[RP TownTalk] Ward 1 Council Seat Here we go again

Sat Mar 5 04:57:31 UTC 2016

Vernon

Despite your request that I just silently resign so as to "save your family, yourself, and the town the needless embarrassment and trauma of removing you" I will not be bullied by your continued misuse of public monies.  My family will be there on Monday so you can look Ashley and Annelie Sofie in the eye, as well as the rest of the town, to defend your continued wanton and profligate spend of taxpayer money on legal fees.

Again, for the record, the question you are attempting to bring up cannot be considered by Council retroactively.  The motion (which has no backup material posted or provided) is in itself materially deficient for consideration due to the lack of anything existing in our Charter.  Section 209 does define a mechanism regarding absenteeism but fails to define the standards and process from which it is determined.  If this was such an egregious issue, you and the Council had a due process obligation to:

1)      Define an official policy of determining unexcused vs. excused absences

2)      Determination and notification of absences as they occurred, not retroactively

I followed the long established particular practice that has been followed as a matter of established custom of informing the Town prior to a meeting's commencement of absences.  No mention of absences from meetings have ever come up ever by you or Council until this week, shortly after the attached email below I sent you regarding Jey's Auto that asked you to stop ignoring Ordinances that were passed three years ago.

The town lacks any formal rules of procedure in determining unexcused vs. excused absences and certainly did not take up either as a discussion item, much less as an official motion, the determination in any meeting of if an absence is excused or not.  If this was such a serious issue to you as a Ward 1 constituent why would you wait until now to bring it up?  If you felt it so important why not make bring this up after the 2nd absence or even 3rd?  Why would you wait until after a special election just occurred only to insist another one must happen?

Due process, legislative process, and rules of order have been ignored other than your 'gotcha' letter on Wednesday which is little more than another thinly veiled continuation of the failed attempt you initiated in June at the taxpayer's expense as my wife and newly born infant daughter were in the hospital.  Again, I ask the basic question since you are already threatening that you will force the town incur at least 100k in taxpayer paid legal fees if you force me to file an injunction with the Circuit Court (to which you will be deposed under penalty of perjury) - how much public money are you going to waste on this vs. spending on real town priorities like infrastructure repair and economic development.

Let's be clear, the seats we hold have duties and obligations beyond just attending meetings.  They dictate that ordinances are not picked and chosen by the mayor on what gets acted on and what gets ignored.  They dictate that we are fiduciaries of the town and do not spend public monies on wasteful, transparent political actions.  These aren't 'dirty tricks' during an election cycle that you are funding personally, you are making decisions that have financial consequences and spending taxpayer money on this.  Call it 'lashing out' as much as you want to deflect responsibility but ultimately taxpayer money is being spent - that truth cannot be avoided or denied.

Let's look at my legislative record since I am sure the public can clearly see that through it that I have always had a strategic vision for the town:
-Paperless Governance
-Consent Agenda for more efficient meetings
-Purchasing Oversight
-Business Licenses to remove illegal storefront churches from Town Center
-Business Grant Program (which brought in development to a defunct Town Center)
-Business Competition
-Jey's Auto Eminent Domain (passed 3 years ago still yet to be filed)
-Town Center Market
-Phase II EYA
-Cafritz/Whole Foods lead negotiator (this project failed within your administration prior to my 2011 election and in much better economic conditions)
-Bikram Yoga
-Bridge over CSX as a condition and funded 1/3 by the Cafritz Development team
-Strongest Stormwater Management conditions on development projects
-Strongest design mandates for new construction builds in town (despite your objections and the cause of some of the animosity you have towards me when I was successful)
-Public Art Initiative
-Farmers Market Expansion
-Trolley Trail Finalization and mandatory conditioning with Cafritz
-Jazz at the Mansion Program Expansion/Funding
-Certified Sustainable Maryland  Community
-Establishment of the Lions Club Scholarship
-Quiet Zone that you routinely de-prioritized and asked 'do you really want this'
-Fighting the County and 7-Eleven on their zoning violations October 2015
-WITHHOLDING OF 100% OF MY COUNCIL PAY AND DONATION OF OVER 200% OF IT TO LOCAL NON-PROFITS

I was shocked to find out exactly how much you spent in June 2015 to try to deprive me of my elected seat.  The very sad thing about all of this is you ran initially on a promise of two terms and of transparency and open government.  Where is that now?  I don't know why you feel so threatened by me.  I never wanted your job, I only wanted to bring a quality of life that this town deserves.

Jonathan

_______________________________________________________________________
From: Jonathan W. Ebbeler [mailto:jebbeler at riverdaleparkmd.gov]
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2016 10:10 AM
To: Vernon Archer <varcher at gmail.com>
Cc: Alan K. Thompson <akthompson at riverdaleparkmd.gov>
Subject: Re: Jey's Auto

This is disappointing given that you should have reported back to council that the negotiations failed. If you remember, the agreement of direction given by council was to pause filing the ED lawsuit and entertain the negotiation because there was a possibility of development without him in the picture. I would suspect that has probably been a dead issue for six or more months.

Either way the direction given was clear and the eminent domain should have been filed. The legislation that passed directed the action of filing, not to wait for a pie in the sky proposal. If Jey had any intent on pursuing that he would have years ago.

Please include in your mayors report on the anticipated timeline for Fred or another firm filing an eminent domain case and/or next steps etc. The public has been asking and it's been almost three years since the legislation directing the town to acquire the property was passed.  There is no plausible excuse to wait on filing.

On Feb 27, 2016, at 6:44 AM, Vernon Archer <varcher at gmail.com<mailto:varcher at gmail.com>> wrote:
Sorry for slow response but got caught up in my not immediate list.  Nothing new to report, we would love to see a real proposal--MUTC compliant-- from "Jay's" side and will gladly go to eminent domain in pursuit of an equally real proposal.

On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Jonathan W. Ebbeler <jebbeler at riverdaleparkmd.gov<mailto:jebbeler at riverdaleparkmd.gov>> wrote:
Mr. Mayor

Can I get a status update on what is going on with Jey's Auto.  I have had numerous people pinging me asking for answers I do not have.

Much Appreciated!
JWE

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