A Letter To The Editor

LOUISE SMITH – WILL SHE OR WON’T SHE (place bets now and stay tuned today).

Four years ago – it seems much longer now – Salisbury was in the depths of the Tilghman Terror,” orchestrated by Barrie and compounded by the “Dream Team” majority of the City Council that were elected in 2003 (Dunn, Comegys and Cathcart), who almost daily were doing their utmost to bring down Debbie Campbell and other citizens who dared to differ with them, and in the process to devastate the entire City of Salisbury. Ms. Campbell’s effort to restore fiscal and budget sanity and sound management and to end such nonsense as huge “developer reimbursements” and massive land annexation made her a target for both the development industry and landlords and SAPOA, who still revile her for supporting regulation to control the rental industry. Barrie regularly attacked her enemies (the “dirty dozen,” which is an underestimate to be sure), and Bubba Comegys blasted the ubiquitous “cave people.”

Consequently, in early 2007 the time was right for Louise Smith to enter Salisbury’s political arena without any “baggage” or record, but with behind the scenes handlers that included such notables as “RINO Ron” Alessi and Brad Bellaciccio, and her “campaign manager,” Eleanor Mulligan. Ms. Smith seemed the perfect source of the “civility” that she and the Daily Times declared to be of paramount importance – never mind that Barrie and the Dream Team (with the assistance of Shanie Shields) were running the City into the ground: “TIF” deals with developers, the Salisbury Mall mess, shenanigans at Sassafras Meadows, the firehouse fiasco, the wastewater plant/sludge pit debacle, and other episodes too numerous to mention.

Those circumstances allowed Smith to portray herself as an experienced career “auditor” (apparently in some school system in Florida) who would be a true fiscal conservative and public watchdog. According to a front page article in the Daily Times (March 9, 2007) shortly after the primary that reduced the field to 6 candidates – “Smith’s mantra is accountability. She said the city needs to be fiscally accountable and better prioritize where it spends its limited funds.” It also reported that “Smith emphasized the importance of working together on issues of affordable housing and parking” and that she was “adamantly against” the multi-million dollar TIF loan by the City to redevelop the Salisbury Mall site.

Her rhetoric made the right-wingers go ga-ga. This appeared on one such blog on the same day as the Daily Times article: “Now I know Louise a little bit because she’s one of my predecessors on the [Wicomico County Republican] Central Committee. Obviously she feels accountability is paramount, and with her background and experience I’ve no doubt she’d be quite an asset to City Council.” Shortly before the general election, Smith changed her position on the TIF deal, telling the Daily Times that she would not vote to stop it.

In early April, Smith was the top vote-getter in the general election, in which Bubba Comegys and Terry Cohen also were elected.

Boy were we fooled by Smith’s charade as a candidate and what was a brilliant campaign in which she concealed her support from developers and landlords and managed to appear closely aligned with Debbie Campbell and in support of the same positions that she held on many matters. Many voters thought that there was a ticket of sorts with Smith, Cohen and Tim Spies – and some who supported the other two worked and voted for Smith. That won’t happen again this year.

Almost immediately upon taking office we learned the hard way just how badly Louweasel had duped us when she spearheaded the huge property tax and budget increase requested by 

Tilghman (and the Charter amendment that was necessary to pass those increases) and fell out with both Ms. Campbell and Ms. Cohen to form a clique with Comegys and Shields, commonly called the “3 stooges”, who danced to Barrie’s tune until the 2009 election. Since then she has been at odds with Ireton as well as Campbell and Cohen, and the 3 stooges have been a thorn in their sides.

During her tenure on the Council and as its president for almost 4 years now, things have been just as acrimonious as during the era of Barrie and the Dream Team, if not more so when she and Ireton have squared off during City Council meetings. And the City has descended deeper into the abyss, with such stellar moves as the new fireboat, rehabilitation of “the Bricks” and accepting the “gift” of the polluted site that once was the home of “Linens of the Week” and the “Sunshine Laundry” to name just a few.

So, this afternoon Louweasel is going to announce her decision whether to run for reelection this year. Street talk is that SAPOA is backing her and that the Chamber of Commerce director, Brad Bellaciccio, is once again touting her candidacy to its members. The boys in Vegas are giving good odds (4 to 1) that she will run, but much worse odds (3 to 2) that she would be reelected now that her true colors have been revealed. That may explain why the smart money people (SAPOA, etc.) are also backing Boda.

And, if Smith runs, what falsehoods will she fabricate to pull the wool over our eyes this time?