Forgiveness not Permission
According to the indispensable O’Malley Watch, that has become the strategy of Governor O’Malley’s administration when it wants to do something and doesn’t want to be told no.
Long story short.
In September, as the “structural deficit” and “doomsday budget” were in full flower, the O’Malley administration sponsored a 6 day, 5 night stay at the Tidewater Inn in Easton, MD. The conference involved 20 people (a so-called executive retreat for the Office of Crime Control and Prevention now run by long time O’Malley croney Kristen Mahoney) and as Martin Watcher notes it was convened in a conveniently crime free location, presumably as a example of what Baltimore will look like under the Age of Aquarius that Governor O’Malley has ushered in.
The cost was $32,000.
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The proper procedure would have required the Board of Public Works to approve the expenditure. No doubt it would have done so as O’Malley has one vote there and he has a sockpuppet with a second vote. However, he could rely on that quintessential jackass, Peter Franchot, to not get with the program and make a stink about it. And selling a $32,000 boondoggle to taxpayers who are about to be bent over the coffee table didn’t seem like a great public relations coup.
What does our chief of the Office of Crime Control and Prevention, the lovely (see photo at upper left) Kristen Mahoney do? She holds the conference without the expenditure being approved and now the expenditure is slated for retroactive approval at the January 2 meeting of the Board of Public Works.
Now the state is faced with a fait accompli. Technically Ms. Mahoney is personally liable for the expense but the odds of that happening are about the same as Martin O’Malley fighting a tax increase.
If there is a single theme that is running through virtually every action by this administration it is contempt for the rule of law. Career employees are illegally fired. Land is bought with our money on behalf of the state from O’Malley cronies with the decision made by other cronies. Budget numbers are fudged. Illegal executive orders are issued. Money is spent without authorization. In the unlikely event that the Baltimore Sun grows tired of fellating the governor there is a lot of investigative reporting to be done.
