First off, I’m not going to call Jonathan Taylor “The Fat Man” any more and I’d like you to refrain from doing so too. A part of today stemmed from us once being friendly, but no more, and from him being friendly with Debbie Campbell, but no more. I think a lot of what he’s done is wrong, but I’m not doing the right thing by making fun of his weight.
Further, while he sent even more complaints on his ever-expanding complaint just this morning, he’s fully within his rights to file an ethics complaint, misguided though it may be. The real culprits here are Barrie Tilghman for doing what she knew damn well was wrong to do, out of spite, and to cause trouble, and Louise, Gary and Shanie for staging this set up right with her. John Pick and Paul Wilber have a lot to answer for too, just my opinion.
Jonathan’s complaint alleged that Terry was guilty for voting on whether to add council health insurance back in after Barrie cut it out (she voted “nay” and you’ll see why below) and for voting on the budget with her health insurance in it. It also alleged that Terry “advocated” for her insurance or for Debbie’s. Of course, since Debbie was sick the night of these votes, the best Jonathan could possibly get on her was allegedly “advocating” for her health insurance.
All I can say is, if they are found guilty, which I can’t believe after watching those proceedings they will be, people need to stand in line file an ethics complaint against Shanie. Also against Gary and Louise.
Terry Cohen made one hell of a case (without an attorney) that you can’t bind and gag legislators to this degree or they’d never be able to do what they’re supposed to do. She showed how this all began (now these are my words reporting, so don’t jump on Terry or Debbie as putting it as bluntly as I’m going to) when Debbie Campbell couldn’t reimburse her full premium after doing so for three years. Debbie is the ONLY councilperson to reimburse the city as far as city clerk Brenda Colegrove could recall about this policy that goes back decades.
Sorry for the long post, but honestly, Terry was so detailed in what she presented, I had a hard time keeping up.
She showed how the salary review committee had included benefits in its deliberations and the council voted on that. She showed how Barrie pulling her stunt violated the charter and the code. She debunked city administrator John Pick (see, for the new folks, I’m trying to include the background of who’s who) when he said elected officials were a different class with Blue Cross Blue Shield. No, they aren’t. They are treated the same as all city employees, and pay the same difference in premium as employees for dependents.
But the bombshell was, she showed how Barrie (with the help of Pick, Wilber and Oland, I might add) VIOLATED THE MARYLAND CONSTITUTION! Yes, you heard me, the state constitution! You should have seen Paul Wilber scribbling notes like crazy. So there was NOTHING wrong with voting on the budget, NOTHING. And that staged "vote of support" Gary wanted? Clearly a set up to get Debbie and Terry to vote on something very isolated about the health insurance so the ethics violation would have a better chance of sticking. My bet is Louise just went along with Terry because she's starting to kiss up to the public again for another run for office. Louise used Terry and her supporters (and Debbie's and Tim Spies') before, but she sure isn't going to get them again. (Look, Louise, it's politics. I understand that. We can talk and be nice. But I'll call this political b.s. exactly what it is, just so you know.)
Debbie had an attorney with her, and it was clear from their piece that Debbie had done no wrong. With today’s extended complaint, Jonathan showed it was really Debbie he was after, but she spoiled everything for him and everybody by getting sick! ROTFLMAO!
A lot more of the charges fell on Terry then, but she handled it like a champ. The thing that got me was how she described the chronology of events. Even though she said things with kid gloves and even said how this could bring some good changes in how the city does things, it was pretty clear to me that while Louise has recently put on a good face about this issue publicly, she managed the timeline just so to help set a trap.
Gary? OMG!!!! This guy didn’t say a word about health insurance for his buddy Michael Day, but now that it was Debbie’s insurance, after she paid out of pocket for three years UNLIKE ANYBODY else, Gary was happy to go on the attack and sound like a budget watchdog. Voting with favoritism…isn’t that UNETHICAL? “It’s personal.” Voting on that basis…isn’t that UNETHICAL? Salisbury has to be crazy to elect this guy again and I can’t stress enough that you people have to stop voting him in. At least you made the right choice with Jim Ireton over Gary, and by a BIG margin.
Shanie, well, Shanie’s Shanie. She “agreed” to drop the insurance. “Agreed?” Agreed to what? And who with? Things that make you go “hmmmmm.”
Sorry again for such a long post, but you people said you wanted background and detail, so I’m trying to deliver. It’s not easy with all that is constantly going on around town and in the area. I’ll leave the analysis to G.A. He might even have an interesting word or two to say about John Pick’s presence there. And if Jonathan’s name has to come up again, I’ll just call him Jonathan. I hope to control my own self and not feed this guy’s sad need for attention and revenge for what offense, I don’t know.
The last note I’ll leave you with is, the Ethics Commission chairman couldn’t be there today, so they elected Bob Gladden to preside. At the end, Gladden, who did the right thing and disclosed in the beginning that he was a former councilman who was on insurance, said he just didn’t see a violation here. And Paul Wilber jumped in and told him that they had to meet in closed session to arrive at their conclusion. We all waited hoping for an answer, but they came out and said, it was reached but not final. That might just mean putting it on paper, but we will see.
Seriously, this was a real lesson in democracy and the Ethics Commission members seemed like nice people who took what they were doing to heart. It’s a shame that everyone had to have their time wasted (and Terry and Debbie had their names dragged through the mud) because of a spiteful mayor and a vengeful former friend, but maybe it’ll produce some of the needed changes Terry spoke about so we can have a better government. Again, we will see.
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