County Council Vice President, Jeff Merritt, joins us on the Friday, November 21 edition of OPEN AGENDA (S2 E71). In addition to serving on the county council and running a successful business, Councilman Merritt and his wife Diana, are the founders of OPERATION WE CARE, which brings a taste of home to our troops deployed abroad. Last weekend, a slew of volunteers gathered at the Mardela Springs Fire Dept. to pack hundreds of boxes of holiday goodies, which have been shipped to members of our military stationed far from home. Jeff and Diana are also the local coordinators for WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA, which provides and places Christmas wreaths on the graves of military veterans. All politics set aside, you'll be hard pressed to find any elected official who does so many good things for our community on his own time (can you name a single charitable activity that the County Executive is involved in?). Councilman Merritt also shares his perspectives about some of the worrisome issues that continue to plague Wicomico County, including the need to enhance school security (an expensive but necessary proposition), the misinformation that the County Executive has fed us with her ever-changing and chaotic plans to assist ICE with immigration enforcement, and the Executive's misguided legislative priorities at a time when a statewide fiscal crisis is looming on the horizon.

After a tumultuous past two weeks in city and county politics, this week we sat down with Wicomico County Council Vice President Jeff Merritt and talked about three key topics that each are having a huge impact on our community:

  1. School safety concerns and security measures within WCPS
  2. Operation We Care's support of our active-duty service members
  3. The remaining concerns about what County Executive Giordano is really doing behind the scenes with the 287-G Program and ICE.

Please note the timestamps below and consider sharing:

0:15 Jeff Merritt’s Many Activities

1:14 Operation We Care

4:00 Tapemaster Jim Brings the facts

6:45 Wreaths Across America

10:46 Wicomico School Security Measures/Plans

12:58 The Tiered School Safety Plan

14:33 The real costs of Public School Safety

17:58 Remaining ICE/287-G Controversies and Programs

18:50 Giordano Caught into another lie

21:40 Community Damage caused by Giordano’s Lie

23:40 Joe Venosa’s School Security Concerns

28:30 ICE Remains