Submitted by hiruy2000 t3_1258e5d in ColumbiaMD
Two years ago Howard Hughes Corporation and the establishment tried to co-opt the CA by exploiting diversity and equity.
They’re at it again.
They politicized simple acts or Board oversight and somehow managed to make it about diversity and equity.
Columbia Association voters take heed.
What are you talking about? What issue did I not know what I was talking about? The Lake Elkhorn issue? What did I not know about that?
I’m sorry, Allan, but pushing out a CA President who would’ve cost the organization millions, and maybe even their tax-exempt status, is NOT a waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars! In fact, it was Lakey’s decisions which cost the CA millions, as described in the piece
Any comments with respect to some of the points in the piece? Such as:
For example, why did Lakey Boyd give a 65% reduction in rent to a corporate entity at the expense of CA home-owner dollars?
Or Why is Howard Hughes Corporation another corporate entity getting a 50% reduction in rent?
This is the usual conspiracy theorist, culture war propaganda from the hard right in Howard County.
Not saying Lakey Boyd was perfect, I'm sure she had some flaws and was not blameless in her conflicts with the board. But this is not an objective treatment of that situation.
Howard Hughes literally funded candidates to the tune of at least a hundred thousand dollars with a campaign platform rooted in culture war.
I am the Author of this piece. Until last September, I was the President of Progressive Democrats of Howard County, and am now Vice President of Our Revolution Howard County, another progressive grassroots group that formed out of the Bernie Sanders campaign, and is dedicated to getting corporate money out of politics. How is this culture war propaganda? I want racial Justice and equity in this County, not people who say they care about it but then act against it. That is unfortunately what Lakey Boyd was doing…
What was biased/not objective about this piece?
Assuming you wrote this piece in good faith (which I'm not entirely convince of since true unbiased actors don't write and behave the way you do), here are a few tips if you want to be taken seriously.
I can see how you have these takeaways if you’re only viewing this situation in a vacuum, and are not familiar with the past actions and other figures involved. If you’re not convinced by Parts 1 & 2 yet, i at least encourage you to read Part 3 & 4 when they come out, as they deal with other shady things done by Lakey outside of this one contract. And I did cite some sources in the piece that reference norms in commercial real estate and leases (such as annual 3% monthly rent increase to account for inflation, as the previous CA President’s contract included)
It’s YOUR job to provide a compelling argument. You have not done that. It is not my job to be convinced by your flimsy evidence. I know you think you have a smoking gun. I can assure you that you do not.
Rents move and down all the time, especially in the commercial market.
Inflation riders are preferred but not universal.
There is simply no proof here that Lakey acted in bad faith.
The fact that you’re not open to objective feedback just proves you have underlying motives and aren’t really interested in discovering the truth.
Which is fine (especially since you posted it to a site that promotes conspiracy theories), but just know that your opinion will just keep being marginalized because everyone will continue to not take you seriously.
That’s a fine takeaway to have, though many others do find the evidence presented in this blog to be quite damning, and perhaps the future parts will make you feel the same way
And I’m not sure how you could say I’m not open to feedback, when I’m reading your feedback, and engaging honestly with it
Yes the “evidence” is quite damning if you’re on the extreme right and already prone to believing in conspiracy theories.
Multiple people have already told you your evidence is flimsy and you continue to post the same things over and over again.
Giving corporations sweetheart deals to the tune of $1 million+ is quite conservative, actually. Holding corporate greed and corruption accountable is the heart of the modern progressive movement, in fact
And again, you have not proven that this was a sweetheart deal without providing comps. Please provide comps.
I know you are trying to be thorough and cover your bases, but um... yeah, no one's reading all of that - especially since you've done nothing in your introduction to provide a compelling reason to stay.
"This is the first part in an 8 article series..." JFC.
Ok, what I read is all these dummies need to get new jobs, and we need a new set of dummies who amend the bylaws so that a CA President can’t act unilaterally.
Even if you think the CA Board incumbents failed at maintaining control over a rogue President, wouldn’t you want the replacements to at least acknowledge that what Lakey was doing was problematic in the first place? Would you say that people who defend what she did would actually be even more harmful than the incumbents, who did not act quickly enough to stop it?
Did you attend the open meetings? Because all I saw were a bunch of unqualified yokels who should not be leading out community.
Like shooting down the idea of revisiting the town's strategic plan in the wake of COVID? One of the dumbest fucking things I ever heard coming out of board's mouth was "the strategic plan is the strategic plan." That statement showed me that a number of these board members have no vision, are out of touch and are unqualified to lead in any type of executive capacity.
It’s more that, and I don’t mean this in a “burn it down” anti-civic sense, sometimes a situation is so dumb it’s better to move to the forensics/recovery phase.
I wish all the board, and Boyd for that matter, health and love and happiness, but smearing/rehabilitating them is a misapplication of everyone’s energy.
I’d love a full outside accounting of what happened, and laws/bylaws enacted to prevent similar issues in the future.
All I know is if I was wrongfully smeared, and up for re-election soon, I would probably want the record set straight on what actually went down
It's a damn shame we can't unify enough to incorporate.
Jim Rouse served as an excellent benevolent dictator, but now that he and his company are gone, our city has been left to the wolves.
We don't need The Howard Hughes Corporation.
We don't need The Columbia Association.
We need a fucking mayor.
Question- what in your view is the problem and how does incorporating address it?
Well, this is interesting. I keep wondering what the hell was really going on? I don't know if this is the story or not, but I do think that money had to have something to do with all the turmoil.
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Rashaverik t1_je38le9 wrote
Why do you care Hiruy? You don't even live in Columbia. Does Jake even live in Columbia?
Jake was at my door about a week ago and we talked. He was going around backing a group and issue which he wasn't even informed on.
There's no big "Rouse Project 2.0" conspiracy. It's people who actually care about their community and are tired of the BoD members in power which ARE ACTUALLY costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of which Jake mentioned in his article.