County Commissioner Candidates: Who's Who

Cumberland in all her Fall glory. I snatched this lovely photo
 from Jake Shade's website.Thanks for the contribution, Jake. :)

AH! Three-weeks til November 4^th! Get excited.

Last week we looked at the City Council candidates. This week let’s look at the County Commissioner candidate. Please contain your excitement. Really though, this is an interesting pool!

So we’ll start with our incumbent candidates!

First off, we have Bill Valentine. Besides having a wonderful last name, Valentine has some creds. I was unable to find an official webpage for his campaign but his Facebook page was adequately informative. Valentine is a home-grown kinda guy. He was born in Little Orleans, Md, and graduated from Fort Hill in 1968. After that, he earned his associates degree in Business Administration from ACM in 1970.

Since then, Valentine has been running the family business at Valentine Plumbing, Heating, & Air Conditioning. According to the company site, Carl G. Valentine & Son Inc. is currently still being run by Bill Valentine (whom I believe to be the “& Son” part but I’m not positive.) However, his Facebook page says that he is the “Former President at Owner of Valentine...” etc., so I’ll do a little more digging and report back if I find out either way.

Valentine has been a County Commissioner for one term (which is four years). His claims to fame as County Commissioner according to his FB post, are that he has  contributed to successfully, “Reunited Sheriff's Dept., new Sheriff's headquarters, healthy budget, smaller government with no loss of services, historic bond rating, Opportunities Scholarship for all county residents, new Conference Center at Rocky Gap, new retail being constructed, expansion of local businesses,  new businesses opening.” Maybe I’ll delve into what all that means and examine his track-record but now let’s move on to someone else.

NEXT



Creade Brodie Jr. Brodie is our one other incumbent candidate. He was born in (get excited) Frostburg, Md and he currently lives in Fort Ashby. He graduated from Beall in 1985. He’s married to Catrina Brodie and the pair has two adult sons and one granddaughter.

Brodie and his wife Catrina, who is rocking
the signature Brodie camo.

The Allegany County Government page told me that Brodie has worked for the LaVale Sanitary Commission for the past 15 years. He is currently the Maintenance Supervisor. (I don't really know what that means but it sounds important.)

Brodie has just completed his first term as a commissioner. Unfortunately has not written up an accomplishment sheet like good ol’ Valentine did but I think it’s pretty safe to say that Brodie helped with most of the same stuff that Valentine claims.

Fun fact about Brodie: his friends call him Doobie. I don’t know why they do but it’s super fun to say. Doobie. Doobie. Doobie.

Coming up next… our first newbie to the county commissioner scene! Tom Striplin.

Tom Striplin is also the only candidate that is not originally from Maryland. According to his Facebook page, Striplin graduated from Bay Short Highschool in (you guessed it) Bay Shore, NY. *Insert stereotypical Sopranos impression here* I don’t think he talks like that but it’s fun to pretend.



Striplin with his wife Jaime who is
 so state-prideful in that scarf.
I need one.



Anyway. Striplin is a Frostburg State University graduate and he has worked in the Respiratory Therapy department at Allegany College since 1988. He currently lives in Allegany County with his wife, Jaime.

 His Facebook page gives lots of fun pictures of different Cumberland people holding a cut-out of his head and I find it to be thoroughly entertaining. LOOK



Fun Fact: Details About Tom on his Facebook read: Enjoy spending time with family, photography, martial arts and politics.

I can't even explain how excited I am that he does martial arts.  

Okay. Moving right along.

The last candidate is less than half the age of his fellow candidates yet he won the primary in June.

Jake Shade. Shade is a homegrown Cumberland native and graduated from Allegany High School in 2011. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from University of Maryland College Park in Spring 2013. If you’re squinting to do that math in your head, I’ll help ya out. He’s 21 and he graduated in two years. Show-off. For the past year and a half, Shade has served as Legislative Director to Delegates LeRoy Myers and Andrew Serafini. Shade’s Facebook page offers a link to his 14-for-14 plan for his time as a commissioner. It’d definitely worth taking a look at.

Shade may have the least amount of experience in terms of years, but he has an impressive history of political involvement. He joined the Allegany County Republican Club in 2008 (when he was 14) and was named “Republican of the Year” in 2011. I have no idea what that means but it sounds really cool. He’s also campaigned consistently with various local and state candidates.

Shade also has a very informative website that gives a ton of prevalent information on his plan for the county and such. In comparison to his competitors, his plans are extremely accessible to the public.

Fun Fact: Shade is the youngest Republican candidate in Maryland this election season. Check out this article about his possibly historic run.

So there ya have it! Those are your options for who shall commission!

 

If you need a refresher on what these people want to do with their title, take a look at the article from two weeks ago!

Happy election season!