Comments for Frank Hecker

Comment on Creating hyper-local Howard County ebooks by Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:03:19 +0000

Thanks for the nomination! I think I’d have to pass… reading about your research sounds exhausting to me (and my undergrad degree is in history!) Kudos to you on your book and your effort though– I think it’s grand.

Comment on Previewing my Howard County blogging in 2012 by alfiando guterez

alfiando guterez — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:00:33 +0000

hyyyyyyy……..

Comment on Previewing my Howard County blogging in 2012 by hecker

hecker — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:10:11 +0000

Thanks for your kind words. Certainly if my goal is to drive traffic up I’m pursuing exactly the wrong strategy

Comment on Previewing my Howard County blogging in 2012 by TeeJay

TeeJay — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:07:01 +0000

Frank,
This post seems like a good one to mention how much I’ve enjoyed the Work (deserves the capitalization, given the amount of research put into a format that begs for aggregation and reposting) you’ve put into the blog. (And book!) I’m looking forward to your next year- and remember, number of hits is less important that quality of readership. I think it fair to say you’ve taken a position as a thought leader in the HoCo blogosphere (and beyond), even if your pageviews lag behind some of our more prolific friends.

Comment on Closing the book on 2011 by hecker

hecker — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:16:03 +0000

Thanks. Unfortunately the amount of research needed limits the number of posts I can do.

Comment on Closing the book on 2011 by HoCo Connect

HoCo Connect — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:04:09 +0000

Look forward to reading your blogs in the new year. You are truly the best researched blogger we have in HoCo.

Comment on Dividing Howard by hecker

hecker — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 22:23:01 +0000

Thanks for stopping by to comment! I very much appreciate hearing from people with first-hand knowledge of what went on.

Comment on Dividing Howard by Angela Beltram

Angela Beltram — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:13:52 +0000

When the people voted to have districts, it was opposed by many people who realized that since the County Council sits as the Zoning Board, there was no way that four out of five could be held “accountable” for the actions of the majority. “Accountability” is the word people use who continue to support the Council as the Zoning board. There have been proposals to have a “Hearing Officer” who would be an “expert” in land use Maryland law and who would be much stricter that an elected Board who sometimes make “political” decisions on land use.

There also has been some support for expanding the Council to 7 members with two running at large. That way, those two would have a “global” view of issues in the County and at the same time provide the citizens with a potential choice of voting for three ( a district represenative and two additional at large). I believe this will occur next time.

For all the ballyhooing from the black community and the Republicans, they got what they wanted — districts. As stated by you and by me, personally at the hearings on the proposed idea of “districts” for School Board, I stated that C. Vernon Gray was elected over 25 years ago without “districts” and continued again to do so.

So…I may not be around for the “next time” but you may remember these arguments.

Comment on Can we take the politics out of Howard County Council redistricting? by Ken Stevens

Ken Stevens — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:42:27 +0000

Thanks, Frank. I’ll have to buy a copy of the book.

Comment on Can we take the politics out of Howard County Council redistricting? by hecker

hecker — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:54:29 +0000

Ken, thanks for stopping by again. (Incidentally, I hope you know you got mentioned in the acknowledgements of the book.) I too am skeptical about the possibility of doing nonpartisan redistricting; that’s why the title of the post is a question not a statement.