Letters to the Editor

The following is an open letter, dated Nov. 30, to the Dorchester County Public Schools community from Superintendent Dave Bromwell.

Dear Dorchester County Public Schools Community,
I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving break. As I announced before the break, we will be returning to school tomorrow in special groups. My daily conversations with Dorchester County Health Department Officer Roger Harrell continued over the Thanksgiving break, when the Executive Team and I waited anxiously for his daily reports. Each day, Dorchester County’s COVID case figures continued to move in a downward direction, giving us significant optimism for returning in December.
I will continue to consult with Mr. Harrell each day regarding all COVID metrics that he uses for his recommendation to me on staff and students returning to school. While he does not take any number for granted, testing positivity rate is always a key to his recommendation.
He uses up to eight different metrics to determine his recommendation for staff and students returning to school. Presently Dorchester County has improved over 24% in the last 14 days, reducing its positivity rate and case rate. Today, Dorchester County has a 3.1% positivity rate which again shows our continued improvement.
Each week on Wednesday at 3 pm, I will announce a decision as to which instructional model will be implemented on the following Tuesday, based on the prior seven days of health metrics. I know having the most up to date information for parent planning is paramount but, as we have all found out, COVID-19 does not care about how schools or parents plan.
I want everyone to remain safe while staying vigilant with your COVID-19 safety guidelines. Stay tuned, stay healthy, and stay hopeful that we can proceed further into Phase 1.5 next week and Phase II of our reopening plan in January 2021.
W. David Bromwell
Superintendent
Dorchester County Public Schools

Republicans’ two biggest lies/cons of past 40 years
Donald Trump has whined and screeched “voter fraud” since long before the election he knew he would lose, and Republicans including Rep. Andy Harris have gone right along with him. This is nothing new for Republicans — they have accused Democrats of voter fraud for decades, conducting one investigation after another all while they are guilty of voter suppression attempting to steal our Constitutional right to vote from many of us.
They reviewed/analyzed more than a billion votes from past elections under George W. Bush to uncover voter fraud, and failed to find anything significant. Trump launched his Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity led by conspiracy theorist Kris Koback to smoke out election fraud, and once again found nothing, collapsing after a few months of failure.
Now, Trump is charging voter fraud in dozens of lawsuits in swing states getting shot down in flames by Republican courts time after time for lack of evidence.
The other big lie/con job from Republicans has been their “Trickle down” claim that massive tax giveaways to the super-rich and large corporations end up trickling down to benefit all citizens. This has proven to be false every time they try it, yet that never stops them from trying again, hoping Americans citizens are ignorant and forgetful enough to believe them.
Ronald Reagan’s massive tax giveaways in 1981 were exposed by his own Budget Director, David Stockman, as a fraud shortly after they failed. Then George W. Bush tried it again, and once again they failed to benefit the average citizen.
Sam Brownback conducted what he called the “perfect experiment” as governor of Kansas with huge tax cuts to corporations, and nearly destroyed their economy in his failure. Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal tried the same thing in Louisiana, nearly destroying their economy.
Most recently, Trump’s massive 2017 tax giveaway to the rich and large corporations have failed to benefit the vast majority of Americans.
Unfortunately, these lies have a lasting devastating impact on our democracy and country, with the Trump/Harris voter fraud lie undermining belief in our democratic elections. Yet, we can expect them to continue as the GOP persists in their efforts to undermine our Constitution and install an authoritarian dictatorship that does their bidding.
Mike Brown
Neck District

Habitat for Humanity
As the number of Marylanders with COVID-19 rose and the state crossed warning thresholds set by the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization, Gov. Hogan reduced dine-in capacity for bars and restaurants, issued new guidance on out-of-state travel, encouraged telework and asserted that a coronavirus surge could be in Maryland’s future.
Please be assured that we are doing all that we can to protect the health and safety of our volunteers, staff and supporters so that our mission of building homes, communities and hope can continue in spite of the challenges with which we are faced. Given the Governor’s recent move back to Phase II of Covid-19 recovery, we have implemented the following changes:
1) Our affiliate office in Trappe continues to be open by appointment only. Please call before you make a visit to the office.
2) Temperature checks and masks are required for all staff and visitors to the office. Entry to the office is through Suite 8 on the second floor, which requires that you call before arrival. Upon arrival, a symptom and temperature check is taken and a waiver must be signed.
3) Affiliate staff will be working part-time from home to minimize the number of people who come in contact with one another in the office.
4) All committee and board meetings will return to zoom only until further notice.
5) N-95 masks will be required on jobsites once dry wall is installed and volunteers working in the home will be limited to no more than 4. The maximum volunteers on our jobsites continues at 6 requiring 2 volunteers outside a home after drywall is installed, weather permitting.
6) Our ReStore continues to vigilantly remind shoppers of social distancing and mask wearing and has a limit of no more than 75 shoppers in the store at any one time. Donation drop offs must be scheduled. This is to ensure that drop offs are adequately spaced out between customers and that staff have the ability to manage drop offs as they arrive and allowing time to prepare for the next drop off.
Thank you for being patient and working with us to protect the health and safety of those we love and those with whom we come in contact.
Blessings for a safe, peaceful and joyous holiday season.
JoAnn Hansen
Cambridge