Every time I pull up to the gas pump, I feel like I need to take out a home equity loan. We have had state income, sales, car and corporate tax increases and water, Metro, and electricity rate hikes along with record foreclosures this year. We cannot take a a property tax hike any bigger than the charter allows. Why should the council take an extraordinary step and EXCEED the charter property tax limit that was approved by the voters? Leggett wants to give us the biggest property tax increase in 20 years and wants a gas tax hike. Has he lost his mind?

Trachtenberg is just the kind of person I like---one tough cookie when she wants to be. Continue asking the tough questions Duchy. Social security recipients get a 2.3% increase in 2008 with NO step increases.

I loved Charles Barkley. I would ask him, "Charles I know you want to run for Governor of Alabama, but before I vote for you I want to know your views on the economy, NAFTA and healthcare." He would reply, "Well, I do have a view on the death penalty----they should use it on you!" Trachtenberg reminds me of Barkley.

According to information released to the Mark Fennel for County Council campaign by the Montgomery County Public Schools, there are 1097 employees of Montgomery County Public Schools who make a salary of over $100,000 a year and 226 who make more than $125,000 a year and 17 who make more than $150,000 a year. Should we exceed the charter property tax limit to give these people raises? I don't think so.

Now that you mention it, Duchy Trachtenberg and Charles Barkley are both supporting Don Praisner for Council.

Are the school principals and senior MCPS staff ("management") who make over $100k/yr subject to the union contract and the salary increases that go along with them and I certainly hope not !!!

The MCPS payroll has ballooned under Nancy Navarro's Board of Ed watch, yet the quality of education overall has declined. MCPS is experimenting with different grading and testing policies, Middle School Reform and Technology programs, etc., and frequent standardized benchmark tests. All of this costs a lot of money and only the Middle School Reform program seems to be offering any real benefit to the kids. What happened to simply doing what works best for the kids and not throwing our dollars around like they grew on trees?

Looking forward to the next Council election, everyone needs to keep this all in mind when Nancy Navarro uses her ethnicity and union support to try to win a Council seat. Remember what she did to MCPS. Remember how unresponsive she has been to parents and PTAs. Do we want this to happen to the entire County?

Sigh. Real estate market's really not keeping you busy, is it, Robin? Must suck to be you.

Accepting what you say as true (dear God, what a concept, but there's a first time for everything), the 1,097 school employees make somewhere north of $118 million. Let's call it $120 million for round numbers.

I assume (big mistake, I know) that you don't suggest that we should just fire these employees, right? So we're not going to save the whole $120 million. In fact, we realistically couldn't save more than, say, 10-15%, either by salary cuts or more realistically, by attrition and non-replacement.

So we're talking savings of, at best, $12-18 million, and those aren't going to happen overnight -- you can't just fire people, at least here on Planet Earth. Maybe on Planet Ficker, things are different.

The County budget shortfall is around $300 million right now. Your demagoguery, however enticing it may seem, is going to do precisely nothing for the budget right now, and even in a best case scenario, won't save very much money even in the long run.

Bottom line: rhetoric without reality. Come to think of it, that's a good, short and punchy description of pretty much everything that Ficker says or does.

I totally agree with "MCPS Parent". I suspect that some very fine community leaders will be available to run against Navarro in 2010. And these prospective candidates will have plenty of time to prepare for the 2010 election. But don't worry Navarro, you will no dobut get the MCEA endorsement. Just stress your minority status and all the "politics of possibilities" nonsense that you espoused over the last few months and I'm sure you will remain the darling of the MCEA. Can't wait for 2010 to watch MCEA's favorite District 4 resident go down in defeat yet again.

Why is lefty so bitter? Did he get some time when Ficker represented him in Court?

My guess is that Lefty is an overpaid MCEA union member.

Everybody needs to keep in mind that the County, as a government agency, does not have the latitude for realtime budget adjustments or repurposing funds from one budget line item to another. The public sector budgeting process is more like a 7-10 year moving window, where projects and commitments approved by the Council and signed by the Executive HAVE TO be funded throughout their lifecycles. Whatever is not funded with tax and/or fee revenues for the year has to be borrowed in the form of bond issues and interest must be paid on those bonds out of future years' budget funds.

What we are choking on now was commmitted to 3+ years ago. The only elasticity in the annual County budget is things like the size of staff salary increases, the size of the worforce itself, and the size of certain programs such as welfare and subsidies. The individual Departments (such as MCPS, Police, HHS, etc.) prepare and submit their own proposed annual budgets for review and rollup into the County budget. The individual departments are where the problem actually lies.

MCPS is a huge problem area for budget and fiscal governance. While there are countless experimental and consulting programs going on in MCPS, my kid's middle school just lost a French teacher for next year due to staff cuts and doesn't have enough electrical system capacity to support the necessary computers. My kid's high school had to maintain a fire watch because the alarm system was so out of date that when it failed it could not be repaired. My kid's elementary school has seven trailers without bathrooms that are used for classroom space. Other schools throughout the County have similar problems.

The focus at MCPS under Jerry Weast and Nancy Navarro has been on other pursuits that do not directly result in an improved learning environment. The MCPS books have not been made available for inspection. There is talk of lowering the HSA passing scores to accommodate students who don't perform well on the exam. We have gangs and guns invading our schools as we saw at Einstein HS a couple of weeks ago. MCPS has not had its eyes or dollars on providing the services they are responsible to provide.

It's the best kept secret in the County and it needs to be made very public.

I see that Ficker's various personalities have come out to play today. Only about 47 more to go and we'll have met them all.

Sadly, none of Robin's "friends" have been able to formulate a substantive response to my comment, however.

Do you have a personality that can handle this, Mr. Ficker? For a guy who's "running" Mark Fennel's campaign, you'd think one of your multiple personalities might be able to actually, y'know, discuss the issues. On the other hand, given your history, maybe that is hoping for too much.

Hey Lefty - I hope you are not pointing my way with that last comment about being a Ficker personality. I have zero tolerance for Ficker's rants that frequently include blatant BS about people and do little more than provide an excuse to put his real estate brokerage name on the signature line.

Interestingly, I haven't seen any "Mark Fennel walks on water" postings lately. Ficker, did Fennel cut you loose like Obama did with that big mouth jerk Rev Wright?

What happened to Ike's $65000 bathroom and 3 new girlfriends hired lately.

Duchy Trachtenberg/Ehrlich cabal are real shame to all of us who are working as tools for establishements.

County's black population 13%, county's black employeees over 30%--that tells you the real story.

MCPS Parent: No, I do not consider you a "Ficker Figment." In fact, I agree with the vast majority of what you have stated in this thread.

Thanks - just wanted to clear that up.

Lefty and PTA parent are the same person. I work with him.

Robin? Robin, is that you? This makes personality #4, just in this thread. What should we name this one? Maybe Sybil -- somehow that seems appropriate.

Why don't you go sell some real estate? We know you can't practice law because you are disbarred, but don't you have better things to do than post multiple comments on every thread, trying to make it look like you have supporters in the community?

And for the record, MCPS (not PTA) Parent and I are not the same person. Someone from the Post could surely note the different IP addresses. I question whether the same can be said of Sybil and the other Ficker Figments.