Oakland Thrills

With the Oakland Mills village election fast approaching, it important to revisit (briefly) the role of the Village Board.

In the view of this author, if one wishes to advocate on behalf of their neighbors, via service on the volunteer board of directors of a community association, it is best if one is – in word and deed – neighborly.

I have seen several village boards in action, and it strikes me that the Board members who demonstrate a certain generosity of spirit as well a dedication to their entire village are the ones who are best equipped to fulfill the service mission of their community association. 

With that in mind, I believe that returning Bill Woodcock and Marcia White to the Oakland Mills Village Board would represent a move in the right direction.  Both are experienced community activists, are highly knowledgeable about local issues, and care deeply about Oakland Mills. 

I don’t know Daniel Kirk-Davidoff personally, but I’ve heard positive feedback from trusted sources on his qualifications.  His candidate statement includes some thoughtful solutions (which is tough to do in a couple of hundred words or less).   Finally, Fred Eiland's background as a Community Organizer, and former Board Member, provides respectable credentials for another term on the Board.  

I encourage all of my OM readers to mark their ballots for White, Woodcock, Kirk-Davidoff and Eiland in the April 25 election.  More information about the election can be found here:  http://oaklandmills.org/?page_id=136.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

Tear the Roof Off the Sucker

On certain days, one wonders about the advantages of an elected versus an appointed school board.  Sometimes, one ponders the benefits of humans as compared to animatronic platypuses as board members.  The Multi-Village Sponsored Howard County Board of Education Event (Cluster-Forum for short) invited all sorts of odd musings.

Was the forum, held at The Other Barn in Oakland Mills, informative? Absolutely. Was the audience packed with local luminaries, community activists, thought leaders, public officials, educators, parents, students, looky-loos and hangers-on? Definitely.  Was it a draining and slightly disheartening experience?  Unfortunately, yes.

Rather than craft a novella, I will explore some of the highlights:

The candidates were unafraid to engage in comparative politicking.  In their introductory statements, which included a verbal response to one of five questions for which they also provided written answers, Bess Altwerger talked about the high quality of teachers found in schools across the county (a rejoinder to Allen Dyer’s perspective, articulated in earlier forums, that the best schools were…essentially… hoarding the best teachers).  Mike Smith stated that there were some “misrepresentations” regarding Common Core, which he supports.  I don’t know if he mentioned Altwerger by name, but his comments were clearly directed at her. 

Author’s note: Mike Smith also said that, under certain circumstances, having 35 students in a classroom is “OK.” Then again, he did admit to being “mathematically challenged.” So perhaps he doesn’t grasp the absurdity of his position.

Dr. Zaneb Beams probably had the best night.  She received applause, twice, during her introductory remarks.  She offered up a seemingly heart-felt request that we think of students as people (I believe the sentence was: “We don’t have FARMS students, we have students who are receiving help with food.”)  Many in the audience also reacted favorably to her belief that “Scores don’t make us great, dreams (and doing?) make us great.”  Call me a cynical jerk who has been in and around politics too long, but I thought the second line was a bit schmaltzy.   

Tension in the room.  There were accusations expressed by some audience members that certain candidates were expressing opinions that were not aligned with the facts on the ground.  There was a vividly worded query about the best way to “stop the bloodbath at the central office” that evoked some emotional responses from multiple candidates.   There were concerns articulated about the role that developers play in our political process.  There was an excellent question about the idiots (author’s note: my characterization) at Glenelg High School who were sporting a Confederate flag; some on the stage handled this topic better than others.

Democracy can be messy and the School Board is not meant to be a gathering of best friends.  I get those realities.  Nonetheless, the present dynamic appears rather corrosive.  Passions seem to be running high and the current mix of personalities, with their differing perspectives, histories and talents seem to be intruding upon the Board’s ability to set “local education policy consistent with state and federal laws governing public education.” (this one-sentence summary of the Board’s job description can be found at http://www.hcpss.org/board/). 

Who, if anyone, is to blame?  I am certain there are a variety of answers to that question.  That is not the point of this post.  My intention is to move the dialogue forward and ask, given where we are and given the pressing issues facing HCPSS, which four candidates, if elected, will do the most to help improve our schools?

With that in mind, I am likely to state my preference(s), for whatever that information is worth, next week.

 

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

Skulduggery in Oakland Mills?

Subtitle:  Open (Village) Covenants...Openly Arrived At

For the record, I am not stating that there was any illegal or otherwise nefarious goings-on involved in the decision by Alex Hekimian to not seek re-election as the Oakland Mills Representative to the Columbia Association Board of Directors, and the...presumably 11th hour... decision of current Oakland Mills Village Board Member Reg Avery to seek said post.

But secretive? Perhaps. Hence the use of the word "skulduggery" and the question mark.

Neither person was under any affirmative duty to disclose their electoral intentions in advance of the filing deadline.  Their actions, neither technically nor physically, prevented other candidates from filing for that position. 

However, as they say in the public relations business, the optics are bad.  Moreover, Mr. Avery's decision to run for another office, the Howard County Council, puts the Columbia Association...specifically the Board of Directors...in an awkward position.

In recent years, the CA Board in general (and certain members of the Board in particular) have adopted "transparency" as a watch-word.  A letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun from April 2013 touts Mr. Hekimian as the candidate of "openness and transparency." [The letter can be found here.]

So it does seem incongruous for such a person - someone committed to such values - to inform another person, privately and shortly before the filing deadline, "Hey, I am not going to run, but why don't you go ahead and put your paperwork in?" Because, from the outside, that looks exactly like what went down.

Would other candidates have run if Mr. Hekimian announced that he was not running for re-election? I am not a resident of Oakland Mills, but I am inclined to believe there would have been a contested race.

At this point, there is no apparent wrong-doing.  Even if there was a matter of collusion - which has not yet been proven - well, they played within the rules, right?  It might be neither just nor fair but politics is politics.   Not exactly what one expects in civic-minded Howard County, but "oh well," right? Or no?

So now Mr. Avery, as the sole candidate for the office, is poised to win election....however....

This brings us to the second major point of contention.  Mr. Avery is also a candidate for the Republican nomination for the Howard County Council (Second District).  The Columbia Association's Code of Ethics would seem to indicate that Mr. Avery, as a candidate for another office, would have to make a choice: either forgo your campaign for County Council between now and the election/the beginning of the new CA Board term, give up your quest to sit on the Columbia Association Board of Directors this time around, or apply for a waiver that would allow you to be seated.  However, that third option doesn't resolve the issue that the Columbia Association's Code of Ethics is intended to prevent: eliminating the possibility of a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropiety.

Mr. Avery's statements regarding the ability of other candidates to seek multiple offices (found in this article) are...disingenuous at best.  In those circumstances, the relevant state statutes permitted those candidates to run for two federal offices simultaneously.  Here, we have a case where the Columbia Association, a nonprofit service corporation that exercises quasi-public functions, seems to have clear rules in place that would prevent a member of the Board from running for another office.

Mr. Avery's interpretation of his attorney's perspective on the matter is not dispositive. 

If he continues with his course of action, running for County Council after being elected to the CA Board, he will require the Columbia Association Board of Directors to decide whether or not to seat him...or whether or not to grant him a waiver.  Beyond rewarding a decided lack of transparency, how will it look for the Board to ignore its own clear rules in such cases?  When others faced a similar situation, they did the right thing and stepped down from the Board. 

If elected and seated, how can Mr. Avery - with a straight face - extoll the virtues of transparency given how he arrived at the Board?

The answer seems to be clear: he should either vacate his current candidacy for one position or the other.  If he opts to give up his long-shot County Council race, he can take his seat on the CA Board (granted, he got there in a somewhat unseemly manner, but that matter can be addressed in a future election).  If he decides to end his candidacy for the CA Board, it appears as though there would need to be a new election for CA Rep from Oakland Mills.  Then, Mr. Avery can proceed with his quixotic and ultimately doomed District 2 campaign.

Definite shenanigans, which is too bad, given the energy that needs to be spent solving real issues.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.