Introduction and Smart-Mouth Remarks

Dear Reader,

Welcome to my blog!

It's about Takoma Park, Maryland's election campaign. Reader, you are part of a verrry small demographic if this interests and effects you.

Disclaimers: I am "Glibert", I am anonymous. It's a small town soIf I wasn't anonymous I couldn't be my free-wheelin', mouthy self. Also, if I'm anonymous, I don't have to waste time checking my facts! It's an on-the-fly blog, reader, and likely full of spelling and factual errors. My own candidate preference - SLIGHTLY for the incumbent, Mayor Porter. I could still be swayed the other way, however.

Here's the election situation. We've got Kathy Porter, who has been mayor since 1997 (last millenium!), running for re-election. She's challenged by local computer consultant Seth Grimes. He's been involved in a group called Sustainable Takoma, a group of typical TP homeowners, which is to say, they are greying progressives, folks who were street-fighting activists in their hippie youths, but find themselves fighting for fiscal conservative measures to bring down their property taxes. Maybe it's a side effect of bi-focals.

Seth was also a member of the "TASDI" citizen committee. This is pronouced "Taz-dee" and you are not cool in this town if you don't know what it means. if you can't pronounce it right, they won't let you vote.

It stands for Residents Committee Tax and Service Duplication Issues, except it doesn't, as you can see. If it did, it would be RCTSDI, or "Rickets-dee". I don't get it, if they wanted a catchy name (not that TASDI approaches catchy by hundreds of miles), why not actually name it something catchy that explains to the uninitiated what it's all about - like "Give Us Our Goddamn Money Back!"

Seth will tell you (several times) that he served on this committee and that he is better prepared than anyone on the planet, especially anyone currently occupying the Mayor's cushy-backed chair (slightly taller than the other council-members' cushy-backed chairs), to take the county to the mat and force them to give us more of a tax rebate to cover duplicate services. (for instance, the county has a police force, the city has a police force, so we don't use the county's, but the county still keeps some of the tax money for their police force).

Kathy will patiently explain that she's been there, done that and we have hardly any leverage with the county to get the rebates we do.

They laid it all out at the Voice candidates forum, a "fun" evening of droning voices puncuated by the awkward moments when candiates disagreed with each other - awkward because after all, they're all neighbors and they see each other all the time. This is particularly so in the Ward 2 city council race.

The residents of Ward 2 must be agonizing over which candidate for city council to vote for. Both have virtually the same positions on all the issues, both are very similar in their credentials and backgrounds. They even have similar first names: Colleen and Eilleen. On top of that, candidates and voters being neighbors it makes it even more difficult as it becomes something of a popularity contest.

If I lived in that ward I might decide based on which one could get me the best discount for Girl Scout cookies - that would be scout leader Colleen Clay. On the other hand, I might go for the one with the best sense of humor. That might be Eilleen Sobeck, based on the spontaneous exchange between candidates at the start of their debate. Moderator Eric Bond flipped a coin to establish the first speaker. To do this he borrowed a quarter from Ms. Clay. but then missed the catch when he flipped it, sending it flying off the stage. Councilman Terry Seamans scrambled to find it under a table (I love living in a small town), proclaming "tails" which meant Ms Sobeck went first. She immediately quipped that one difference between her and her opponent is that "I can handle money better!" This was met with a humorless glare from Ms. Clay.

That said, Ms Sobeck did admit she is a lawyer, an environmental lawyer, but a lawyer nonetheless. Ms. Clay seems like more of a community activist, but for the last three years she said she's been a HUD employee. There's something about people who work for the government, even (or especially) for agencies that are involved in issues such as the environment or housing, that rings my alarms. It's the suspicion that they think they are doing us a favor by bringing in their expertise. I'm not so sure. I'm afraid that bringing "big government" people into local government is going to limit the extent of creative thinking and programs - because they are going to want to make everyting local fit the federal thinking and programs.

Of course, one difference is that one candidate is a lesbian. I wonder if that will be the deciding factor. The Ward 2 council seat is being vacated by a lesbian. In this progressive community the sexual orientation of a candiate elicits mostly shrugs from the straight people. If the large number of lesbians at the forum crowd is any indication, though, it could well be a big deal in their community, and many may vote their "orientation".

Another difference is that while Ms Clay sports a short hairstyle, Ms. Sobeck has long, flowing blonde tresses. In my flippant mind that raises the question akin to one raised in the forum - which was how can each of them, as parents, find the time to do that and serve on the council. I further question how a person can have the time to be a parent, serve on the council, AND take care of a nearly waist-length hair!

I'm too tired to go on to the main event. So, next time I'll write more about Seth and Kathy

---Gilbert

PS, If you see a note in the comments section below that comments have been deleted, the deleted comments were spam messages.