The Bowie City Activist

“You Ought to Go To Jail!” Those were my words to the corrupt Mayor Fred Robinson at Free State Mall three years ago this afternoon on September 22, 2006. City Hall clowns, the corrupt unelected City Manager David Deutsch and the pathological liar Fred Robinson, have failed in their attempt to silence me in my hometown of almost 50 years. I would like to publicly thank State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey for not listening to the pathological liar, Mayor G. Frederick Robinson, regarding the highly publicized police arrest that occurred at City Hall following the 2006 Democratic Primary Election. Shortly after my arrest, Mayor Robinson conceded the 48 vote margin County Council election to the honorable Ingrid Turner whom I had endorsed on my Bowie City Activist website. Throughout my corporate career, I was always told by my superiors that I had good instincts about people. My instincts twenty years ago about the pathological liar Fred Robinson were correct. We are blessed to have the honorable Ingrid Turner as our County Councilwoman. To date, I have not been charged with any crime involving the September 22, 2006 confrontation as reported by The Bowie Star. Of course, the louse John Rouse did not have the same editorial integrity to publish a follow-up article with the final outcome, or to allow me to state my side of the facts. How could he? Rouse the louse was an integral part of my police arrest as my readers know. The Deutsch/Robinson political corruption extended to the Bowie Blade News. The collusion between the corrupt David Deutsch, the Blade News and the Bowie Chamber of Commerce lead to my decision not to run for mayor in 2005. Deutsch used a contracted PG County police officer to interfere with a city campaign on election night 2005 – an offense the Code of Bowie at the time stated was grounds for his immediate dismissal. Rouse even answered on behalf of the City when I raised the Blade News/Devlin payment made by one city political campaign. And of course, I blew the whistle in 2005 on the Connie Jenkins, Treasurer barter arrangement with the Bowie Blade News exchanging free Movie Reviews written for the Blade News in exchange for Rouse’s political endorsements. Now we find our Bowie City elections lack integrity – the City Clerk responsible for administering City elections is a political campaign contributor of Fred Robinson, and we find our city does not have an independent election board of supervisors. Our city election results are counted secretly behind closed doors. Who knows what transpires behind closed doors after the City polls close – perhaps the movement of a few hundred Dahms votes magically turn into Robinson votes in a three way Mayoral race in a highly contested 1998 race stealing the closest City election in modern times from Betsy Burian? Burian only lost by a few hundred votes. Such speculation never entered my mind only until I learned of City Clerk Pam Fleming's campaign contribution to Robinson for County Council in 2006, and her failing to disclose her conflict of interest by removing herself from conducting city elections while Robinson is a candidate. This looks bad and perception is reality! Who cares? Richard Dahms cares! I have always believed in democracy and the power of voting, and taking action for change at the voting booth. Councilwoman Ingrid Turner’s uphill battle defeated both Fred Robinson, and the Bowie Blade News editor. Her election speaks volumes about all things being possible. Every vote counts, and lets be thankful for 48 votes in 2006. However, in the City of Bowie, our vote does not count. And the integrity of our elections are now in public doubt. The corrupt City Manager David Deutsch has made joke of our city elections by allowing his subordinate, the City Clerk, to continue to administering the City election with Fred Robinson as a city candidate. The City Clerk is supposed to be impartial but she has demonstrated with her wallet her partiality and conflict of interest in this city election. Her $200 campaign contribution to Robinson for County Council disqualifies her to conduct a City election involving Fred Robinson. City elections fall under the responsibility of the City administration – why how convenient! So the fox is guarding the henhouse. If Fred Robinson is appointing the members of this city committee that is responsible for supervising our elections, how do challengers obtain representation on this city committee? The answer is - they don’t. The unelected City Manager and his administration have a seat at the table of this city elections committee with the City Clerk and the City Attorney, but challengers are excluded from representation. In contrast, Prince Georges County elections are not administered in the same way that City elections are being administered. As communicated in a letter addressed to me by Craig S. Price dated July 31, 2009, “Therefore the County Executive and County Council has no formal role in selection of members of the (County) Board”. This explains much about how the corrupt Fred Robinson and the unelected head of the City, the corrupt David Deutsch, have been able to perpetuate themselves. In my mind, this makes plain why Fred Robinson failed three times at County Council runs – twice in the 1990s against Richard Castaldi and Audrey Scott, and more recently against Ingrid Turner. The difference is there is an independent Board of Elections at the County level and no City Clerk campaign contributor administering the County elections. We cannot and will not effectuate positive change in Bowie without first removing the corrupt City Manager who is the unelected head of the City of Bowie, and reforming our municipal elections bringing transparency and integrity into the City’s election process. This morning, I ran into two long time City residents today who said to me, “Most people would be afraid to go through what you have gone through”. Standing up for freedom, liberty and good city government, fear never entered my mind. I realized in 2005 that Deutsch and Robinson were corrupt, but only since this summer have I learned just how corrupt these two are. I still believe today that if an investigation is performed - the corrupt Fred Robinson and corrupt David Deutsch - both would find themselves in orange jumpsuits in a cell near “Bubba”. Richard 1992 and 1998 Mayoral Candidate, 2005 Write-in Candidate www.bowiewatch.org A BORING CANDIDATE FORUM (Added 10/14/2009) Oh yawn! I just came from the Greater Bowie Chamber of Commerce (GBCC) Candidate Forum. Boy was that ever boring! Far more exciting was the pre-Forum sparring with the little weasel - the corrupt unelected $196,992 David Deutsch - who claimed I was in his space at the entrance of the meeting hall before the Forum got underway. I said to the little weasel, “What are you going to do, arrest me? You’ve already tried that”, to which Deutsch replied, “If necessary”. The corrupt David Deutsch then used his Nazi Gestapo tactics as a Bowie police officer came in to stand guard at the entrance of the meeting hall shortly after Deutsch and I exchanged our “niceties”. The name “Deutsch”, isn’t that German? I am sure unelected David Deutsch would have made a nice little Nazi in the 1940s. Being the free thinker that I am, and not one to kiss the sacred ass of the louse John Rouse (we leave the entire Rouse ass kissing to little Jack Jenkins - who was in the audience this evening), I am sure the Nazi Deutsch and his Council stooge Fred Robinson would have been the first to have me exterminated in Nazi Germany! Oh that’s right - that is why Bowie has a segregated “whites only” City Hall with the corrupt Nazi Deutsch at the helm. African Americans are kept in their place as the garbage men under the Arian Nazi Deutsch. Things calmed down after the corrupt Deutsch exchange of “niceties”, and the forum got under way. Now mind you, I no longer believe our vote counts in Bowie. The Peoples’ Banana Republic of Bowie is headed by the corrupt David Deutsch. Our city elections are in vain, and we will never have a better Bowie only until we achieve a rotation in the City Manager as Article 34 of our state constitution provides as a guarantee right to us. But corrupt individuals like the little weasel David Deutsch don’t care about constitutions. The little weasel Deutsch is drunk on his own power, and he can’t conceive or even relate to the average ordinary citizen in Bowie who pays his salary. Let’s face it - what else can the little weasel Deutsch do in life? Having stated that our city elections are in vain, and with an understanding of how our vote doesn’t count in Bowie, I’ll play along for a moment with these observations from tonight’s Candidate Forum: · Moderator and past Fred Robinson Campaign Contributor Art Widmann tripped from the start by welcoming people to the “debate”. Debate? What debate? We don’t have debates in Bowie City elections! If we had debates in Bowie, everyone would find out what a moron Fred Robinson is. As I’ve always said, I could rip Gee Fred to shreds in a real debate. So, instead, we heard screened questions from Fred Robinson crony Benjamin Woolery, and the candidates would all respond with essentially the same answers. Pete Mellits made an attempt to differentiate himself in several of his answers. A couple of times, incumbent Diane Polangin looked lost. · Geraldine Valentino-Smith is by far the best of the candidates in the 3 contested races. The fact that we only have three contested races is a testimony to Deutsch’s corruption and his long duration as the unelected head of the City. People are giving up, and Deutsch’s crimes against the people of Bowie ought to be investigated at the Federal level. · When questioned about the problem of speeding, At-Large Candidate Tony Kennedy made the gaffe of the evening admitting that he’s a speeder. Ok – well, at least he’s honest. I think I’ll vote for Valentino-Smith and then write my own name in for the other At-Large choice. · One of the first questions asked this evening was something to the effect, “What would you do if the City of Bowie received a windfall of $1 Million?” Former Bowie Mayor Dick Padgett who was sitting next to me whispered to me, “The smart answer would be to lower taxes”. Yes Dick that would have been the smart answer and not one of the candidates said it! Giving credit where credit is due – District 2 Challenger Pete Mellits said he would ask the citizens how the money should be used. What a novel and refreshing idea - asking constituents for input. You mean to tell me that Diane Polangin has only been an incumbent for one term, and she has already forgotten her constituents? I would expect the haughty and arrogant Dennis Brady who has been on the Council way too long since 1994 to forget his constituents, but I was a little taken a back by newbie Diane Polangin’s forgetfulness. So, District 2 challenger Pete Mellits scored a point on his answer because if he had asked the citizens, he might have heard someone say, “Why not reduce taxes with it?” Well, overall, it was a boring candidate forum. We were reminded how Geraldine Valentino-Smith is a far more better Councilmember in terms of intelligence than the idiot Fat Freddy Robinson. Far more exciting was the corrupt little Nazi David Deutsch and the pre-forum sparring. Oh, and speaking of political corruption under the unelected David Deutsch, I ran into “Rouse the louse” today in the Giant parking lot at Free State Mall. I called the Liar Rouse the louse – LIAR - to his face! I guess Rouse the louse got my adrenalin going for tonight’s let down of a “Debate”. Have a peaceful evening. Remember, our vote doesn’t count in Bowie under the corrupt little weasel David Deutsch. Richard www.bowiewatch.org 1961 Belair at Bowie Pioneer resident

BOWIE CITY ACTIVIST CITY ELECTION ENDORSEMENTS (Added 10/26/09) As my readers know, our vote doesn’t count in Bowie with our elections administered by the unelected City Manager David Deutsch. The fox is guarding the henhouse, and the opportunity for Deutsch to rig our elections behind closed doors was tipped off to us by his City Clerk Pam Fleming and her campaign contribution to Fred Robinson. The flaws in our City election process has already been discussed here at The Bowie City Activist website. To re-cap, State of Maryland election laws that contain “checks and balances” to provide integrity in our vote at the State and County level elections do not apply to the Municipalities. This flaw at the City level needs to be changed to restore integrity to our city elections City voters not only vote for City policy, which the Council is responsible for, but also vote only indirectly on the city administration itself. Under our City Manager/City Council form of City government, the city administration performance is not ever placed directly on the election ballot in our Bowie City Council elections. This is why positive and real change in Bowie is often slow to happen, and David Deutsch’s long duration as the unelected head of Bowie has hurt Bowie and has promoted his cronyism and political corruption. A fresh pair of eyeballs in the city administration is long overdue So, having said these introductory comments, on with the Bowie City Activist endorsements: MAYOR – Sam Graham blew off the Robinson cronies at Greater Bowie Chamber of Commerce (GBCC) Candidate forum. I won’t mention their names, but their initials are Benjamin Woolery and Art Widmann. Then, Graham apparently snubbed his nose at the Bowie Pravda (oops, I mean Bowie Blade News) when he, according to the Blade News, didn’t return the Blade News candidate questionnaire. That kind of chutzpah is what we need in a Mayor of Bowie. Unlike Robinson, Graham has told us no lies. When Fred Robinson’s mouth is moving, he is usually lying - saying anything to get elected like telling Bowie in 1998 that he was going to stop the regional shopping mall, and then he voted for it once elected. LIAR! LIAR! PANTS ON FIRE! The Bowie City Activist website enthusiastically endorses Samuel Graham for Mayor. Well, you didn’t expect me to endorse the idiot Gee Fred Flintstone did you? AT LARGE – Geraldine Valentino-Smith has all the right stuff!!! She is homegrown/hometown Bowie. Valentino-Smith should have run for Mayor of Bowie this year, as she can run a Council meeting and act ceremonial as good as anyone else in town since we all know the unelected corrupt City Manager is the actual head of the City of Bowie. Here is a City Councilmember who “gets it” by her comment “……I was elected to represent the citizens and not to just rubber stamp staff recommendations”. Valentino-Smith has demonstrated that she is not afraid to ask the difficult tough questions, and does not accept “because the city has always done things that way” as an adequate answer. The Bowie City Activist website applauds Valentino-Smith’s efforts to find new and better ways to involve the citizens of Bowie in the public debate and deliberations that so dramatically affect their quality of life, and help promote a meaningful checks-and-balances system by the City Council for our city manager system of governance. One other comment about Valentino-Smith. She is the only political candidate I have ever seen express the four letter word “love” in her campaign theme in 2007. Love is what we all want in life and her use of the word “love” in her campaign in 2007 “I love this City” was nothing short of brilliant marketing that rang genuine and true in many voters minds. This is why she garnered more votes than the idiot Robinson in the 2007 city election. The Bowie City Activist website enthusiastically endorses Geraldine Valentino-Smith for re-election. Dennis Brady has some good qualities, but sometimes lacks common sense. Along with the idiot Robinson, he supported the attack on the C&C Dance Company at the non-tech center. Has anyone else noticed how screwed up the new traffic lights are on Race Track Road? Where was the self proclaimed analytical engineer Dennis Brady when the City staff rushed this hodge podge traffic light design through? Brady has been on the Council way too long, and needs to go. Unfortunately, it won’t be in this city election, however. Tony Kennedy is not up to speed (pun intended) on how the city operates. An unabashed city speeder, Kennedy is a likeable individual but is completely unpolished as a political candidate. I am more qualified to be the At-Large candidate than Tony Kennedy. I own two city properties – one in North Bowie and one in South Bowie which makes me “more At-Large” than even Dennis Brady. Besides, I never pandered to the louse John Rouse at the Bowie Pravda like Dennis Brady. I was on the right side of the Melford land covenants fight arguing that the covenants were antiquated. My roots in Bowie go back almost 50 years, and I have been through the City’s flawed political process a couple times. Therefore, I endorse myself as a write-in for the second At-Large choice in protest of the City Clerk’s blatant conflict of interest in conducting this city election as a campaign contributor of Fred Robinson and her lack of ethics compromising the integrity of our city election. So, The Bowie City Activist website endorses Geraldine Valentino-Smith and Write-in Richard Dahms for the two At-Large seats. DISTRICTS 1, 3 and 4 – The Bowie City Activist endorses pulling the lever for Jimmy Marcos, Todd Turner and Isaac Trouth. Isaac Trouth gets special mention for his Council comments made last summer during the Residential Housing at Hilltop Shopping Center Public Hearing. Trouth made the excellent point during the hearing that Bowie Senior High School does not have the capacity to support more students that would come with more new housing in the City of Bowie. DISTRICT 2 – It is not surprising that District 2 is the one district that is a contested race. District 2 includes the original Levitt’s Belair at Bowie sections. Believe it or not, even in my old neighborhood of Somerset, there are original homeowners still living here. Or, like the current owner of my childhood home - the country clubber on Stem Lane – purchased our home from my parents in the early 1970s and still remain there to this very day. It’s no secret District 2 votes and is a bevy of old line/old time Bowie residents. The Citizens of District 2 did not elect Diane Polangin to maintain the status quo in Bowie when they elected her in 2007. She was elected for change, and Diane forgot her constituency and blew a great opportunity to help change Bowie. Being a City Council member means more than sending out nice constituent e-mails which I am sure Pete Mellits could do just as well. Perhaps Mellits’ greatest asset is his wife Lisa who ran the Kenilworth Elementary School PTA for several years along with Mellits’ campaign treasurer Pam Wilson. The popular PTA President Lisa Mellits raised and managed a PTA budget of about $80,000 a year for the school – the size of a small business. Under Lisa Mellits’ direction at the school, I was responsible for the Giant/Safeway/Target grocery card program in which during our tenure Kenilworth Elementary ranked number 2 in City schools behind St. Pius for the amount of money it received from the grocery card program. Pete and Lisa Mellits always took care of Kenilworth Elementary School spearheading the annual school grounds clean-up days. Daughter Cara took care of children for parents who couldn’t find sitters on PTA meeting nights. The City would be well served by second Bowie generation Pete Mellits who scored a point in his answer at the Greater Bowie Chamber of Commerce Candidate Forum in which he said he would ask citizens what to do with a hypothetical $1 Million windfall. In the 2009 city election, District 2 is the litmus test contest for statewide elections next year, and the point he scored with his answer to the hypothetical question is the winning field goal! The Bowie City Activist enthusiastically endorses Pete Mellits for Council in his home District 2. So, here is our “Dream Team” 2009 Bowie City Council: Mayor – Samuel Graham At-Large – Geraldine Valentino-Smith At-Large – Write-in Richard Dahms District 1 – James Marcos District 2 – Pete Mellits District 3 – Todd Turner District 4 – Isaac Trouth The Bowie City Activist supports either Todd Turner or Geraldine Valentino-Smith to be Mayor Pro Tem. Richard Notice: Content on this website may not be copied or reproduced without permission. © 2009 – The Dahms Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Added March 20, 2010: “It’s Time to Clean House in Bowie” – An open letter to the Citizens of Bowie from one of modern Bowie’s original pioneer residents I would like to publicly thank Prince Georges County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey for not listening to the pathological liar Mayor G. Frederick Robinson and City Manager David Deutsch when I was detained by police at City Hall following the September, 2006 Democratic Primary Election. Shortly after my politically motivated arrest, Mayor Robinson conceded the 48 vote margin County Council election to the Honorable Ingrid Turner whom I had endorsed on my Bowie City Activist website. To date, I have not been charged with any crime in Robinson/Deutsch’s political retaliation attack on September 22, 2006. The Robinson/Deutsch fight began in 2004 when I came to the public defense of the C&C Dance Company in which Robinson/Deutsch were spending city tax money attempting to evict a dance studio serving Bowie’s children. It escalated in 2005 when I contemplated running for mayor again – I uncovered a city election collusion scheme involving Robinson/Deutsch, one special interest group, and one local media outlet that exclusively receives all City paid advertising diverted as a kickback. The City of Bowie is served by two local newspapers. As a result of Robinson/Deutsch’s collusion scheme, I did not run for Mayor in 2005 and Robinson ran unopposed. Instead, I concentrated my efforts supporting one city council campaign in my home District 2. On election night 2005, Deutsch used a City contracted Prince Georges County police officer to interfere with the city council district campaign I represented on election night. Deutsch should have been fired in 2005 for his interference with a city council campaign as per our City law. The political fight with the unelected Deutsch escalated further during the 2006 Democratic Primary election when I learned Deutsch was providing City support for Fred Robinson as County Council candidate. Deutsch failed to enforce city signage laws on Robinson allowing him to place signs illegally on City property. On September 22, 2006, I confronted Robinson. At City Hall, I was deliberately and intentionally handcuffed in front of my crying daughter – a personal political retaliation attack and an act of child abuse by Robinson and Deutsch inflicting emotional trauma on my daughter that day. Since my highly publicized police detention on September 22, 2006, I have been stopped by City police on several occasions. One police stop occurred within a week after I filed a NAACP Complaint against Robinson and his attempt to oust the Honorable District 3 City Councilman Todd Turner from our City Council. To date, I have not been charged with any crime or received any traffic violation tickets involving these strange police stops that I believe to be continued police harassment by Robinson/Deutsch. This past summer, I again contemplated running for Mayor in next week’s election, but I learned of new city election corruption involving the unelected City Manager Deutsch. The current webpage of The Bowie City Activist discusses among other things the conflict of interest involving the City Clerk’s past campaign contribution to Robinson while conducting this city election thereby compromising the integrity of our city election. Our City Clerk is supposed to be impartial and above approach – almost like a judge – and her past campaign contribution to Robinson should have disqualified her from conducting any city elections involving Robinson. Citizens are also encouraged to view the webpage January 7, 2006 available in the dropdown box at www.bowiewatch.org and the letter from the Venable law firm threatening the City with a Freedom of Information lawsuit in the early 1990s because then-City Councilman Fred Robinson did not want to make certain financial documents public in violation of the Maryland Public Information Act. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to stand-up for liberty against corrupt individuals in high places who use police intimidation tactics to further their own local tyranny and corruption. The integrity of our City elections have been consistently compromised under the corrupt David Deutsch since 2005, and it was Deutsch’s mis-conduct involving our elections that provoked and climaxed with the September, 2006 police detention. Good government in America begins with good government in Bowie. To date, these two City Hall clowns - the corrupt David Deutsch and the pathological liar Fred Robinson - have failed in their police harassment attempts to silence me in my hometown of almost 50 years. In the public service, Richard A. Dahms, Public Domain 1961 Belair at Bowie Pioneer Resident 1992 and 1998 Bowie Mayoral Candidate, 2005 Bowie Mayoral Write-in Candidate www.bowiewatch.org Notes: Maryland State Constitution Declaration of Rights Art. 34. That a long continuance in the Executive Departments of power or trust is dangerous to liberty; a rotation, therefore, in those departments is one of the best securities of permanent freedom (amended by Chapter 681, Acts of 1977, ratified Nov. 7, 1978). In the City Manager/City Council form of city government, the unelected City Manager is the Chief Executive Officer of the City as defined by Section 39 of the City Charter. Applying Article 34 of our State Constitution to Bowie, a change or rotation of the Chief Executive Officer is one of the best securities of permanent freedom at the city level of this Maryland city as Mr. Deutsch has been City Manager since 1993. The Bowie City Council was placed on public notice by this citizen on July 4, 2007 that the City was in violation of Article 34. David Deutsch draws an annual compensation of $196,992 - more than our elected Prince Georges County Executive. At this salary level, I am confident the City Council will find a large pool of Executive talent from which to draw upon replace Deutsch. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” – United States President Ronald Reagan Richard invites his Bowie area friends to “Link In” with him at www.linkedin.com. Richard honors the memory of his loving mother, Jayne A. Dahms-Breeden (1928-2009), Woman’s Editor of Belair at Bowie’s original weekly newspaper, The Suburban Times.