Did the Middle Patuxent from 108 to Kindler Rd about 10 years ago. There are several "strainers" (total blockages of downed trees and sticks) that we had to get out and carry the kayak around. Mostly in the Middle Patuxent Envinormental Area. Under the 29 bridge there is about a 2-3 ft concrete dropoff which we decided to get out and portage around also.

It's pretty shallow year round, there were a few spots where we bottomed out bad enough at least one of us had to get out and pull/push.

But it was a pleasant float, the water is very calm, and the scenery is pretty good!

I don't disagree with you, but I also want to point out that HoCo already has elementary schools that start at 9:15. (And, yes, it is a giant middle finger to working parents.)

The MSLA is a state agency, that doesn't mean that things under their purview are state agencies too.

For example, the county school system is under the purview of the MD state board of ed, that doesn't make the county schools a state agency.

> The HCLS IS a state agency. This is not ambiguous.

Can you point to any source other than these report which explains this? I have tried and I can't find any kind of explanation for how the 24 individual county library systems are "state agencies". I understand they are chartered and run differently than county executive agencies, but that doesn't make them a state agency.

So what does?

ok, thanks, I see it. It's a super brief mention for it being kind of the only thing they substantiated in the report. I think that's where the "they investigated themselves" is showing through. Anyone else doing an investigation would probably want to, like, draw attention to what they found.

> It seems like a lot of the problems in this situation could have been solved by the "investigators" who "staked out" the event attempting to actually enter the event rather than drawing conclusions from the parking lot. If they were turned away, it's not a public event and there is something worth investigating. If they were allowed in, the event is perfectly fine by library policy.

God yes, it seems like whoever was on this "stake out" was having some covert agent fantasy instead of just figure out what was going on.

BUT what is missing from the HCLS's report is any mention of the 4-hour early closing. (I read kinda fast, maybe I missed it.) My guess is this is actually a policy loophole, there's probably no policy that actually prohibits this. But it's so strange, I can't imagine the library agreeing to do that for other events.

It's obvious from the report that HCLS thinks they are a state agency and not subject to county audits, but that's really not clear. The county pays over 80% of the library budget. I would be surprised if the county charter and other laws allowed them to substantially fund an organization but not be allowed to audit it. It's actually a complex legal issue.

I think this is one of those cases where (you're right) it was really insignificant. But rather than just cooperate with the auditor for, at worst, a minor finding, they decided to fight against oversight and then double down on it.

IMO oversight is important even if the stuff they find is usually trivial. The fact the library system thinks they're beyond oversight is a problem, and I hope the county council deals with that problem. I don't care one bit about what actually happened with this party/event. It's the "cover up" that bothers me.

He does... but the library also acted pretty shady which makes me wonder what really happened.

> "Private orgs use libraries all the time for meetings."

How often do they close the library for these, though? (Honest question, I don't actually know but I would assume they don't usually do that.)

Have you tried curry'n'pie? (It's a little far from Columbia, in Elkridge or Catonsville, N on Rt 1.)

Yeah I don't see what is a "pipedream" about Columbia being a city. Columbia has around 100k residents, about 1/3 of Howard county, and CA has a budget of around $70m. Columbia could absolutely support itself as a small city with that budget. I admit I don't know anything about how MD laws relate to "cities". I feel like it should be possible to have a "city" and a "mayor" and a "council" and still be part of the larger county... but maybe I'm wrong and there's something odd in MD law that prevents that (lots of those states have that without having the cities be independent). It think that would be much better than the current setup.

If it was to be "independent" (from Howard County) then I can see how that would be problematic. I think, tax and size wise, the city could support itself. But removing it from Howard County would probably fairly well eviscerate the county so there would be little political support from basically any politicians in the entire state.

Grassroots, off Cedar Lane, can help you.

They have a shelter, which you may be able to stay at. They also have counseling services. Call them, and they'll help you figure out what to do and where you can go.

> Grassroots operates a 24-hour crisis intervention and supportive counseling hotline. Individuals may call for a variety of reasons including suicide, family and relationship problems, shelter needs, violent or threatening domestic situations, loneliness or depression, and chemical dependency issues, among others. Callers may remain anonymous. > > Callers can reach the Grassroots hotline at 410-531-6677. > > https://www.grassrootscrisis.org/services/crisis-intervention/

Speed camera laws vary by county. I am not sure what the law is in MoCo but the speed cameras are everywhere. In HoCo, they are only allowed to place speed cameras in school zones. They do exist, but there are not a lot of them.

They finished a new high school (opening this fall) so they had to re-do districts for that. I haven't seen any evidence the school system cares about the safety of walking children.... they recently decided to stop bus service to more kids who live > 1 mile from their school in order to make them walk.

Back in my day... I didn't have to walk over a mile to school because that's fucking ridiculous.

> That racism reared its ugly head in the school redistricting fights.

I am not saying there isn't racism, but just because some schoolboard and county council members tried to make redistricting about race does not mean that opposing that redistricting plan is racist.

If you look at the results of that "successful" redistricting you'll see that it had basically no impact on school diversity but it opened up a bunch of new areas for fresh developments. It all goes back to developer money in this county.

> such as townhomes

Dude, townhomes in Columbia are >$600k now. IDK about new apartment complexes, but I doubt anyone living in the Merriweather District or Ten.M or whatever is going in there because it is cheap.

"High density" housing (townhomes and apartments) is not automatically "affordable". People need to realize it so we can stop gifting this stuff to developers and then scratching our heads when it's still impossible for non-rich people to live in the county.

An honest attempt at a reasonable/civil answer:

I think being a "sanctuary" community has little to do with whether or how immigration laws should be enforced. What is critically important is that these communities are already here. While they are here, they need to feel they can trust the local government and the local police to address local issues.

If someone who is "mexican" looking gets assulted in this county, I 100% want them to report that to police and I want them to get medical attention from EMTs or HoCoGeneral. I don't want Police, EMTs, or Doctors trying to call ICE on someone they are supposed to be helping because that person speaks spanish or whatever. And this isn't just illegals, this impacts people who live near them or are friends with them, or legals who don't speak good english and are scared of getting into expensive court trouble despite their having legal status. It happens. All. the. time.

And you shouldn't want that either. The reason "sanctuary communities" exist is because having local police indistingiuishable from ICE means that policing effectively doesn't exist for this huge swath of people. What happens when you have no police? Anarchy, every police loving conservative should know that.

AND "sanctuary" doesn't prevent ICE from doing their job. And if there is other crime (drugs, human trafficking, etc) mixed up with illegals then you can bet local PD will be all over it anyway.

tl;dr Let the PD work for the people who are living here (no matter where they are from) and let ICE worry about whether those people are allowed to live here or not.