Gary Storke, a candidate for Mayor of Elkton, makes statements on why citizens should vote for him during the muncipal election on May 25th.
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Mr. Dixon,
It is interesting that you believe in transparency and free press, yet , you deny my comment about your friend, Mr. Storke. How can you legitametly support him? Have you had a conversation with him? [REMARK REMOVED BY SOMEONE NOTICED] . . . and he complains about everything and votes no on everything. He can’t hear or speak efficiently, so how will he communicate with the towns people? He must live in a closet, because Main Street looks totally different and much more improved since Fisona took office. Storke has been a candidate for the last 8 years!!! What could he possibly do differently? For a man (Mr. Dixon) that is usually on point, you have really missed the mark here. Mr. Dixon, as a fan of your writing, I politely request that you cease being one-sided in terms of the race for mayor.
Mr. Storke, I feel your infomercial needs some serious correction. First of all I came before the town council 2 years ago when I took over my father’ s business on Main street. I work 7 days a week and you have never been in my establishment. You comment in regards to the Elkton Alliance being given $50 thousand a year. The Alliance has generated over $14million dollars in grants and revenue to the downtown area. Yet you have presented no economic plan for the future except to say, “ go forward”. Towns of similar size spend around $300 per year just for economic development.
After review of your voting record over the last 7 years, you voted against everything. What have you purposed to better the town of Elkton? Anyone can sit on a bar stool every morning and complain to ones friends, but it take someone with vision to get off your bottom and get out a work for a better tomorrow.
I have been present at the town meeting which you served as town commissioner. After 7 years of services you did not know the meetings were run under Robert’s Rules of Order and that this is part of your charter. If after 7 years you aren’t aware of the basic founding rule of your own town charter, how can you expect to run the meetings? I have watched you scream and bellow at other members of the town council and use language not appropriate for small children. This is a public meeting and I have even had to remind you that your behavior is viewed by others on the web.
I did not see you at Fall Fest, the Halloween Parade, or Christmas events down town. We broke ground for a new senior center and you were not to be seen. Why do you want to be Mayor, when you don’t participate in anything the town has to offer?
Someone Else Noticed – Part I – Posting on the Blog, Citizen Journalism, Etc.
Thanks for posting your thoughts and sharing your criticisms on a number of subjects, including this citizen journalism sites, concern for transparency in Elkton government, and the qualifications of Commissioner Storke,
I fully respect your opinion to disagree with me and as long as anyone’s posts are reasonably civil they’re are welcome here, even if they challenge a positions I take.
But if “Someone Noticed” may suggest something to “Someone Else Noticed” it greatly strengthens anyone’s advocacy and the presentation of opinions when they sign their posts. If a person has a strong reasoned argument why they wouldn’t sign it?
All our piieces are signed so you can immediately evaluate a statement from that perspective. Thus reader knows that it’s not a blind submission, a shot in the dark.It’ll only help the point you’re trying to make.
That’s something I decided when I had to start blogging to save some historic land after Commissioner Jablonski lead an effort, which was supported by Mayor Fisona and Commissioner Piner, to sell some public land to a developer after they just bought it with state funds. It was a controversial effort and created a stir at the town meetings, but they always knew who was behind the remarks, since I didn’t hide behind the fog of the Internet and I discussed concerns at town meetings in a reasoned, civil sort of way.
Two last points on this and we’ll respond to the criticisms you directed at us. We absolutely will not allow personal attacks on any of the candidates or any individuals.
While in keeping with the standards of the blogosphere we’ll let it be a just little edgy, once it starts attacking the character of the individual that’s going too far. In your case, we edited out a remarks that attacked Commissioner Storke’s character. Those attacks on anyone will not be allowed on Someone Noticed. Keep it focused, stick to the arguments at hand (there are plenty) and make reasoned arguments.
In the last few days, I had to delete earlier posts from other unknown sources since they were totally unacceptable and some editing wouldn’t help.
Oh by the way, we like your play on the name of your posts, “Someone Else Noticed.” Good to see that others are noticing and copying the style, since Elkton’s needs lots of sunshine on its processes and lots if involvement by stakeholders. Guess if people are copying us, we must be on to something.
Someone Noticed Responds to “Somone One Else Noticed,” Part II — editorial policy
As for our editorial approach, I make a strong attempt to cover every town meeting in a fair and balanced sort of way. Recognize that there’s so much going on there and that Elkton receives such little coverage from legacy media, I have to be selective, but when I cover an item I try to include points made by each side, but gee can that be a challenge sometimes since it’s hard to figure out the logic of the support. I try to label our editorials clearly or keep opinions to the comments sections. Others not directly involved with this blog or Elkton politics have noted how successful I’ve been at getting to the core of an issue and trying to present both sides.
I terms of the fair and balanced standard, notice the coverage of Wes Walker’s endorsement of Mayor Fisona. Wes said he tossed his support behind the mayor because Joe was the most fiscally responsible. Notice the offer to publish press releases from any candidate. Notice the announcement that each candidate is running, when the Whig reported that only Commissioner Jablonski was running. Notice that none of it goes to the personal attack side, but instead deals with public policy issues and factual matters pertaining to good government. Notice on one of the other candidates Facebooks that they’ve copied one of our pieces since it was favorable to that candidate.
Someone Noticed Responds to “Someone Else Noticed,” Part III – Why Commissioner Storke?
You mention that Commissioner Storke must live in a closet because Main Street is much improved. The revitalization of our downtowns is an extremely important. It is important to have a healthy town center. But the challenges to Elkton’s Main Street are growing and there are needs for interventions that produce measurable outcomes for the public’s investment. The markers along this over 10 year pathway are trending in the wrong direction and I realize the economy has had some great affect. But look at the strategies other places such as Cambridge and Havre de Grace are implementing and see what they’re doing in the current economy. There are so many things I think about that could be tried in Elkton, but you’ve got to build relations, have a vision and a plan and work to build the synergy beyond your own office walls. You may scroll through the blog to see our writings on that subject, but we’re sad when we think about the current condition of things and try to look to see what progressive, innovative interventions are being utilized to generate successful outcomes.
When you reference all that as was done to Main Street, the credit for that rests elsewhere. It was all funded by the state and it started before Mayor Fisona came to office. I think Mayors Crouse & Alt got that well underway and Senator Walter Baker probably deserves credit for making it happen. In deed the physical environment, the streetscape, looks much better thanks to the taxpayers of the State of Maryland. ONce that was done it was time to build a lively Main Street that draws a crowd to shop and dine and to be entertained. What were the plans for that, what was the strategy, were they drawing on the four elements of the National Main Street program, such as history and preservation or was it OK to tear anything down that happened to get in the way.
If you think it’s appropriate I can write a more carefully done piece on the challenges to Main Street Elton along with the opportunity spotting that seems so obvious to me. Perhaps that is a good idea.
Anyway “Someone Else Noticed,” glad to see that you found this label an appropriate one for your commentaries here and thanks for the compliment on another matter.
Yeah they did a good job on Main Street allright. Nothing left down there. That’s what they did. Forgot one thing they did. Spent a lot of my tax money getting it this way. Get real. Just drive through. You’ll see what they did.
Ms. Cole, You are right. I have not been in your place since you took it over. I think you are confused about the Roberts Rule & what went on at that meeting. I have missed very few Fall Fest & Halloween Parades. They used to be in the afternoon & I worked.
I was not invited to the senior bldg. dedication. I also did not see an invitation to the citizens of Elkton.
Fred:
While there’s no doubt that there are serious, growing challenges for Main Street, one would hope the leadership is working on interventions that have the potential to make the downtown area a destination for those living in the nearby neighborhoods.
Anyone driving through the downtown can quickly see the status of things. That is immediately obvious and you’ll hear the comments from others.
The work the State of Maryland did to underwrite the costly work of the built enviroment, the streetscape, was appropriate. But once that was done the challenges were to get programs in place that built on the fundamental base Maryland provided. You see some of the programs that work in other places, such as recruiting fine eateries that make it a destination, drawing on the historic aspects, making it a center of employment etc. The challenge as we see it is to try to build broad partnerships with a wide range of the communities stakeholders and that should be an continual onoging effort and build on some of these initaitives. Thsoe things should be obvious to everyone.
Interestingly, what we notice in this political season is how the matter of revitalization has become central to the political discussion,but yet how little any of them are in talking about substantial issues related to that, regardless of where they stand on the perspectives. There’s lots of talk attacking this or that, mostly of a character nature, but nothing about what needs to be done to restore some economic vitaly to the town center.
Almost everyone of the candidates has said that Elkton needs to be revitalized so they’re mostly in agreement on that. Mayor Fisona has campaigned three times on revitalizing the town. Wes Walker in his campaign release noted that we need to get busy on revitlaization. And on it goes. At some point you have to generate outcomes and if they’re not ID new pathways that will work.
I’d encourage those that are interested in revitlaization to start talking about subtantial issues related to how we go about it. All the noise that’s getting passed around on the street isn’t helpful and some of the attacks that have been edited in the blogosphere or deleted don’t help either. Intersting that rather than solutions, it’s an attack mode on presonality. Probalby says something, that’ll be worth of comments later.
Also Fred it is disappointing to see taxpayer funded groups get mirred in the politics of government. Larger governments have rules about that in their ethics statement and conflict of interest policies.