Del. J.B. Jennings said he submitted an elected school board bill today, acting on behalf of the Harford County Delegation and that the delegates were continuing to work together on amendments to other pending legislation.
A meeting that went late into the night on Thursday was held between Dels. Jennings, Susan McComas, Rick Impallaria and Wayne Norman to resolve the issue of who will lead the Harford County Delegation, but no agreement was reached.
Today’s regular delegation meeting, which promised to be highly irregular given the unresolved issues of leadership, was not held this morning as planned. Attendees were greeted by a note on the door saying the meeting had been cancelled. The note was signed by both McComas and Jennings.
McComas said today she is working with Jennings and that the delegation “was not dropping the ball on the policy issues facing Harford County. We’re trying to mediate the personnel issue.”
Jennings said, “I spent several hours Thursday night talking to Delegate Impallaria and apologizing to him for not advising him that I would be calling for a meeting Monday night,” wherein McComas and Impallaria were removed as chair and vice chair, respectively and Jennings and Norman were installed.
Jennings said the future leadership of the delegation was a managerial issue to be resolved. But, he said “when it comes to our legislative agenda, we’re moving forward with that.”
At this point it does not really matter who the chair is?
How does McComas think she could possibly move forward as chair now? If she keeps whining about this and ends up as chair again, she and the delegation will be completely hamstrung. This is sad. To see an elected official hold on to a title with such a death grip as to make headlines for well over a week. I say get rid of everyone. These folks would have real trouble in the business world. If this were a corporation, the CEO would just get rid of them (albeit with a nice severance pay, but that is for a different post).
I just can’t believe that this is still going on. Isn’t there somebody in Harford County who has some political clout and can step in to resolve this? What about the county exec. or senators, Bartlett, Ruppersburger, the Democrat and GOP central committees? Anyone out there? Good lord, put them out of their mercy.
Where is the Baltimore Sun on this story? The Aegis only comes out twice a week.The Dagger is just eating the newspapers lunch on this one.
This is sounding like a step in the right direction anyhow. Nobody likes to be voted out even if it’s an honorarium, human nature being what it is. These things do however happen and most times they happen for a reason. It is actually good to see something getting shaken up down there, but are the payments in headlines really worth the cost in loss of prestige of the delegation in general. I can hear the chuckles and the other delegates whispering “I’m glad that’s not us”. The new guys better be running with the ball and the rest better be on the team.
Thank you in advance.
It is reassuring to know that our delegates are making an attempt at “business as usual” But I can’t help but think that as this spitting war continues, if won’t hurt our delegates as a whole.
The elected school board bill makes so much sense it doesn’t even belong in Annapolis, yet we still have delegates (MDJ) who seem to fight against it. I hope this year’s session is more productive for Harford County. I suggest we start backing some candidates from the Party of “Common Sense” and get them to run against some of the ones currently in office.
As long as McComas and Impallaria are still members of the Harford delegtion, you can forget the elected school board. No way it passes. If for no other reason than the fact that those two are for it. That is political reality. If a delegate is radioactive, it doesn’t really matter if thier views are like those of the voters that sent them to Annapolis. They are just unable to get anything done for the people back home.