Meet the Candidates for 1-B Delegate: Jason Buckel and Kevin Kelly

God bless America. There are only 12 days until primaries. Get your election pants ready because it is on like Donkey Kong.

This week let’s talk about the candidates for the House of Delegates 1-B.

So first let’s figure out where everyone wants to rule delegate.

With the help of theseventhstate.com, I was able to find this super helpful map of the district lines for Western Maryland. District 1B (the part shaded in a beautiful baby-poop green) covers most of Allegany County which includes Frostburg, and excludes most of Cumberland.

So today we’ll start with our LaVale, Frostburg, Cresaptown, Beal Air, and Northern Cumberland -ers. Who do our 1-Bers get to choose from?

It’s your lucky day because have a match-up between incumbent Kevin Kelly (D) and Attorney Jason Buckel ( R).

Let’s start with the new guy.

Jason Buckel graduated from Bishop Walsh, then graduated from George Mason University and soon earned his law degree from University of Maryland School of Law.

Jason with his daughter, Karina. I creeped
and snatched it from his FB page.

He’s currently a partner at Buckel, Levasseur, & Pillai. He has an adult daughter that currently attends his Alma Mater, George Mason University.

His website is says that he’s a member of the Alco Republican Central Committee and has been since 2006.  Buckel is also a member of the LaVale Lions Club and a parishioner at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. Side-Note: I had to know what a parishioner does so I did what any good journalist would do and I Googled it. A parishioner literally means: “an inhabitant of a parish, especially one who belongs to or attends a particular church.” So he goes to that church. Got it. Am I the only one that didn’t know that? Yes? Anyway. Buckel has been openly critical of the incumbent Kelly’s campaign and candid on his plans for the county. These are all super indicative of his values as a politician and his opinions. I like a man that’s an open-book. Makes my life easier.  Here are a few articles I found:

Cumberland Times News Article

Side-By-Side answer comparison of Buckel and Kelly

Buckel's Website: Stands on Issues

NEXT

That is a glorious moustache.

Kevin Rutherford Kelly. (Alright so that’s not his middle name but I couldn’t find his real one and I like Rutherford.) Kelly is another home-grown candidate. He graduated from Bishop Walsh (TWINSIES Buckel!) then from Frostburg State University. He received his J.D. from the University of Baltimore Law School. Kelly is running for his sixth term as 1-B Delegate.

There’s a really interesting interview that I already linked above that side-by-side comparisons of the answers that both Kelly and Buckel gave for the same questions.

Side-note: I do my very best to avoid entering my analysis of any of the candidate’s political viewpoints, but the answers, in my opinion, are interestingly similar. The biggest difference is the amount of specific detail that Buckel offers for his plans. Now it’s a super brief interview so I’m not suggesting that it’s a clear indicator of the positions for each person. However, it’s definitely worth taking a look at.

Anyway, Kelly is a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Civil Law and Procedure, via his FB page.

So there ya have it! Those are your two options. Soon I’ll look at the candidates for 1-C State Delegate. Spoiler: between the two candidates, there are: 9 children, 6 dry-cleaning locations, and 2 funeral homes.

Find out who claims what!

Happy voting!

 

Special Extra: There is a gif of Kevin Kelly not being able to find a working microphone and it is one of my favorite things. We've all had one of those days, Kelly.

 

 

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.

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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!

2014 City Council Candidates

Last week I told you what the local offices basically entail. The next natural step is to see who is running.

So who are they? Huh? Huh?

Patience, please.  

This week I briefly profiled each of the 2014 candidates for Cumberland City Council.

Now I received my list of candidates from the Maryland State election site but it is a bit outdated (Like, prior-to-primaries outdated).   I did some minor investigating and was able to narrow down the candidate list to three: Dustin Freas, Seth Bernard, and David Kauffman.

Dustin Freas  

Dustin Freas (32) is a Cumberland local. He is a graduate of Bishop Walsh High School, Allegany College of Maryland, and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.   

What does he do right now?

Well he works with his family physical therapy business. He actually has a really informative website that has tons of helpful information. If I were to list it all, it would be too much. His LinkedIn profile lists him as the Chief Development Officer (CDO) at Flagship Rehabilitation Center.

Plus, he has a precious family picture of him, his wife (who is expecting their second child), and his daughter on the homepage so I highly recommend that you check that out if only for that.

Seth Bernard

 So Seth Bernard and Freas are like, super similar. For one, he’s young (Freas is 32, Bernard is 27). He has two

young children. He graduated from Fort Hill then he graduated from Point Park University which is located in –wait for it –Pittsburgh.

I know. Weird.

Back to the important stuff.

Bernard graduated from college in 2009. He goes into more detail about what he did immediately after graduation on his website but now he’s a Security & Privacy Consultant with IBM.

On October 3^rd, Bernard announced via his Facebook page that he has been endorsed by current Cumberland Mayor Brian Grimm.

P.S. His family picture is also super cute so make sure you take the time to fully admire it.

Dave Kauffman:

David Kauffman (42) is our one candidate that has experience in the job. He has been a councilman since 2011.

Before his election to City Council, Kauffman received his Bachelors and later his Masters from Frostburg State University.

Kauffman was the band director at Fort Hill High School 2001-2004, Beall High School beginning in 2005-2007 until it became Mountain Ridge and he resigned in 2013.

Kauffman is currently the vice principal at Braddock Middle School.

He and his wife Jen owned Kauffman Music LLC, a local music store and private lessons provider, from 2000-2009. (Fun Fact: I went to private flute lessons at Kauffman’s from 2000-2005. I’m practically famous)

Kauffman has a few things in common with his younger opponents. For one, he has two children (his are quite a bit older than Bernard’s two year-old and newborn, and Freas has a two-year-old and an unborn child, but those are just details). AND he has a super cute family picture.

Those are your three 2014 City Council Candidates! I hope I was able to give you at least a little more insight on who your options are for this election season.

In the next week or so, I will post the candidates for County Commissioner!

Is there anything in particular you’d like to know about your candidates? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy voting! J

2014 Local Elections: What do the candidates want to do?

            Happy October! I can almost smell election season. Yard-signs, grass-roots, and freshly steamed blazers. Up until this past year, I was under-informed about what each local office-holder does with his or her time.  I knew that people wanted to be on City Council but I had no idea what that meant. So I put together this quick-and-dirty cheat sheet so that you can lay political knowledge on everybody at your next cocktail party or class-reunion (even if it is just the Spark-Note version).

            First up we have City Council.

What do they do? You ask?

According to eHow, city council members: vote on laws relating to community issues, allocate funds for public services, community development projects, and land-use issues.

Shorter version: they vote on community laws, decide who gets money, plan fun involvement and clean-up days, referee arguments over land (within the city limits.)

            Next, what about those pesky County Commissioner signs we have been mowing the lawn around for the last 7 months? What do they want to do?

The Allegany County Board of Education is so kind to provide a list citing 20 duties of the County Commissioners. I picked out the ones that I thought sounded important based on what I've heard them argue about in debates. You should check out the whole list after you’ve read these just to make sure you're properly informed, but these are the ones that the candidates seem to talk about all the time.

            County Commissioners have the responsibility to: “appoint county officers, supervisors, and agents,” collect and levy taxes, protect county property, make use of financial assistance for county projects, “enact laws for historic/landmark zoning and preservation/land development,” all of this can be theirs within county limits.

Short version: they pick people to do stuff, tax and un-tax, fix bridges pay people to fix bridges, and stop people from destroying historic places.  

They also list a few vague but interesting things that they have the power to do, including: regulate conditions for livestock (dogs, cows, etc.) running at large, be trustees of the poor, guarantee loans to volunteer fire departments, and keep prisoners. I can’t be sure, but I’m hoping that they mean that the group of county commissioners can keep prisoners in a prison with reasons not just keep them in the basement. However, I am immensely amused by the image of a man running around in a suit waving a paper trying to read the cow "at large" its rights.

Back to business.

            But what about the delegates? What do they do for fun?

            Well, I have no idea what they do for fun but their job description can be divulged. 

             The House of Delegates does all of the following in conjunction with the Maryland Senate. The two make up the Maryland General Assembly. 

             As per Maryland General Assembly website The House of Delegates in the state of Maryland is delegated (see what I did there?) the responsibility to: enact laws, propose amendments to the state constitution, and levy taxes.

Short version: make laws, create departments to handle stuff, tax, and make amendments to the state constitution.

This is not, by any means, an exhaustive list of duties for any of the offices. However, I hope to have provided some insight on what you’re voting for.

Is there an office that I missed for which you’d like some information? I’m happy to slip it in to the next post! Comment below on what you’d like to know!

FSU Leadership Retreat 2014

Frostburg State University (FSU) took its annual trip to Camp Allegheny for their annual Leadership Retreat. “It’s something I look forward to all year,” FSU staff member Clarissa Lang said. “It takes tons of planning, but making sure everything is perfect is worth it once we get here,” she said.
The weekend started mid-afternoon Friday September 19th, departing from the Performing Arts Center parking lot with 74 freshmen comfortably tight into two school buses. “We have more than we usually do,” Director of Leadership and Experiential Learning and Retreat Coordinator Doug Baer said.
The drive to Camp Allegheny from Frostburg takes about an hour, filled with long winding roads and cow sightings. Camp Allegheny is a Christian camp located in Stoystown, Pennsylvania. The camp has been active since 1949 and has been owned by Lorie and Dennis Tawney for nine years. Throughout the camp, the students were entertained by interesting pets. “We really share the place with our 5 chickens,” Lorie joked.
“We love working with Lorie and Dennis,” Doug says of the couple. “They are so thorough and they honestly want our feedback,” he said. “Last year they called on the Monday after we left and asked us what we meant by something we put in our evaluation,” Lang explained. “They actually read them which makes us feel so confident to always go back to them,” she added.
The retreat started off quickly. The students had 30 minutes to get their stuff situated in the cabins followed immediately by an ice-breaker. Baer had them play a game to get them relaxed before being moved into their small groups. The small groups were assigned numbers 1-8, including 9 or 10 students, plus one facilitator and one President’s Leadership Circle member.
The facilitators was composed of eight faculty members including Dr. Terri Massie-Burrell, the current Assistant Provost for Student Success and Retention, and Chemistry Department Chair Dr. Mary Mumper.
Baer said that the most interesting student-facilitator interaction is the casual relationship of Dr. Thomas Bowling, Vice President of Student and Educational Services, or as the students refer to him: Tom. Baer said, “I was watching them once and he was joking around and they were laughing and I heard one of them say something like, ‘Nice Tom!’ and I thought they really have no idea how important he is and he absolutely loves it.”
After group activity, they headed to dinner, served by Camp Allegheny staff. After the meal, Baer and Lang’s first task is to get the group to open up to being vulnerable. Facilitators Robert Cooper and Robert Weber lead the activity called “Privilege Walk,” an activity designed to illustrate the adversity that people may face and how different lifestyles may be.  After asking a variety of questions that resulted in a respectable spread of experiences among the students, Cooper asked the group how they felt about what they saw. Some expressed their discomfort but more than that shared the pride they felt about how far they had come from the tough spots that they had been in. One young woman said, “I feel so proud of myself for getting to college even though my mom said that I couldn’t.”
Day two was packed full of team-building and communication enhancing activities. The beginning was similar to the start of the retreat with energizers and ice-breakers. The first real challenge was to make a three-step Rube Goldberg machine, their mission: to crack eggs.
Next, they headed outside for a circuit of exercises. The students spent some of their day blindfolded while trying to make a shape with a rope and later scaling a nine-foot-wall, all of the challenges requiring trust and focus. After each activity, eight 30 minute sessions total, the group would reconvene for 5 minutes to discuss what happened and what could help in the real-life application.
After dinner, the students enjoyed free-time until the optional bonfire, complete with S’mores and scary stories.
The next morning arrived quickly in a startling fashion with 7:30 wake-up, group pictures, and breakfast, followed by the goodbye activities where the groups showed their appreciation and admiration to one another and the facilitators with nice notes known as “warm-fuzzies.”
As the weekend came to a close and the students had been loaded to return to FSU to watch football and sleep, the facilitators met one last time to discuss the weekend. Bowling said, “This was by the far the best one yet.” Baer noted, “You say that every year.” “I mean it every year,” Bowling said.