COUNTY

TAXPAYERS

STILL PAYING FOR

O'MALLEY ADS

ON CCM

An Update on

Another www.RobertDyer.net Exclusive!!!

You may recall that I broke a story a few months back, when I reported that County Cable Montgomery was frequently showing a slick, campaign-style infomercial featuring Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

If you don't, suffice it to say that this is the kind of short film that would be shown at a nominating convention before the candidate makes his or her speech. A lot of cheesy, came-with-the-software background music, I-think-I'm-JFK speechifying, and archived video and photographic materials interspersed.

The more often they play this ad on CCM, the more details you might notice. Like how much campaign advertising there is within this campaign advertisement. Perhaps more than contemporary footage of the governor in action, there are countless instances of those omnipresent, 2006-era "O'Malley-Brown" signs and rallies.

This only reinforces the sense that this is a campaign ad.

Here's the problem: The program was filmed in the County Council chambers, at county taxpayer expense. It is not a news program, it features no county officials, and is not even presented as an in-studio news interview. The cheesy music in the background and endless campaign footage makes it clear to the audience that this is a great man, you should be inspired by him, he's never made a bad decision, he has your best interests at heart, and - most importantly - you oughta vote for this guy in November.

The credits indicate the program was produced "under the auspices of the Montgomery County Council."

It's fantastic that the county council thinks Martin O'Malley is wonderful. But that doesn't mean they can spend our tax dollars spreading their love.

And that's exactly what they are doing: spending taxpayer money promoting a statewide candidate.

This is a highly-questionable action by the County Council and CCM. I do not recall there being a similar program featuring Gov. Bob Ehrlich when he was in office, either.

Also still being shown frequently is an apparently ongoing series about the MTA, which has no relevance to Montgomery County. As someone who is often in Baltimore and Baltimore County, I find there are many familiar locations shown on these MTA programs. But none of them are in Montgomery County!! Aside from MARC trains, which are not emphasized on the program, the MTA has no operations in the county.

One can only conclude that the MTA program, containing no pertinent information for the public in Montgomery County, is simply being run to show the majesty of Martin O'Malley's state government in action.

Again, this is a misuse of county tax dollars for the broadcast time and personnel operating the equipment.

CCM is a publicly-funded channel, and was intended to inform county residents about road conditions, emergency information, county services, and the now-rare county council meeting coverage.

It is not C-SPAN or MSNBC, and therefore should not be broadcasting campaign videos for statewide candidates in an election year!

Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story, which no one else is reporting.