Bent Corner

Sharpsburg resident Dean Joyce has been notified by the Washington County Commissioners that he has to mow his natural meadow habitat down to 18 inches or he will face huge fines. Joyce decided to return his 3-acre field into a natural grassland habitat shortly after moving into his home in 2000. He is originally from Australia and he wanted to learn more about the flora and fauna of the United States.

I have to hand it to the Washington County Commissioners. When they decided to illegally give $10,000 to a Hagerstown all-star Little League team to supposedly cover travel expenses that were already being covered by Little League, I thought they couldn’t do anything as stupid ever again. Clearly I was wrong.

Joyce’s field is the way a field is supposed to look. It’s natural. It’s the way God intended a field to look. [The Herald Mail]

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It took seven months, but former Maryland Delegate Robert A. McKee has finally been charged in connection to possessing child pornography. Washington County deputies raided his home this past January and discovered a plethora of kiddie porn including computer images, magazines, and video tapes.

The charges are federal. In my opinion, if it was up to local authorities, McKee would never be charged. Washington County deputies confiscated a large amount of child pornography from McKee’s home on January 31. The same home he shares with his “adopted granddaughter”. Washington County Sheriff Douglas Mullendore, a friend of McKee, was present during the raid on McKee’s home. Instead of informing the public that a large stash of child pornography was found in McKee’s home, the news remained secret for two weeks. McKee continued working not only as a Maryland Delegate, but as the executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County.

According to his attorney, McKee plans on pleading guilty in a plea agreement with the Justice Department.

Two local residents were arrested and charged with drug crimes on Tuesday after the Washington County Narcotics Task force executed a search warrant at their home.  They found two pounds of pot, along with nine marijuana plants.

On January 31, 2008, Washington County law enforcement officers executed a search warrant in the home of Robert A. McKee.  They seized two computers, 30 videotapes, and printed materials from his home that officers described as being child pornography.  At the time of the search warrant and the discovery of child porn, McKee was an elected delegate to the Maryland House of Delegates.  He was also the executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County.

Robert McKee was not arrested.  Robert McKee has yet to be charged with any crimes.

I don’t understand how possessing marijuana causes you to be immediately arrested and charged with a crime, but possessing child pornography does not.  Which is worse, marijuana or child porn?

Robert McKee was forced to resign from the Maryland House of Delegates and from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County.

A month later.

Hagerstown has an all-star Little League team in the Little League World Series currently under way in scenic Williamsport, Pennsylvania.  People around here are very excited about this.  Some are more excited then others. I’m not really into Little League. I never played Little League.  No one in my family played Little League.  I really don’t necessarily understand the hoopla.

Speaking of things I don’t understand, the Washington County commissioners decided to award the team $10,000. This is from today’s Herald-Mail:

The money was approved by a 3-1 vote to help pay travel expenses for the Federal Little League 11-12 All Stars, who recently won the Mid-Atlantic Regional tournament and played their first game in the Little League World Series on Saturday.

This didn’t make any sense. I remember reading a while back that ABC and ESPN agreed to a long term deal with Little League for the rights to televise the Little League World Series. The deal was for millions of dollars. With all that money going to Little League, why can’t Little League pay for the travel expenses incurred by the team?

As it turns out, they do. From the official Little League website:

Who pays for the teams to travel to the Little League Baseball World Series?
There is no fee of any kind for any team in the Little League Baseball World Series. Neither the parents nor the local league are asked to pay anything for the team’s expenses.

All of the expenses for all teams, including travel, are paid by Little League International. While here, the teams are housed in dormitories on our complex, and food is provided at no charge. All teams are provided with exactly the same accommodations, without regard to their economic status.

So what’s the $10,000 going to?

It also appears that the money given to the team by the Washington County commissioners came from the “wrong” account.  It was supposedly taken from an account funded solely by a special county tax applied to area hotel rooms.  This money by law is to be only used to help develop tourism and support cultural and recreational projects in Washington County.  Paying for the out-of-state travel expenses of an all-star Little League team does not fall within the law.

One way to solve this problem would be for the three Washington County commissioners that voted to award the team with a $10,000 gift — Commissioners President John F. Barr, Vice President Terry L. Baker and Commissioner James F. Kercheval — pay the money out of their own pockets.  If they think the Little League all-star team deserves some extra travel money on top of what Little League is already providing, they each can come up with $3,333.33 on their own and award that to the team.  That way the team still gets the extra travel money and not one dime of tax dollars is spent.

It’s a win-win situation.

It’s now been 65 days since Washington County Sheriff deputies raided the home of former Maryland state delegate Robert A. McKee (R) and child pornography. Investigators seized two computers, 30 videotapes and a “significant amount” of printed material, including magazines showing naked children.

He has yet to be charged. Why not?

Even after deputies hauled the massive kiddie porn collection from McKee’s home, they didn’t bother notifying anyone. When McKee wasn’t in Annapolous helping to craft new state laws, he was the executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washington County. He was also quite active in the local Little League.

Maybe steps should have been taken to make sure he stays away from children.

I just don’t understand why things are being delayed in this case. At the very least he should be placed under arrest and charged for possession of child pornography. If I didn’t know any better, I would think McKee is getting special treatment.

In today’s Herald-Mail, there was a front page article on Robert McKee. He is the state delegate recently caught with child pornography. Two weeks ago sheriff deputies obtained a search warrant to enter his home where they discovered a substantial amount of child pornography including computer images, video tapes, and magazines.

Did the Herald-Mail investigate the matter further and find out why it took two weeks for anyone at the newspaper to find out about this? Did they discover why McKee was allowed to continue working as the executive director of Big Brothers & Big Sisters?

No. They ran a story that glorified Robert McKee for all of the wonderful things he has done over the years. This man who possessed a substantial amount of kiddie porn.

The most revolting part of the article was where they talked about the wonderful things he has done for Little League:

Williams, the president of Williamsport’s Conococheague Little League, said McKee regularly volunteered to be a district representative at games.

“He was for the kids,” he said. “He was great for Little League.”

He was for the kids? Gee, I wonder why this sick freak was so interested in the kids.

What better way to celebrate the beginning of Black History Month then to read an Associated Press story about a local judge being reprimanded for making disparaging comments about three black female public defenders?

Last April, Washington County Circuit Judge W. Kennedy Boone referred to the three lawyers as “The Supremes” and told a defendant to get “an experienced male attorney.” He has acknowledged that his comments suggested racial and sexual bias. Boone said he was trying to protect the three public defenders from representing a difficult defendant.

But isn’t that their job? Women can do any job a man can do. That includes representing criminal defendants. Even if they are male.

I discussed this issue on a message board for people local to the Hagerstown area. Most people didn’t think this was that big a deal. Some said that it was actually a compliment since The Supremes are a famous singing group and maybe the judge was a fan of their music. I don’t agree. The only thing these three lawyers had in common was the color of their skin and their sex.

It would be like me referring to three black men as the Harlem Globetrotters. If I were to say something like that where I work, I would most likely be fired. This man is a judge.

It’s just another strike against Hagerstown concerning racism and how the rest of the country sees when they take a look at us. Things like this make me cringe. Recently our city got some negative exposure in the national media after the plan to rename a street after baseball great Willie Mays received negative response from some in the community and the plan eventually failed because of it. Mays played his first professional baseball game here in Hagerstown. Hagerstown’s former mayor William Breichner thought race was a factor in the public response that led to the end of the proposal.

I was embarrassed after the Willie Mays street renaming controversy and I feel embarrassed over this controversy. It makes us look like a bunch of ignorant racist hicks. Stuff like this only makes it harder to attract good companies bringing good wages to the region.

Hagerstown has been in the news lately. A religious organization that works in refugee resettlement called the Virginia Council of Churches has announced that they will no longer resettle refugees in Hagerstown. They have determined that Hagerstown is just too unfriendly to refugees.

The Virginia Council of Churches’ announcement caps 12 months of sour relations. Many residents of the western Maryland city of 39,000 didn’t know that nearly 200 refugees had been placed in their community until last October, when emergency medical workers, lacking an interpreter, mistook a Burundian woman’s morning sickness for a chemical or biological threat and set up a decontamination tent on a downtown street.

Since then, despite regular monthly meetings with local officials, the group’s requests for funds to help pay refugee housing costs have been denied by the city and Washington County.

The emergency medical technicians mistook a Burundian woman’s morning sickness for some type of biological threat because she called to 911. Maybe women in the Republic of Burundi call 911 when they have morning sickness. Woman in Hagerstown do not.

When the emergency medical technicians arrived on the scene, they had no idea that they were called because a woman was experiencing a bad case of morning sickness. They thought she was severally ill. After all, she called 911. As fate would have it, none of the EMT’s spoke Kirundi and the woman didn’t speak English. None of the refugees spoke English. The other refugees in the home mistakenly conveyed to the EMT’s that they too were sick.

The EMT’s believed the refugees may have had a communicable disease. Can’t say I blame them. Hazmat units were sent to the area, and the 12 African refugees were briefly quarantined.

Up until the historic morning sickness 911 call was made, nobody in Hagerstown even knew the Virginia Council of Churches had placed 12 non-English speaking Burundian refugees in our fine city. Maybe they should have told someone.

Some people in Hagerstown have wondered why a religious group from Virginia placed African refugees here in Maryland. I can’t really blame them.