Wednesday, January 10, 2007

town hall meetings in moco: part two

Back to Part One . . .

After the event ended, a mob of people rushed the front of the auditorium to speak with the panel, consuming poor John Porcari. While Brown and O'Malley both had small crowds of well-wishers around them, it was Ike Leggett who needed two security guards to protect him from the onrush of disgruntled County residents. When I was allowed to speak with him, I shook his hand and offered my card, which he took cautiously.

"So, young man, do you have all your Purple Line questions answered?" Leggett asked me, smiling in the way he might have at a belligerent Adrian Fenty when he was a law student in his class at Howard. The first thing I thought was, "Why are you so patronizing?" But, as he flipped the card over, I told Ike that I'd called his secretary the day before and that I wanted to make an appointment to speak with him. "You know, we both live in East County, I just wanted to see we're on the same page about things," I said. That shut him up pretty fast.

Which brings me to County Councilman George Leventhal, who I caught on his way out with Ida Ruben. I said "hello" and handed him my card. "A blog? Yeah, I read blogs," he said. "Just Up The Pike? I read that." I was incredulous. He turned to Ida Ruben: "Dan's blog is one of the few reasonable blogs in the County now," he continued. "He's saying, we don't have to shut the County down, we don't have to stop growth. It's really good." I told him I'd spoken to his secretary, and George responded that he'll get back to me very soon about meeting with him.

So, in conclusion:

1) I like Martin O'Malley. Even if he's eyeing bigger things than governor, that still means he'll put in a lot of work here to polish his resume.

2) Every time I meet Ike I dislike him even more.

3) Just Up The Pike is moving up, I believe. We'll see if Ike and the rest of the County Council are willing to meet with me as well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Go get em, Dan!