On July 4th, I participated along with about 25 other fellow McCain supporters in the River Hill Parade as part of the . Here was a group shot of all the participants before we started heading out.

Now we are waiting for things to get moving.

Unfortunately, the Obama group was directly in front of us, but I must say from an organizational standpoint, the McCain group was heads and shoulders above. That sort of surprised me considering the number of emails the Democrats were sending out trying to organize things, but they didn’t have T-shirts, stickers or even a truck like this one.

Here is some of group walking the route.

Plenty of kids along the route who couldn’t get enough of the 2,000 McCain lapel stickers that our group handed out.

On a side note, it is amazing to watch the kids along the entire route holding out bags like it is Halloween, as someone in our group mentioned. I’d willing to bet nearly all of them had no idea who John McCain even is, but kids see a free sticker and will do anything to get it. Hey, might as well start them young! Of course, what would be a parade with a few dogs.

These dogs managed to walk the entire two-mile route without any trouble. And I couldn’t let this one pass because sometimes they make it way too easy. Here was the gas-guzzling, carbon footprint-enlarger, “global warming”-creating mode of transportation in the parade for environmentally conscious County Executive.

What, was the Government Hybrid SUV being used for something else? Anyway, the fireworks later that night were pretty good I must say. Unlike previous years, very few breaks between fireworks and a decent show overall. Of course they better have been for the $100,000 the taxpayers in Howard County paid to put on the show…but I digress….

You can see a whole bunch more photos from the parade here.

Last night, the top two delegates in Howard County, Warren Miller and Gail Bates, held a fundraiser out at the former home of Governor Edwin Warfield in the hinterlands of Howard County. They had a special guest, former (and future?) Governor of Maryland Bob Ehrlich.

I thought I’d share some photos from last night’s/this morning’s Relay For Life organized by the American Cancer Society and held at Hammond High School. Unfortunately, I ended up staying the Howard County Republican Club First Friday Happy Hour a little longer than I planned, so I did miss the opening ceremonies. So when I got there, there were already people out on the track starting their laps.

Here is a shot across the track from one set of bleachers to the other set with the word. You will see what they did with this in a later photo.

Outside of the track, the various teams set up on their plot of land with Hammond High School in the background.

Our tent was the blue one on the right-hand side. There were a variety of tents, from simple open sided- tents to full camping tents where people would spend the entire night. At around 9:00 after the sun had gone completely down and it was time to light up the luminaries around the track.

It was a rather impressive display. Each bag had the name of someone stricken with cancer written on it and the names would be visible even as dark as it was. Here is a shot of the camping site area.

Here is a shot looking at the track during my laps around the track.

Here is a shot of the bleachers I previously showed above along with a shot of the opposite side bleachers.

Finally, the obligatory shot of our little area in the campsite section of our tent.

I would show you the Hoard County Democrats’ tent, but they apparently did not field a team this year.

While the relay itself was the main event, they did have a deejay and band playing music all night, a silent auction in the early part of the event, and various themed events throughout the night such as a limbo event, fiesta party, and pajamas party as well as a moonbounce for the kids and even a tent that had video game challenges on a big creen going all night long. Of course, you did have a slew of somewhat rowdy teenagers (as you would expect) in the early part of the night and much more alcohol and beer being consumed in various campsites despite the fact that alcohol was supposedly prohibited. But it appear the police force on hand let a lot of that go as long as the crowds were not getting out of hand or bothering other people, which in my entire time there did not occur. The early part of the night before midnight did see quite a few people on the track. After midnight, the number of people on the track dwindled somewhat as people began to leave.

Personally, I ended up walking around the track for about two hours from Midnight until 2am shift), doing 21 laps (give or take a lap since it is hard to keep track when you are just walking in circles and seeing the same thing over and over again). I figured that is just over five miles of continuous walking. But that is nowhere near what one woman did during the event. Melissa Simmens spent the entire 12 hours of the event running on the track. She was not hard to miss as she wore a headlight on her head and the inside lane of the track was left open to allow her free pass on her laps around the track. Every hour or so, she would reverse direction on the track and some people would run with her and talk to her as she was running. I didn’t stay until the end (I did leave around 2:30am) to see if she made it the entire time, but the seven hours I was there, I never saw her off the track.

Anyway, a good time overall, managed to recruit of few Republicans to join up on our lists, good conversations and meeting new people, and most importantly helping bring awareness to an important cause.

Thanks to everyone who did donate to this event, especially those who donated on the behalf our myself and our team.

I mentioned this last week and wanted to mention it one more time before tomorrow night’s event. The American Cancer Society is holding their annual Relay for Life on June 6th in Howard County and I have signed up to be a walker for the Howard County Republicans team on that night.

The Baltimore Sun had an article on the event in today’s paper.

Neither the Howard County Republicans nor myself will get a dime of the money that is donated - it all goes to the American Cancer Society. If you would like to, feel free to click my personal donation page here and submit a donation on my behalf for the team (you will be personally credited if you wish). Part of the donation, I believe, is tax-deductible as well….

Thanks in advance to anyone who donates to this worthy cause….

I am sure anyone living in Columbia just went through the rainstorm that passed through this afternoon. Here what was left on my roof when I got home from work.

I guess I should be happy it was not a full tree…like the full tree that feel down on Broken Land Parkway blocking the left lane right near Stevens Forest Road. It also looked like they had the exit ramp from Route 29 onto Broken Land Parkway shutdown, or at least the section that allows one to turn left onto Broken Land Parkway, as the light was out at this section.

Living in Columbia, I am well aware that I am in the distinct minority when it comes to being on the right side political spectrum. With that in mind, when I go to the Howard County Library to check out a new book written by or about someone on the right side of political spectrum and it is evident by the title of the book, I fully expect to get the occasional eye roll or head shake by the person checking me out at the counter. Let’s just say this has happened multiple times in the past.

Anyway, a new book by Jonah Goldberg from the National Review came out called “Liberal Fascism”. I don’t normally read polemics since I find them tedious and boring and learn little from them, but this book has been getting great reviews and based on the fact that I had to put a reserve on the book at the Library, I am not the only one who is interested in this book. SO I finally got word the book was available and went to the Central Library to pick it up. The women behind the counter gets the book and reads the front of it while she is walking back. Here is the cover of the book.

As she sits back on her stool, she makes the comment (and I paraphrase):

“So are you going to read David Horowitz to get some balance?”

Somewhat taken aback by the comment, I asked her to repeat it and she did. Apparently she was clueless this book was written from a right-leaning point of view and David Horowitz is also a conservative, which made her question senseless. I pointed this out to her and then mentioned that she really should not be making editorial comments about people’s book choice while she is representing the Howard County Library. She sort of gave me a head shake and look of disdain. Then I mentioned that if she knew anything about this book, she would have realize Goldberg and Horowitz are on the same side with most issues and that she shouldn’t be making comments like that and walked away. I did not catch her final reaction.

I don’t know what the policy of the Howard County Library system is regarding whether the staff can openly comment about what books people are checking out to their face. It might be one thing for a staff member to mention that they read the book and thought it was good or something generic like that, but to inject a political or editorial statement seems well out of bounds and what should be permitted. I would hope there is some sort of policy at the library that discourages the staff from making editorial comments about the books people are checking out. Interestingly, the staff member’s comment above almost implies she was a conservative herself, so it is not like I complaining about liberal bias in this instance. Just the fact that the type of comment that was made is what caused it to be uncomfortable and somewhat angered me.

Let me just state this is not a criticism of the Howard County Library System itself as I find it to be a wonderful system that I use regularly and will continue to use as long as I am a resident. This is a rare regrettable instance, but I think the Library needs to make sure their staff is not criticizing or editorializing on people’s choice of books openly.

We can debate the merits of GGP’s plan for Downtown Columbia later, but I just have to comment on the quality of the presentation last night put together by GGP. In a word - PATHETIC.

It was like GGP waited until Monday morning to put the thing together and just “hoped it would fit together” in the end. It was a combination of skipping over slides randomly making it impossible to follow along, the slides you could see were borderline unreadable to just about everyone - especially the plan drawings of Columbia, and the person talking half the time wasn’t even in sync with the slide that was behind him/her. Did they even look at this presentation before they threw it up on the screen? Nobody seemed to know when they were supposed to talk or what they were supposed to say. This was the culmination of two and a half years of work and was supposed to be the great unveiling of the new plan for Columbia that has been long anticipated by everyone. You would have thought GGP would have made an effort to make it feel like that this was important. Yet I think my third-grade presentation on the New Deal using an overhead projector was more organized than the presentation GGP put together last night.

I know I was not the only one disappointed in the quality of the presentation. At least seven other people I ran into last night had the exact same opinion as me on how bad this presentation was.

Hopefully the future “more detailed” presentations on the Downtown Master Plan are much more organized than that crap they peddled last night…GGP should be embarrassed.

The results of the CA Elections are coming in and being posted on the respective Columbia Village websites. The good news, the people of Town Center listened to me instead of Patuxent Publishing and chose Suzanne Waller as the next representative on the CA Board over Stephen Meskin. It was close, Waller winning by a 134-121 margin.

In Harpers Choice, incumbent Cynthia Coyle won a decisive victory over Lynda Maxwell by a 315-200 vote margin.

As of the initial time of this post, still nothing on the Oakland Mills website or Wilde Lake website concerning the final competitive election for the CA Board.

UPDATE (9:31am 4/27): Thanks to Abzug below in the comments (which I have also seen on another site), we know Alex Hekimian narrowly defeated Phil Engelke 270-262. Many of the bloggers supported Engelke, but I ran in to many people I know in Oakland Mills who were supporters of Hekimian and liked that he could be a “pain in the a**” for the rest of the Columbia Council. Sort of a similar reason I always vote for Allen Dyer for School board despite the fact that there is porbably little I agree with him on - because he would be a royal pain in the a** for the rest of the School Board….

I mentioned the Howard county Republican Club sponsored Taxinus Maximus rally last weekend. The Howard County Times saw it worthy enough for front page treatment.

That is what the HCRC was looking for, and they got it. Unfortunately, they did not replicate the picture on the front of Columbia Flier, instead put a picture of a dog jumping through a hoop…

Despite the fact that they have utterly failed to even cover the elections for the Columbia Board of Directors, the editors at The Columbia Flier have released there endorsements, which can be found here. Jessie Newburn seems to be happy that they chose Phil Engelke in Oakland Mills. The Flier also chose Cynthia Coyle in Harper’s Choice (which probably won’t make Wordbones happy), Phil Kirsch (which probably won’t make Bill Santos happy), and Stephen Meskin in Town Center (which as I will explain below, doesn’t make me happy).

I went to the Candidate’s Forum for Town Center at Vantage House on Monday night in the hopes of getting an idea how each of the two candidates, Suzanne Waller and Stephen Meskin, stands, and was planning on writing something about it that night. I had some idea since I ran against both of them last year for the Village Board, but since they both were looking to step up to the next level, I was hoping to see a more focused debate on the issues in Columbia. Let’s just say I was sorely disappointed. There were about 25 people total in attendance, twenty of which probably came from inside of Vantage House itself. After about one hour of the most generic questions and generic answers possible, I learned absolutely nothing that could possibly be used by anyway to make a decision. What was more irritating was i gave up a chance at a free meal at That’s Amore to attend this forum….

Anyway, since I learned absolutely nothing from the candidate’s forum, my vote comes down to an issue that came up in a Town Center Village board meeting back in September, The issue of Mary Kay Sigaty’s retroactive enforcement zoning amendment that attempted to allow the County Council to change a zoning rule after a project has already been approved and require that project to conform to the new rules. I have called this bill one of the worst pieces of legislation ever to be conceived in the Howard County Council. The bill itself died without even getting a vote after Mary Kay Sigaty could not even get another one of her fellow Democrats to join her. It was that bad a bill. But before this happened, the Town Center Village brought the issue up in one of their Village Board Meetings. Here is what happened according to the Meeting Minutes of that night (CB 64-2007 is the bill mentioned above).

Mr. Knauft said that he is in favor of CB 64-2007. Mr. Knauft made a motion for the Town Center Village Board to support CB 64-2007. Mr. Meskin seconded the motion. Mr. Richardson said that he believes it is bad law to effectively direct legislation toward one company and that the legislation is retroactive. Ms. Wengel noted that the legislation will cover more cases than just ones concerning height. Mr. Meskin said it was a change in degree, not philosophy. He said that it was needed to counter a bad decision by the Planning Board, one that did not follow the rules. He said that opponents could not get past the issue of standing. Ms. Broida said that you would think that any resident would have the right to sue the county. The motion failed 2-3, with Mr. Richardson, Ms. Waller, and Ms. Wengel voting nay.

Following this vote, the Village Board did unanimously vote in favor of height limits (Sigaty’s other amendement) which, if pass by the County Council and coupled with the bill above, would have effectively stopped the tower by allowing the County to enforce a height limit even if the project was approved before the height limit was in place. Over time, I have heard all the members of the Town Center Village Board indicate they were opposed to the Plaza Tower. But the vote above showed that certain members did not allow their opposition to the Plaza Tower cloud their judgment and still voted for common sense and against supporting Mary Kay Sigaty’s disgraceful retroactive enforcement bill.

Therefore, based on this vote alone that showed the judgment of the two candidates, The Hedgehog Report endorses Suzanne Waller to be the next member of the Columbia Board of Directors from Town Center.

A little local reporting for you today. It being the week where we all get the high honor and privilege of handing our own hard earned money over to the Government, the Howard County Republican Club held its annual Taxinus Maximus Rally in Downtown Columbia followed by some sign waving on Little Patuxent Parkway. A couple shots from the rally.

Some elected officials from Howard County were there, including State Senator Allan Kittleman…

… and State Delegate Warren Miller.

Also speaking was new media star and Howard County Republican Club President Tom D’Asto.

Tom, in case you missed it, made an appearance on Fox 45 Morning News earlier this week to promote the event. Here is a link to the YouTube video of his appearance on Tuesday. After the rally, people went out onto Little Patuxent parkway for some sign waving.

We got quite few honks from passing motorists and were handing out bumper stickers to motorists. While it might seem worse, Howard County is about 1.4 Democrats - 1.0 Republicans in registration, so it is not as lopsided as it sometimes seems. In fact, O’Malley underperformed his party registration base in the previous election, barely edging out Ehrlich countywide. The HCRC is giving out (and selling on their website) the two new bumper stickers that you can get by clicking on the ad on the left-hand side of the site.

The goal, from what I understand, is to get as many of these stickers on cars as there are “Choose Civility” magnets on cars…which would be a pretty impressive feat if it can be pulled off. Many motorists were taking the stickers (especialyl the I “Owe”Malley one), so it might not be as far fetched a goal ….

Fox 45, The Baltimore Sun and The Howard County Times were all in attendance, so hopefully we will see a news items in all three about today’s events in the near future.

Anyway, it was just another fun-filled early afternoon event for those of us who enjoy politics, but like to have a good time doing it as well….

I am surprised no one else has mentioned this yet today. I am sure many of us local bloggers envision a future when we will actually have some sway in the community discourse, but in reality, none of us have anywhere near the audience at this point that would really cause people to change. However today, one local blogger did get some serious kudos for his work from the Washington Post and forced our Columbia Association to fix something that had long been neglected (third item in link).

Wilde Lake resident Bill Santos has walked the shores of Lake Kittamaqundi for years. As a teen, he worked at the now-closed lakefront boat rental. Santos was dismayed recently by the deterioration of the boat docks and the wooden bell tower there.

He had heard that the Columbia Association board of directors decided against paying for major repairs to the tower and dock area, just off the People Tree plaza, and a stone’s throw from headquarters of General Growth Properties. So he took another walk to the boat docks, this time with a camera. He posted what he found March 6 on his blog, Columbia Compass, at http://columbiacompass.blogspot.com.

There are shots of broken light fixtures, hollowed-out dock pylons, mildewed and cracked timbers, a sagging access ramp and trash strewn at the water’s edge.

You can see his full post here, with a gaggle of photos. I said at the time it was posted that this might have been one of the top investigative posts any local blog in Howard County has put up in a long time. The article continues.

Someone from the Columbia Association apparently was paying attention. A walk along the dock this week reveals that all the light fixtures appear intact, the pylons have been caulked and stained, a new set of stairs has replaced the sagging wooden ramp and there’s no trash in sight.

There is still work that needs to be done to the pier and bell tower, but I don’t think there is any doubt that many of these problems that were fixed would probably still be problems today if it were not for Bill Santos and his camera putting the problems so bluntly in front of everyone. Last time I spoke to Bill, he said he might post new pictures of the fixes at some point on his blog. He deserves most of the credit for getting something done.

By the way, Bill is running for the Wilde Lake Village Board and has posted his position statements on his blog.

You’d think our local newspapers would be somewhat embarrassed to be out-reported like this, especially on sometime so central to Columbia’s core. Can anyone tell me the last time we have seen an investigative piece in one of the Patuxent Publishing newspapers that caused any meaningful change in our community? Just one instance, which is all I am asking for….

The Baltimore Sun has a great article on something that I love to highlight, the absolute hypocrisy from elected officials when it comes to whining about “Global Warming” and telling everyone else they have to sacrifice to save Al Gore’ planet, but seem to not feel the need to sacrifice themselves.

Most of Maryland’s top elected officials say they’re committed to helping the environment, yet many of them get around in large sport utility vehicles.

Gov. Martin O’Malley, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and the executives of Anne Arundel, Harford, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties all say they are fans of energy savings and foes of global warming.

And all of them use vehicles environmentalists see as examples of excess.

While a few elected officials have turned to hybrid vehicles, O’Malley, Brown, and Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett travel in huge, ethanol-fueled Chevrolet Suburbans. Anne Arundel Executive John R. Leopold and Dixon use almost-as-large Ford Expeditions. Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson travels in a Cadillac Escalade SUV; Harford Executive David R. Craig uses a slightly smaller Chevy Trailblazer; and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger relies on a GM Yukon Denali.

Now for some reason they give credit to our County Executive Ken Ulman for purchasing a Hybrid SUV for himself and let him brag about it in teh article.

Ulman said he got the Ford Escape hybrid, one of the four top-rated “green” vehicles on the Environmental Defense Fund’s list, because he knew he was going to make the environment a major priority for Howard.
….
“I wanted,” he said, “to practice what I preach.”

Great! We would all love our politicians to practice what they preach. Except there is this little item also mentioned in the same article.

Ulman’s Ford Escape hybrid gets 30 mpg, uses 11.4 barrels of oil a year and puts 6.1 tons of carbon dioxide into the air. The Howard County executive, however, is often chauffeured around the county by a police officer driving an unmarked patrol car.

Emphasis mine. So what is it about what he is preaching that he is actually “practicing”? What point is he proving by buying a Hybrid for himself, but not actually using it and instead using a vehicle that consumes more gas than even my own SUV.

The Baltimore Examiner covered Ulman’s hypocrisy of driving around in a Crown Victoria (the unmarked police mentioned by The Baltimore Sun) despite his claims to care about the environment long ago and I had a post on it back then. In that article, Ulman is actually classified by the spokesman of the Howard County Police Department as saying Ulman “prefers” to drive around in the Crown Victoria, not the Ford Escape Hybrid he made such a big deal about buying. You can read that entire post here, but in it, I showed that the Crown Victoria gets approximately 17 mpg in the city. The Ford Escape Hybrid gets about 29 mpg in the city. Read the post here.

In a separate post last year, I also asked the question, before we even knew about Ulman’s use of the Crown Victoria, why Ulman couldn’t drive around in a Toyota Prius which gets much better gas mileage than a Ford Escape Hybrid. Back to The Sun article, even Roscoe Bartlett thinks a Toyota Prius is fine.

“I just wanted to set a good example,” said Bartlett, a conservative Republican from Western Maryland. Seeing elected leaders espouse environmentalism but practice something else “just makes people very cynical,” he said.

Bartlett says his Toyota Prius has plenty of room and is safer than a rollover-prone SUV.

“It’s a silly justification for conspicuous consumption,” the congressman said.

Apparently not enough room for Ulman however. By the way, I never did get an answer to the question why he can’t accomplish his work in a Prius, especially since not doing so has such dire consequences for Al Gore’s planet, according to Ulman.

One other thing, I would love for some County Government employee (anonymity would be guaranteed) to send me information on how much Ulman is driven around in his Crown Victoria compared to how much he is driven around in the SUV he trumpeted buying to show how much he cares about the environment. I know in our office, whenever a company vehicle is used, every mile is tracked. I would have to believe that the County Government keeps similar statistics for accounting purposes.

Anyway, a good time to bring back the classic quote from Instapundit about “Global Warming”.

I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.

To me, this is no different than a politician who claim to be devoted family man (or woman), yet have affairs on the side…hypocrisy is hypocrisy….

I am getting so fed up with the service at our local supermarkets (Food Lion and Giant) that I, someone who was ambivalent about Wegmans, to become a full fledged supporter of any supermarket, no matter how much damage it does to our local Village Centers, to bring some competition to force these smaller supermarkets to do something to improve their service. Yesterday, my trip to the Giant at the Owen Brown Village Center was about the last straw for me

First, I get to the deli counter at about 1:00pm. There is a line of about six people, which was not a big deal at first. But then I am watching the two people behind the counter working and let’s just say, it was clear they would rather be somewhere else. They were taking forever to slice the most simplistic orders for each customer. They also decide, despite the long line of customers, that they are going to carry on a conversation among themselves. Now that alone wouldn’t be a problem if they could two things at once, but whenever they would actually be talking, they felt the need to stop doing there job and slowing things down even more. It took nearly twenty minutes to get through the line at the deli counter. The people in line with me (about four people came after me as well) were commenting to each other about how slow things were and getting frustrated at the seeming refusal for the two people behind the counter to stop talking and start slicing. This prompted one of the persons behind the counter to mutter under her breath, although it was audible to just about everyone there, that she was going on break at 1:30 and we, the customers stuck in the line, would just have to suck it up and deal with it. i just shook my head in disbelief.

Bu that wasn’t the end of it. Then I get to the checkout line. There is really no long lines to speak of and the one I get into only had one person in front of me (I joked they were probably stuck at the deli counter waiting to get their meat). As I am waiting my turn, I am noticing the cashier is constantly looking down at her waist at the same time she is checking out the woman in front of me, obviously slowing things down because every time she would scan an item, she would take a few seconds to look down. The woman in front of me, you could tell, was getting frustrated at the slow pace at which she was being checked out. My first thought is she was getting a cell phone call and checking to see who it was. After the woman in front of me finally is finished and it is my turn, the cashier starts doing it again. This is when I notice she is actually typing out a text message on her phone to someone while she is trying to check my groceries. Obviously she knew she was doing something wrong since she is trying to hide her hone below the counter so her boss can’t see her. I am just in shock this what I am seeing that I am speechless.

Just on a whim, later yesterday, I mention my experience to my parents and they mentioned they saw the exact same thing occur at the same Giant (although I don’t know if it was the same cashier) when they were there recently.

I could chalk this up to just a bad day or a couple of bad employees, but this type of issue or other issues continue to happen at Giant and the Oakland Mills Food Lion that infuriate me about the service that I am now chomping at the bit for something, anything to force these places to get their acts together. We hear a lot in the news about the demise of our village center and the pending loss of these smaller supermarkets caused by in the incoming larger Wegmans and Harris Teeter. But I will say, it is becoming increasingly hard to feel sorry for the these when the service at these Village Center supermarkets continues to be ridiculously deficient. If these smaller supermarkets want to survive and the people who decry the demise the fate of our Village Centers, then these supermarkets had better get their acts together and the people who run the villages better start leaning on the management of these supermarkets to improve their service. Otherwise, they will lose people like me and others who would be perfectly willing to choose the Giant or Food Lion over Wegmans, but will not put up with piss poor service and will drop these Village Center supermarkets the minute Wegmans open….

I am on my last nerve with these places….

Even though Town Center is by far the smallest village in Columbia, this is the third straight time there will be a competitive election for a seat on the Columbia Council, something some of the larger villages can’t say themselves. Four years ago, Jud Malone defeated the incumbent Donna Rice. Two years ago, Gail Broida defeated Malone in his re-election bid. This time, Gail Broida decided not run again and we have a three-way race among two current members of the Village Board (Stehen Meskin and Suzanne Waller) and a third lontime Town Center resident (Hugh Tousey). I have my personal preferences, but I will hope to see how they do in the candidate’s forum.

There will be no competitive election for the Village Board as Linda Wengel will keep her sat and another long-time Columbia resident Jean Israel will take the seat apparently being vacated by Burt Knauft.

According to the newsletter, the Candidate’s Forum will be held on April 14th at 7:00pm at the Auditorium in the Vantage House Old Folk’s Home. The election is April 26th, but every resident will be mailed a postage-paid envelope to mail in absentee ballots. Last year when I ran for the Village Board, the total turnout for Town Center was 10.5%, barely enough to constitute a quorum that could have nullified the election. Hopefully the vote totals will be a little bit higher this time around.