Your elected representatives in action (Frederick County edition)

I might have to reconsider my decision that Anne Arundel County, Maryland, is home to the goofiest politicians in the state.  Sure, they elected a serial drunk driver and boat skipper to the state legislature, but they voted him out last fall.  And so what if they voted onto their county council, in the same election, a fellow named Peroutka, who proudly carries the battle flag of the League Of The South as his standard?  We're a little bit north of the south, but hey. And let the record show that we count many AA County residents among our close friends and we love them all. It's not their fault.

No, I guess the nod for the title of dizziest politicos is heading out west to Frederick County, which is sometimes unkindly called "Fredneck," and not with good reason.  Frederick, the county seat, is actually home to a burgeoning technical business community, and to many hipsters who overuse the word "actually." 

But the county, in an effort to modernize, recently changed its form of government from the old-style county commissioner system to an elected county council and county executive setup.
One former-commissioner-turned-councilman, Billy Joe "Billy Joe" Shreve, is all worked up because he used to hide his office key in his county mailbox, but the key was taken back when the mailboxes were reassigned and he didn't want to shell out ten bucks for another.

And then we have Councilman Kirby DeLauter, another former commissioner, whose grasp on the first amendment is tenuous. DeLauter is all steamed because a reporter for the Frederick News Post paper mentioned him in her article about old Billy Joe and that dang key issue.  

“So let me be clear............do not contact me and do not use my name or reference me in an unauthorized form in the future,” - Delauter Facebook status update.

The state of American representative politics is now such that people who have been elected to serve the people want to tell the newspaper not even to dare mentioning their name, and they choose Facebook, America's headquarters for pictures of cute puppies, love messages, and memes that show embarrassing pictures of befuddled local officials, to send out their message.

“Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an Attorney,” Delauter wrote.  

I could write an entire blog about people who insist on capitalizing professional designations.  "An Attorney."  It's just an attorney, your majesty, and by the way, there once was an attorney from Frederick County named Key (speaking of keys) who wrote our national anthem.  How about you men settling down and governing your county, carrying your own keys and letting the press report on your activities?  

That's the key to good government.