Extra Voices, Nov. 6, 2017
The Frederick City Election is really revealing the nature of the candidates and their stand on ethics
By Edward Burrell
A candidate forges his daughter's signature to her absentee, ballot, A candidate whose livelihood is real estate, is on the record of not always recusing herself from a number of votes on real estate rezoning and city land deals. It is doubtful that most, if not all ,of the other candidates other than Roger Wilson, ever checked out with the ethics commission regarding potential conflicts.
Especially where they would most likely encounter conflicts of interest. Logic assumes they would check on a case by case basis if they are elected , but again the voters have no hard facts to base their decision on about the candidates integrity on any such future votes.
It goes without saying every candidate, will have situations where he or she will find themselves in an ethical dilemma on a vote, and yet they have been quiet on those areas, nor have they been addressed by the media.
Roger Wilson deserves a great deal of credit for checking his position out in the very beginning. I believe this demonstrates clearly that he is one candidate who has his foresight, and integrity regarding public affairs. Others have been eerily quiet on their possible predicaments, and thus ignored by the media.
The position concerning city ethics appears to be clear, one candidate has vetted himself for all to see, one has already been found ethically challenged and others are keeping their heads down, hoping to not be ethically noted.
Sheriff tends to his obsession while pandemic rages on
By Karl Bickel
What’s the most important law enforcement issue facing Frederick County right this minute?
Your first answer might be opioids, and I’d agree, but I believe that’s just half the answer. The full answer is this: the opioid/heroin epidemic tied to a lack of law enforcement leadership.
Opioids and heroin continue to kill in our county. Frederick has seen a spike in opioid related hospital visits. Frederick Memorial Hospital saw more than 1,100 opioid visits in 2013 with that number climbing to over 1,400 in 2016.
But that’s not Sheriff Chuck Jenkins’ answer. While grieving parents mount personal campaigns to prevent more deaths, and local health providers struggle to find resources to both prevent addiction and provide intervention for those already begging for help, Sheriff Jenkins went to Bethesda on October 17th to talk about his pet dog-whistle political issue: illegal immigration and how he is stemming the tide in Frederick County.
Jenkins was the featured speaker at a meeting of Help Save Maryland, which is identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group said he was to “…pay a visit to Montgomery County to enlighten all MD citizens about real law enforcement. His talk will focus on how his team successfully cooperates with Federal Officials in identifying, detaining and arresting illegal aliens in his jurisdiction, including MS-13 gang members.”
The Sheriff also did a recent radio interview bragging to Ann Arundel County listeners about Frederick County having 67 known gangs and over 700 gang members, a questionable assertion, which is a bit curious since it advertises his failure. In a 2015 the Frederick News-Post reported 250 to 300 gang members in Frederick County “according to city police and county sheriff’s deputy gang experts Rob Marker and Deputy First Class Joshua Stears.” The Sheriff pledged to rid the County of gangs during his 2008 campaign for office.
Meanwhile, on the opioid issue, the sheriff has been late to the table at every turn. He has failed to provide what his elected office demands: a central point of effective and proactive leadership that not only creates a plan, but sees that it is put into action and achieves results.
Instead, Jenkins said this public health/law enforcement crisis must “run its course,” during a town hall last February.
Where is the leadership in “run its course?”
There are many questions that have been raised regarding the efficacy of local law enforcement assisting in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. It has been questioned nationally, regionally and locally. But there is no question that the law enforcement community can have specific and positive impacts on drug abuse through community policing, collaborative partnership building and enforcement efforts.
So, while the sheriff travels to other communities to satisfy his xenophobic obsession with the immigrant community, here at home the opioid epidemic has grown steadily during the his tenure. Since 2007, it has taken over 200 lives in our community. He has made no substantive effort to address the problem and provided no leadership in bringing together the many governmental and nongovernmental efforts to prevent future deaths and increases in addiction.
He has even questioned how many times Narcan should be used to bring back to life those who have overdosed repeatedly. Tell that to parents trying desperately to get their child into treatment.
This is not the first time the sheriff has been associated with a faction that has been labeled a hate group. In 2014 the Federation for American Immigration Reform sponsored a trip to the Texas-Mexico border to promote his anti-immigration stance.
The sheriff’s obsession with the immigrant community has created a chilling effect among immigrant and minority populations that actually creates safe havens for criminal gangs. One doesn’t have to be a student of the history of crime and criminal enterprises to know that criminal gangs find a safe haven in neighborhoods where residents lack confidence in and even fear the police, where there has been a chilling effect.
While the Italian immigrant community was discriminated against and vilified in cities like New York mafia gangs flourished. In Boston where the Irish immigrants were considered outcasts and denigrated, mob bosses like James "Whitey" Bulger of the Winter Hill Gang rose to prominence in the underworld. The same has been the case in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The list could go on.
Rather than stumping for a hate group outside of their community “…to enlighten all MD citizens about real law enforcement,” a real law enforcement leader tends to the crisis gripping the county that pays his salary.
Karl Bickel has been published in the Baltimore Sun, The Frederick News-Post, Police Chief Magazine and many other venues as well as being quoted in USA Today, Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, The Washington Examiner and many more. He can be reached at KarlBickel@comcast.net
