree tops of the alley between Laurel and Montgomery Streets. It looks like they're heading for the Patuxent River. Their V pattern is almost as perfect as their honking.

I always want to live in a place that has four seasons. I hope Heaven has a fall as wonderful as Laurel’s.

UPDATE 1 - I forgot mention above that Laurel's Public Works Department will vacuum up leaves from your curb for free. Oldtown residents living west of 7th Street have their weekly pickup on Tuesdays and east of 7th Street addresses are scheduled on Thursdays. Here are Laurel City's leaf pickup schedule map and the leaf pickup instructions.