A Letter To The Editor: Wicomico County Decends Into Pit of Dispair

It's easy to feel discouraged about what is happening to our county. One just has to look at how our government is operating and it simply makes you sick. Good morals and ethics seem to be a thing of the past. We now seem to be operating under the guise of "Now that I'm elected, appointed I can do what I want," mentality. Let's just look at what has recently been transpiring and you tell me if it's moral and ethical.

• Board of Education State Audit - Our county gets a large portion of it's funding from the State. (still your tax dollars) The State wants to know how we are spending the money and if we are following the rules. WCBOE tells them we are following our own rules and the State simply doesn't understand. As for saving 3.2 million in just the bus contracts alone well we choose to do this because  our relationship with the bus contractors is special. (really doesn't matter that they are spending your tax dollars). And if anyone is concerned about overpaying a number of employees well it's not really a bad thing. This is just done to encourage quality employees to stay at the BOE. (Your taxes again and remember, you have to give the BOE your tax dollars but they can do whatever they want with that money.) $162,000.00 to bribe parents to come to school functions is just normal. It takes pizzas and subs to get these parents to a school function. If a few dollars were spent for other luncheons, board meetings and staff meetings what difference does it make? After all, " It's For the Kids,". There is just so much wrong in this area that I want to know why the State's Attorney hasn't looked into this matter. The county council is now starting on the county's new budget and you better believe the BOE will be there telling us how under funded and under paid everyone is. The council shouldn't spend one dime on the BOE until a forensic audit is completed so they know exactly where they stand. Remember, this wasn't a complete State audit. They relied on reports givens to them by other auditors and information given to them by the BOE. Given the BOE's way of justifying spending I would have a lot of questions to ask. Another question I have is why is Mr. Pollitt staying out of this? Isn't he concerned about how our tax dollars are being spent or does he simply agree with it? Why hasn't he called for a forensic audit as was done with the Landfill Fiasco?
• Sage Reports! Anyone getting tired of them? If you notice these reports do not include anything in them that the People of Wicomico County haven't said at other meetings. We are spending money for these opinions that the County Executive should be coming up with. That's why he was hired. That's why he has an expensive staff. With the money spent on Sage Reports and Florida Corporations Analysis of the Civic Center and others we could have repaired all the pot holes in the county. Mr. Pollitt, here's just a simple suggestion. Contact all Wicomico Country businesses and simply just ask them, are you in financial trouble, are you planning on closing or relocating, what can the county do to help you, what will it take for you to increase your business and hire more employees? Perhaps something as simple as that could help. Isn't it at least worth a little effort instead of waiting for The SAGE Report?
• Council Re-votes - How many times should we hold re-votes on issues? Let's see, Bennett re-vote (because of some startling new facts that just came about), salary re-vote (even though nothing has changed economically since the last vote but now I'm here) and now I hear that Becker-Morgan wants a re-vote on the outcome of the Election Board rental deal. I'm not sure what's in this deal for them. ( Let me think a minute here. I keep hearing that name "Becker-Morgan". Isn't that the firm that Mr. Conway worked for at one time? And isn't it one of those architecture firms that for some reason doesn't have to submit competitive bids to the BOE for services? What's the deal with that? I understand for large projects A&E firms work on a percentage  of the total value of a job and can run into the millions of dollars. Are there any other types of firms that enjoy this non competitive process for getting county work? Now I know someone out there has an answer to this so please respond.
•  Long Term County Leases - Just recently there was the Board of Election fiasco that is just as disgusting in so many ways. I have been following this one for awhile. From attending other meetings it appears that the County Executive's Office has been trying to move this issue through the contractual stage in a hurry because Salisbury University is in a hurry to acquire the property the Board of Elections is renting. The Executive's Office, I  believe, was expecting to have an approval at the April 1st evening council meeting. Councilman Joe Holloway then stated he had talked with the current owners of the property that the Board of Elections is currently renting from that morning.  The property owner stated that  SU had not contacted him about purchasing his property and that he was not trying to push the Election Board off of his property. So what's the deal here folks? Why was the County Executive's Office pushing so hard for this deal? Someone out there knows this answer. Please bring it out in the open. When it was suggested that a new facility for the Election Board be built so that at the end of ten years the County would at least have something to show for almost a million dollars that would have been paid in renting, the executive's assistant stated that the county had a 230 million dollar capital budget campaign and there simply wasn't enough funds to go around. That's where the question comes in about how can the county somehow afford to pay this rent but not put the same money to a bond for a new or renovated building. Then it was pointed out by an audience member that the county was already renting space at the Adkins's Building for the WIC program. Why wasn't this brought out during previous discussions when comparisons were being done about dollar per square foot costs? No one on the council, the county attorney, county administrator or the executive's office seemed to recollect anything about this. Someone mentioned that the rent might be being paid by some kind of "pass through funding". At one point during the discussion Mr. Hall was trying to convince the people that one of the reasons this area was safe was because there was an eight foot fence with razor wire at the top out behind the building. I guess he didn't hear the laughter from the audience when someone asked what he thought the fence and wire were there for. I better watch it, he'll be calling me a "Naysayer" again. Another important item was that the Council President didn't recuse himself from the vote since his landlord is the person presenting the lease to the council. Then he went on to lecture everyone about the "What Ifs"  not letting this deal move forward.  Well, the deal was voted down, for now. We're still waiting for round two to see which Come Back Kid brings it up again.

Conclusion:

Sometimes I think I'm reading too much into all this but to me it's as plain as the nose on your face. We have some rotten people in our county doing what I call immoral and unethical practices with the taxpayers money. Why the State's Attorney hasn't stepped in or any Ethic Boards held investigations into all this I for one truly don't know. Why should the taxpayers be treated this way?

 John Palmer, Delmar, Md.