Crisfield Is Empty Tonight

It looks like the entire town has driven up to the board meeting tonight in westover. Go Crisfield!!

Here they come

The boat bringing the islanders to crisfield for tonight's board of Ed meeting

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

It was so nice that Joe and Debbie could have their little meeting after they hired Mark Tilghman last night.

Stevie Prettyman Gains My Respect

Stevie Prettyman gained a lot of respect from me today for doing the right thing no matter how unpopular some in her own political party wanted to paint this decision. It takes lots of courage to stand up for what is right even to your own friends. Stevie thank you for doing the right thing and changing your vote.

Join The Wicomico County Democratic Club tonight at Break Time to watch President Obama's State Of The Union Address. The speech is scheduled to start at 9

County Council Changes Mind

The county has changed its mind and will be supporting the Bennett middle project

Parents and Former Crisfield and Washington High Graduates Tonight Is The Time To Be Heard

Ladies and gentlemen, eleven years ago the Somerset County Board of Education voted to close Crisfield High School (CHS) and consolidate it with Washington High (WHS) in their Princess Anne building. Subsequently, the citizens of Somerset County united , attended the next Board meeting and with one voice told the Board that for the academic future of our children, both schools must be retained. In a revote of the Board that evening, the “consolidation plan” was overturned by a 3 to 2 vote.

Our County school system is again under similar duress! Our newly installed Superintendent, Dr. Miles, is proposing to consolidate CHS and WHS (10-12 grades) in the new Intermediate School building located in Westover next to the Board of Education facility. The intermediate grades of 6-9 would then be split and occupy the current CHS and WHS buildings. Miles’ reasoning for making these moves is “enhanced academic achievement” as CHS has failed federal academic achievement requirements for the past four years while under the guidance and supervision of principal Monique Ward.

This “realignment” of schools has nothing to do with that which is required to get CHS back on track academically. What is required and that which the State Department of Education requires, is a “restructuring” of CHS which entails replacing the ineffective administrators and teachers of the school. This normally involves 21-27 percent school personnel turnover and historically results in the effected school passing federal academic standards after two years of rigorous educational improvements.

Consolidating all our County high school students into one large facility is not the answer as has been proven in other counties of our State – in fact it is the exactly the opposite! It has been proven that small school sizes of 350 students and small student/teacher ratios of 12:1 are the answer for successful academic achievement.
The Board of Ed will hold a meeting tomorrow evening at 7 PM (Tuesday, 1/24) at their offices in Westover, where they are looking for public input on this divisive move by the Superintendent. We, the citizens of Somerset County, must unite and with one voice demand that our school system remain aligned as is, and that the Superintendent attend to the task for which she was hired: “enhanced student achievement and academic standards through effectively educating our children”!

Please, for the future of our schools and our children’s academic achievement, attend this 7 PM meeting and don’t go alone, fill your car with other citizens and especially – parents who currently have children in our school system. We hope to see you there!!

Comment Worthy A Post

FYI: Mark Tilghman was indeed hired as an attorney for Princess Anne and several other small local municipalities. Tilghman was also FIRED from several of those positions. So while his resume may say he has had experience representing local cities, he has also experienced FAILURE doing those jobs. The council was never offered a chance to do an in depth background check on Tilghman because Kickback Campbell knew if this information got out, Tilghman would be disqualified for the position. Campbell and Cohen have gotten the Tilghmans' free legal advise for years. Now the Tilghmans have been bestowed the coveted position of Salisbury City Solicitor at 1/4 million dollars a year on taxpayer money. Corruption is spelled Campbell, Cohen, Spies and Tilghman.

Warning Do Not Write Your Elected Representatives

I want to send a clear message to the residents of Salisbury and Wicomico County do not write any emails or letters to your elected representatives as they can and will be sent to people that can and will use them to ridicule you or your family in public.

I finally got my response from Ed Baker on the matter and found out we the public have no protection when we hit send as it is at the discretion of any council member that receives it what they do with it. You have been warned

Salisbury City Solicitor Nonsense It's Time To Get Real

Last night the City of Salisbury officially was taken over by the Camden neighborhood, and Debbie Campbell got another of her enemies out of Salisbury. A point was made clearly by Laura Mitchell, Shanie Shields and Jim Ireton that why did there have to be such a rush to approve a new Solicitor without any input from the Department heads or the executive branch regarding Paul Wilber's work when it is they who deal with him the most.

The answer is very simple it is the continuing purge of anything related to Barrie Tilghman regardless of their work performance. Debbie Campbell has been scheming for years to ditch Paul Wilber and when she got her people in power the first thing that they could do to make that a reality happened (a change to the City Charter to allow the City Council majority to fire the City Solicitor). They allowed no public input or discussions they needed him gone that was the way and here we are less than 2 months after the change and they have gotten rid of Paul Wilber which proves every single one correct that this is what they were after all along.

Then it gets better. Instead of opening up the search nationwide for anyone that may be interested in the position they choose Mark Tilghman who is personal BFF's with all three of them. The theatrics of the Council majority last night were right out of Cirque du Soleil. Debbie Campbell had to tell everyone of all the lawyers that she has ever crossed paths with and even had brought copies of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States for everyone in attendance. Terry Cohen had to lecture us little School children about the drama we were causing by accusing them of a conflict and Tim had to tell us he was worth more than 50 dollars.

The issue in their minds is a straight letter of the law on what is unethical. They kept insisting that campaign contributions or having done business with the Tilghman law firm in no way makes this unethical because they know lots of people and if they followed that rule they couldn't hire anyone. They are not benefiting financially by this move so that makes us little peoples complaint null and void. This is all a big joke to them. The thing is to have ethics you must also have morals which  neither of the Council majority members have.

Do they think us so naive that we don't know the truth and that is that while they may not make money off hiring Mark Tilghman, they are rewarding their close personal friend with a 250 grand a year job on taxpayer money. The real conflict of interest lies with Mark Tilghman even accepting this offer.Mark's wife Susan has sat in for Debbie Campbell at events that she couldn't make it to, Debbie and Terry and Tim worked side by side with Mark and Susan during the Salisbury Neighborhood Alliance days. Mark Tilghman has been Debbie Campbell's personal attorney in both legal and land matters and Debbie Campbell has held campaign strategy sessions in his office. Terry Cohen has multiple photos of the happy group at one of Debbie's meeting in 2006 click here to look yourself .

Rewarding personal friends with jobs at taxpayer expense is cronyism at it's highest level. The things that amuse me about this bunch is that when they were complaining about how terrible Barrie Tilghman did things, they painted themselves out as these virtues of truth and justice when in reality it was just all a front for a personal payback, and now that they are in power they are doing things far worse than Barrie Tilghman ever did.

 Everyone that is anyone in the local political world knows how this group is tied at the hip and for Debbie Campbell to bring copies of our founding fathers works was the biggest laugh at all. Debbie should have been handing them out for toilet paper because what they pulled last night was exactly what they were trying to keep from happening, and that was stopping a people that consider themselves an elite class from ruling over the little people.