ELECTION 2022: Vote for Tom McKay for St. Mary’s Commissioner President

ST. MARY’S COMMISSIONER PRESIDENT: There are four candidates in the race for the GOP nomination for this office. Three have been interviewed and explained their reasons for filing for the position. Two, Randy Guy and Tommy McKay, have previously held the office and built a record.

Hide & Seek: William BJ Hall made a record over the past two years in public arenas as a radical intent on tossing popular slogans around as freely as a child playing hide and seek. BJ Hall has tried to hide his radical past as he seeks the GOP nomination. Hall fails to make a case for voters to select him as the best person for the job.

Just Hiding: School Board Member Rita Weaver didn’t answer several requests for an interview. Thus, the only criteria to base her credentials on is her record as a school board member. Those who serve on the school board fail to transition to the Board of commissioners as their experience deals solely with advocating unlimited spending with increasingly less than stellar results.

Guy’s experience as commissioner president is more recent than that of McKay. Guy’s credentials include a grade of A for reading prepared statements provided by staffers that appears he has little understanding of issues or complexities in the operation of county government. In the critical issue of where and how the Pot Factory got approved and how about an investigation, Randy Guy receives an F and should be sent to sit in the corner while wearing a dunce cap.

Tommy McKay is our choice for the post of St. Mary’s County Commissioner President. Former Commissioner Larry Jarboe has cited his four years in the post from 2002 to 2006 as being a record of achievement, efficiency, lower taxes, respect for the treasure extracted from taxpayers by county government, and meeting the needs of education each and every budget cycle. 

Larry Jarboe should know; he served four terms for a total of sixteen years and proclaimed McKay, the best commissioner president with whom he served.  

McKay recently said he first started getting tips from customers of his family grocery store when he was a kid carrying groceries out to their cars. Some tips were as much as a quarter, other times more, but he always appreciated the tips. McKay says that as he grew older and took on additional responsibilities in addition to bagging and carrying groceries, the tips came in the form of requesting other items to be stocked, other services to be provided, and even offering completed meals to take home. 

McKay points out that his business experience over the past few years with one crisis after another, which has crippled small businesses, makes him understand the challenges to small and independent businesses in a way that is impossible for others. The McKay stores will soon be reconfigured into smaller stores, and efficiencies sought to make them a viable business in the future.

Taking the same approach to government is nothing new to McKay, as he and Larry Jarboe worked to consolidate departments, eliminate department head positions and expand services to the community.

Tom McKay says in several recent interviews with THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY that he listens to citizens with suggestions on how to make government better and serve the needs of the public. He will open up and expand public forums regularly. 

The current public forum process operated and overseen by Randy Guy only allows a citizen a total of three minutes to address the commissioners on a topic, and the forum is only held four times a year, thereby restricting a citizen to twelve minutes in a calendar year to redress their grievances with their commissioners or to make a suggestion. In that spirit, Randy Guy presided over the establishment of a Pot Factory in a residential neighborhood in a Critical Area owned by unknown investors. 

McKay points out that he will resume the practice of the Board of moving around the county to firehouse social halls for the regular public forum. Anyone can have more time to speak once each person has had their turn and will stay open for comment until midnight if need be.  

Randy Guy’s campaign finance record shows only too well who has his ear as the county’s most prominent developers, and some of the investors of the Pot Factory in Abell are funding his campaign. It is clear why Randy Guy never provided the public with a way to learn about the Pot Factory or to provide their concerns before the industrial operation was placed in their residential neighborhood.

The choice is clear electing Thomas McKay as St. Mary’s County Commissioner President will provide the best leadership for St. Mary’s County.

  • MECHANICS WANTED
  • Interview with St. Mary's Commissioner President candidate Tom McKay

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