Talbot Today

We recently had a guest who was involved in banking in the UK and currently lives in France. Last week when the markets and financial issues reached an all time low, we were discussing the future and impact this may have on small to medium size businesses. He indicated if the financial problems we are having continue the dollar as we know it will soon be worth nothing…scary. Here is an article on the topic I found, which gives a nice foundation for our fears.

What the crisis means to you
By Patricia Sabatini • Scripps Howard News Service • October 5, 2008

The financial upheaval sweeping across the country in recent weeks has left many Americans feeling as though they’ve been hit with a Taser.

Billion-dollar bailouts and bankruptcies among the nation’s financial titans, a wobbly economy and crumbling stock and job markets have jolted the steadiest of citizens from Wall Street to Main Street.

As lawmakers and other powerful elite debate the intricacies of how the crisis arose and what should be done about it, the average Joe has more basic concerns: How safe are my deposits, my stocks, my home and my job? Here are some answers:

What about my job?
The economy has shed more than 750,000 jobs so far this year and more cuts are projected. Employers slashed payrolls by 159,000 in September, the most in more than five years, a worrisome sign that the economy is hurtling toward a deep recession.

The Labor Department’s fresh snapshot, released Friday, also showed that the nation’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent as hundreds of thousands of people streamed out of the work force for any number of reasons.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if job losses stretch out another nine months,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.

Continued declines are expected in manufacturing, construction and the financial services sectors, including mortgage finance, real estate and insurance. Layoffs also are spreading to retailing, business and professional services, such as law and accounting, and most recently into the leisure and hospitality industry, including restaurants and lodging.

What about my house?
Housing prices continue to sink, so sellers may be disappointed in what their homes can fetch. Buyers may find it more difficult to get a mortgage as lenders tighten standards and become reluctant to qualify borrowers who haven’t sold their existing home.

But for buyers with good credit who don’t have a house to unload, this could be a great time to plunge into home ownership, since prices are down and mortgage rates are low, hovering in the 6 percent range.

How safe are my bank deposits?
Millions of depositors have begun to worry about the safety of their savings in the wake of more than a dozen bank failures this year, including the federal bailout of Seattle-based behemoth Washington Mutual and Monday’s government-assisted sale of the nation’s fourth largest commercial bank, Wachovia, as it sank amidst the subprime mortgage meltdown.

With uncertainty growing, now is not the time to keep deposits in any one bank account that exceeds federal insurance limits.

The bailout passage approved Friday by Congress temporarily increases from $100,000 to $250,000 the amount of bank deposits covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Coverage does not apply to the contents of safe deposit boxes or to investments, meaning the FDIC does not insure money in mutual funds, stocks, bonds, life insurance policies or annuities, even if they were purchased from an FDIC-insured institution.

Rules can be confusing. Consumers can get an idea about whether their deposits are fully covered by using the FDIC’s Electronic Deposit Estimator at www.fdic.gov, or by calling 1-877-275-3342.

What will happen to my stocks and mutual funds?
On Monday, $1.2 trillion was erased from the stock market in the biggest sell-off in two decades. So far this year, major market indexes, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard and Poor’s 500, are down roughly 20 percent.

No one knows how low stocks might go, or how long it might take for the market to recover.

But that doesn’t mean it’s time to panic.

“Unless you believe democratic capitalism is set for permanent ruin, you continue to invest,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Green Tree, Pa.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Posted on October 5th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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In 2007 the Center received its nonprofit status and began its mission in earnest: “To educate and create understanding and appreciation about the ecosystems of the Chesapeake Bay and the heritage and life of the Chesapeake Bay waterman.”
by Steve Bailey

“I want people to be more aware of their environment,” says Kelley Cox, the founder and director of Phillips Wharf Environmental Center on Tilghman Island. “I want people who visit us to leave determined to do what they can to help the Chesapeake Bay, whether it means not fertilizing their lawns until the fall or using less water or preserving wetlands.”
Ms. Cox, who is a biologist, once worked for the State of Maryland, taking Chesapeake water samples and monitoring the health of the Bay. “Collecting the Bay in bottles, that doesn’t save it,” she said recently at the Center. “Encouraging stewardship is what will save it.”
Phillips Wharf Environmental Center was started in 2005 and is housed in a wharf building on Knapps Narrows that replaced the Phillips family’s crab shack, which was destroyed in 2003 by Hurricane Isabel. Ms. Cox and her sister, Lynne Bergeron of McDaniel, jointly own the property. In 2007 the Center received its nonprofit status and began its mission in earnest: “To educate and create understanding and appreciation about the ecosystems of the Chesapeake Bay and the heritage and life of the Chesapeake Bay waterman.”
Tilghman Island, with its waterman traditions and its still-sailing skipjacks, is an appropriate place for this effort. It has been hit hard by the Bay’s declining productivity, and this is a way to fight back. Phillips Wharf works to educate people of all ages about the Bay, whether by presenting educational programs to school children at environmental fairs; taking horseshoe crabs and diamondback terrapins to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum for Bay Day; or inviting the public to the wharf to meet and learn about a variety of animals. Living at the center now are six kinds of turtles, eight kinds of fish, three kinds of crabs and the many inhabitants of an oyster bar ecosystem.
Water from Knapps Narrows is continuously pumped through the tanks, demonstrating one of the factors hurting the Bay’s oyster population, which is now at less than one percent of historic levels. Sediment – dirt that comes in with the water – eventually covers the oysters. “We have to pick up the oysters once in a while and hose them off so they can breathe,” Ms. Cox said. “But no one can do that in the Bay.”
In addition to the oysters, often encrusted with mussels and barnacles, visitors to the Center can see the busy bottom sides of horseshoe crabs, how aggressive blue crabs can be, how fish can hide in plain sight and how to tell one turtle or terrapin from another. Supervised touching is encouraged. The Center has become a must-see for many island visitors and a way to reconnect with the Bay for many residents, some of whom show up with diamondback terrapins that they find on swimming pool covers.
Ms. Cox and her husband, Jerry, operate Dockside Express, a for-profit cruise and tour business that shares the wharf; she takes no salary from the Center. An all-volunteer staff of about 10 people, mostly Tilghman residents, help keep the Center open and help with outreach programs like taking creatures to Bay Day. Even without a payroll, the Center must raise about $300 a month to keep its pumps running and its doors open. Money beyond that amount can be used to buy educational supplies, repair old tanks and buy new ones, and pay for research. Right now the Center is collecting and preserving crab and water samples for scientists at COMBS in Baltimore who are researching viruses in crabs.

“We get people of all ages, from school children to seniors on bus tours,” Ms. Cox said. “At the moment, the Bay’s prospects are in doubt. I hope that after our visitors see some of the Bay’s amazing creatures, they’ll want to ensure that all the varieties of life in the Bay have a long and happy future.”
Phillips Wharf Environmental Center is at 21604 Chicken Point Road, the first street on the left after crossing the drawbridge to Tilghman; it is generally open Thursday to Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you want to check before visiting, the number is (410) 886-9200. A map to the center is online at www.pwec.org. Tax-deductible donations may be sent to Phillips Wharf Environmental Center, P.O. Box 122, Tilghman, MD 21671.

Posted on July 15th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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I find that this is a fine effort that Gov O’Malley is looking after our Watermen.

O’Malley seeks U.S. aid to provide jobs for watermen while industry recovers

By Rona Kobell | Sun reporter
May 3, 2008
If granted, the designation would mark the first time that a Chesapeake Bay industry has been declared a federal disaster, state officials said.

“We will keep our watermen working on things that bring back the bay while we are waiting for [the crab] population to rebound,” O’Malley said

full article

Posted on May 4th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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Steve sent over this great piece he wrote for the NY Times about Walt Bartman, who you can often find with his art students in Dogwood Harbor on Tilghman.

A Breath of Plein Air on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
By STEVE BAILEY
Published: April 11, 2008
The New York Times

AT dawn on Tilghman Island, the sun sends its rays horizontally over the wide mouth of the Choptank River, spotlighting white clapboard houses against the still-dark western sky. Just before sunset, as cotton-candy clouds glow above the distant Western Shore of the Chesapeake, an orange light tints the sails of antique skipjacks and other craft as they glide home for the day.

The light is fabulous,” said Walt Bartman, an artist and art instructor who often paints at his weekend house on Tilghman Island on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Mr. Bartman, 60, is the founder and director of the Yellow Barn Studio at Glen Echo, a tiny national park just outside Washington that is devoted to arts education. His primary home is in Braddock Heights, Md., about 50 miles northwest of Washington and a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Tilghman. “In Braddock Heights, we have cows,” he said. “In Tilghman, you have light and water.”

His wife, Robyn, 58, is his business partner at Yellow Barn, which has 18 instructors and 400 people taking classes. They discovered Tilghman in the mid-1980s when a student invited some other students and the Bartmans to his parents’ place for a day of painting and a crab feast. Mr. Bartman said they visited the island frequently for about 10 years and looked at other waterfront communities up and down the Eastern Shore before buying their house in 1995. “I thought that if I didn’t buy a place, it would soon be out of reach,” he said. Indeed, real estate prices have soared even as the island’s traditional industries — fishing, oystering and crabbing — have declined.

Tilghman, about three miles long and about a mile wide at its widest point, is just off the tip of the Bay Hundred peninsula, about 13 miles from St. Michaels, a popular weekend destination for boaters and for people who drive an hour and a half from Baltimore or Washington. The Bay Hundred has long been popular with second-home owners and retirees, and that market has in recent years reached across the Knapps Narrows drawbridge to Tilghman.

Although there is a new and expanding subdivision on the island, many second-home owners take the Bartmans’ approach and buy old houses and rehab them.

“This was a waterman’s house,” Mr. Bartman said, looking around his spacious living room with a towering stone fireplace. When they bought the house, which was built in 1908, it had two bedrooms, one bathroom and a living room floor that bounced as you walked on it. After a great deal of repairs and a major addition that included the new living room and the fireplace, the Bartmans have a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom house that doesn’t bounce at all.

The house is two stories, clad in pale yellow vinyl siding, with a green roof. In the back is a one-story 24-by-36-foot studio building that can accommodate 25 people for lectures or provide extra sleeping space for studio assistants as well as the Bartmans’ five children — ages 20 to 39 — and their families, including eight grandchildren and another on the way.

The property is not on the water, but there is public access to Black Walnut Cove a few steps from the front door. The open Chesapeake is only a few paddle strokes beyond that.

SOMETIMES moored in the cove is what Mr. Bartman calls his painting platform, a 34-foot custom-built motorboat modeled on the traditional work boats of the area. The boat lets him explore the many inlets that pierce the Talbot County mainland. He can cruise along heavily wooded banks where great blue herons rise unexpectedly and million-dollar houses and long-abandoned shacks hide among the trees. “The old work boats are fabulous,” he said, “great shape, great color.” His boat, Lady Mame, has been spending the winter on blocks in the yard behind the studio building.

In painting after painting — he refers to his style as atmospheric rather than impressionistic — he tries to capture the island’s life and death, as well as its light and water. “I think of it as the erosion of life,” he said, referring to the island’s many reminders of a busier and more prosperous time: half-sunken wooden work boats, long-vacant houses that often lean at precarious angles and the shrinking of commercial activity.

A sense of loss came up repeatedly in a conversation with the Bartmans at their Tilghman home. They recalled people who lived nearby in the ’90s, who shared island stories and attitudes with them and who have since died. “The couple across the street — he was an old waterman — had no heat in their house, just a kerosene heater and an electric blanket,” Mrs. Bartman said. “She said that one night she woke up to take some medicine and the glass of water by her bed had frozen.”

When the Bartmans started visiting Tilghman, it was still very much a working watermen’s community, where almost every family knew almost every other family, often going back for generations. The residents had a distinctive local accent. “That’s just about gone now,” he said. “That generation that was here is fading away. There were a lot of kids. They’d hang onto the drawbridge as it was going up and then drop into the narrows. That doesn’t happen anymore.”

Full Story…

Posted on April 11th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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In an attempt to discourage impaired driving during the St. Patrick’s Day weekend, with funding from “Checkpoint Strikeforce”, Maryland State Police, in conjunction with the Talbot County Sheriffs Office, Maryland State Highway Administration and the Talbot County State’s Attorney’s Office will join forces and conduct a DUI sobriety checkpoint within Talbot County on Friday the 14th.

The Sheriff’s Office is not disclosing the location of the checkpoints but signs on the roadway will advise motorists as they approach them.

Officers will check all vehicles that pass through the checkpoint and drivers who are found to be intoxicated will be arrested. Delays for motorists are expected to be minimal.

St. Patrick’s Day is a popular night to celebrate with friends and family but intoxicated drivers make the holiday a dangerous one. Last St. Patrick’s Day, 44 percent of the 105 drivers and motorcyclists involved in fatal crashes nationwide had blood alcohol content levels of .08 or above, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Checkpoint Factsheet

A rather interesting opinion on somd.com

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

The sobriety checkpoints planned for Southern Maryland will funnel limited state and federal grant money away from measures that have proven to be most effective in combating drunk driving (“Local Police Plan Sobriety Checkpoints for Coming Weekend,” March 11).

Because they are highly visible by design and publicized in advance, roadblocks are all too easily avoided by the chronic alcohol abusers that comprise the core of today’s drunk driving problem.

Conversely, the number of DUI arrests made by roving patrol programs is nearly 10 times the average number of DUIs made by checkpoint programs, according to testimony by a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation official.

By focusing scarce law enforcement resources on roadblocks, Maryland Police will strip Maryland’s roadways of their most valuable tool for catching drunk drivers.

Southern Maryland residents and taxpayers would benefit from employing the most effective tactics to catch drunk drivers: roving police patrols.

Sarah Longwell
Managing Director
American Beverage Institute
source: http://somd.com/news/headlines/2008/7312.shtml

Posted on March 14th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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The debate continues with legislators in the State House still considering a sales tax rollback for the Eastern Shore. There is no sales tax in Delaware and no sales tax on clothing in Pennsylvania. Washington, D.C.’s sales tax is also lower than Maryland’s…..hmmmm.

Bill Proposes Shore Operate Under Lower Sales Tax
By Shawn J. Soper, News Editor
Originally published February 8, 2008

As the Maryland General Assembly session rolled on toward its midway point this week, several bills of local importance were filed in both the House and the Senate including a bill that would revert the sales tax in nine counties on the Eastern Shore including Worcester back to the 5 cents per $1.00 rate. As part of sweeping changes to the tax code approved by the General Assembly during a special session last fall, the sales tax in Maryland was increased by 20 percent from five cents on the dollar to six cents on the dollar. This week, however, five Eastern Shore Senators, all Republicans, including Sen. Lowell Stoltzfus, who represents Worcester, filed a bill that would return the sales tax on the Eastern Shore back to its original rate.

If approved the bill would essentially create two different sales tax rates in Maryland with the Eastern Shore counties paying a lower rate than the rest of the state. Stoltzfus said this week the bill was largely symbolic and that he didn’t hold out much hope for its passage.

“The point of this is that we really wanted to send a message,” he said. “It’s not likely to pass, but we want it made clear the residents on the Eastern Shore are not happy with the sales tax increase.”

Stoltzfus said the sales tax increase approved last fall puts effects consumers but also puts Eastern Shore merchants at a competitive disadvantage. He cited the proximity of the shore to Delaware, where there is no sales tax.

“The negative impact of the 20-percent sales tax increase on Eastern Shore business is huge,” he said. “Many businesses on the shore are competing directly with Delaware and shoppers are finding it convenient and economical to go across the state line, particularly for larger purchases. It’s a real reason for concern.”

More on this

Posted on February 14th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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A Weekend Home That’s Straight Out of a Dream
by Steve Bailey

JAMES WOODYARD has no problem starting small.
“I rented a bedroom in the Hamptons in 2001,” he said. “That gave me the idea of having a second home.”

So, Mr. Woodyard, who built his own technology business from scratch, moved up in 2002 from that modest start on Long Island to a striking modernist waterfront home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, less than two hours from his home in Washington.

The quiet Eastern Shore may seem a poor substitute for the boldface-name buzz of the Hamptons, especially for an energetic entrepreneur like Mr. Woodyard. In fact, he admits, many weekends on the shore are spent relaxing in front of the TV or simply enjoying nature. But there’s a steady stream of family and friends, the beauty of Chesapeake Bay and the thrill of having nabbed the modern house, which was built as the HGTV Dream Home for 2002……..

Full Story

Steve continues to write for the NY Times after leaving New York to reside here in Talbot County with his wife Jane.

Posted on January 19th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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Researchers believe they had a good chance at restoring the crab population in the Bay.

Federal Funds Cut For Crab Study
Alex DeMetrick

A promising avenue of research which might restore large numbers of crabs to the Chesapeake has hit something of a dead end.

Alex DeMetrick reports the Bush administration has killed federal funding just as science was making the leap from the lab to the bay.

Scientists at the University of Maryland can often be found studying crabs in their final larval stage.

They’ve spent six years unraveling the blue crab’s unique secrets with a major goal in mind.

“To release into the Chesapeake Bay a large enough number–millions of juvenile crabs–to make a difference in bringing the breed stock back,” said Dr. Yonathan Zohar of the UM Biotechnology Institute.

But it’s too late for federal money.

The Bush administration has cut back funding from $4 million a year to zero dollars for the blue crab project.

So even though researchers can raise crabs to juvenile size for release in the bay, that artificial population boom might go bust before it’s tried.

Researchers believe hatchery-raised crabs have a good chance at restoring the population.

Last year, they released more than 200,000 crabs and found they grew, bred and migrated like those born in the wild.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

More on this

Posted on January 8th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
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Community wireless service will thrive in smaller cities and is making international headway, an analyst reports. Could a city like Easton be next? Lets hope so. Maybe the folks in Sherwood still opposing the proposed cell tower issues will move.

Despite EarthLink Inc.’s exit from the market, municipal wireless is alive and well in the U.S., mostly in small-to-midsize cities, and it’s beginning to spread to Europe, said Esme Vos, founder of MuniWireless LLC, the self-styled “voice of municipal broadband.”

In MuniWireless’ “2007 State of the Market” report, released earlier this month, she said, “We estimated the U.S. wireless market would experience year-to-year growth rates of around 33% from 2007 through 2010.” At that rate, the U.S. market for municipal broadband wireless, mostly Wi-Fi, including equipment and set up costs, will exceed US$900 million by the end of the decade. That is down from the 2006 projection, mainly because of EarthLink’s withdrawal, but the market is still growing.

EarthLink, Vos said, was focused on very large cities and has pledged to finish its wireless project in Philadelphia. With its withdrawal, the large-city market has become quiescent, in part because projects the size of Philadelphia are beyond the financial reach of the vendors building the systems. “If you don’t have the entire city of Philadelphia to cover, it’s faster and easier to roll out,” she said. “You also don’t have the big city politics, as we’ve seen in San Francisco. Smaller communities don’t have that dynamic.”

Smaller Communites Lead the ChargeHowever, many smaller cities and even rural counties are going ahead with their own plans for municipal, public Wi-Fi. As of Vos’ last count in August, 400 U.S. communities were in some stage of broadband service creation, from the pioneers with systems running to communities selecting a vendor. Many, she said, such as the farming community of Highland, Ill., are motivated by the lack of high-speed Internet connectivity or a lack of competition, allowing a single provider to charge high fees for services that many need for their small businesses and agribusinesses.

Initially, the economic model for municipal Wi-Fi installations was for the supplier to install and run the service on speculation. The municipality provided space on utility poles for the Wi-Fi antennas and received free access to the network. The vendor recovered its costs from a combination of fees charged to local businesses and private subscribers and advertising. That model proved economically nonviable and has almost disappeared, although WildFire Connections has announced that it will go ahead with an advertising-supported municipal Wi-Fi service in Concord, N.C., a city of about 56,000 people.

New Economic Model
Vos said the predominant economic model today is for the municipality to guarantee a minimum annual contract for municipal services to provide an economic anchor for the network. It then can sell excess connectivity to businesses and private individuals. She said that municipalities find this attractive because they can realize several benefits from municipal Wi-Fi with bottom-line efficiency improvements that save money in normal operations, as well as top-line service improvements, particularly to public safety and emergency services.

It’s common, for example, for municipalities to install wireless water and sewer meters and eliminate the expense of sending out meter readers. Burbank, Calif., is taking that to the extreme, getting residents and businesses to allow the city to install wireless environmental controls in their homes and businesses in exchange for a discount on their electric bills. Burbank then can manage power use across the city to optimize use.

Public Safety is Job No. 1”

The No. 1 application that all cities want is public safety,” Vos said. “Wi-Fi has more capacity than cellular digital, and second, it’s cheap — you don’t have to pay Verizon every month for all those connections.” In San Antonio, a municipal Wi-Fi pioneer, ambulances send live medical readings directly from medical monitors to the hospital via the Wi-Fi system as they transport the victim.

Police need to send information and photos. “In the aftermath of the Underground bombing in London, the police and ambulance personnel at the scene had no idea what they would find when they went into the tunnels,” Vos said. “But people on the scene started taking photos and film clips with their cell phones and sending them to the police.” These were forwarded to the first responders, who used the information to better focus their efforts, she added.

“Looking back over the last couple of years, the main lesson I learned is that when a city sets up a citywide Wi-Fi network, they have to look at it as an infrastructure that carries a variety of services and applications,” Vos said. “They can’t look at wireless itself as a service.” Once it’s available, it quickly becomes a necessity in people’s lives. In large cities such as New York, she said, “there is a lot of free Wi-Fi available that all those people walking around with iPhones and iPod Touches can use. So if you want to go to a particular bar in SoHo and can’t remember its name, you can Google it right on the street. Once you get used to that, you never want to go back to living without it.”

Source: Bert Latamore, Computerworld
Bert Latamore is a journalist with 10 years’ experience in daily newspapers and 25 in the computer industry. He has written for several computer industry and consumer publications. He lives in Linden, Va., with his wife, two parrots and a cat.

Posted on November 25th, 2007 by Tilghman Guy
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The Star Democrat has reported the Talbot Council has failed to fill the vacancy created August 10th when Peter Carroll resigned, their sixth attempt. Tuesday’s vote, the first in the public eye went unchanged as they split on Cory Pack and John General with two each. The paper also reported the council scheduled a public session for questions with the canidates on Tuesday October 20, when it is actually Tuesday October 30th.

Posted on October 24th, 2007 by Tilghman Guy
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