This is the right answer. Look, their pizza is meh, but those wings are always huge and the sauce is good.

Thank you so much for documenting all of this. It's such a valuable asset for the community to stay informed without having to watch hours of meetings. I really appreciate you.

Do you know if there has been any mention of what the potential ethics violations are? I know there is at least some involvement of Alan Klein given that he was removed from the board before getting voted back in. That seems like a major contributing factor to what is going on with the board and Lakey, but I was wondering if there was any actual info on what Klein did.

Columbia isn't a suburb. It's Maryland's second largest city. The population density (3310 people/sq mi) is comparable to:

• Houston, TX (3617)
• Tampa, FL (3505)
• Phoenix, AZ (3245)
• Austin, TX (3060)
• Charlotte, NC (2873)
• New Orleans (2301)

https://filterbuy.com/resources/most-and-least-densely-populated-cities/. Full list at the bottom.

Property crime in Columbia is 15.39/1000 residents.

-Houston is 43.06

-Tampa is 16.34

-Phoenix is 31.77

-Austin is 38.0

-Charlotte is 33.66

-New Orleans is 47.13

If you look at cities with comparable overall population and population density, you get:

• Everett, WA is 3359/1000 residents and has a property crime rate of 33.09
• Meridian, ID is 3254 and has a rate of 8.5
• Roseville, CA is 3210 and has a rate of 19.65
• Arvada, CO is 3113 and has a rate of 31.52
• Temecula, CA is 3079 and has a rate of 20.61

All crime rate data is from Neighborhood Scout.

Numbers speak for themselves.

Great info, thanks

Thanks, I was trying to find when the '23 elections are and I couldn't, so I guess that explains it!

Thanks for your continued reporting on this. Do you know when the 2023 elections are for the board members? I'd very much like to help vote Klein out.

We go to the place the sets up in the VCA parking lot on 108, just before the East Cedar Lane Park entrance. We paid $80 this year for a 6 or 7 foot tree that's in great shape. We've gone there for 5 years, they're always super nice. It's maybe not the most "scenic" place to buy being that it's right next to a pretty busy road and part of it is in the parking lot, but I think they set it up well enough and have music playing. We've always been happy there.

More of a baking operation out of someone's house, and it's over in Halethorpe, but The Baker's Tin. It's just two ladies out of one of their houses, you put your order in and pick up Saturday morning. The absolute best pastries I've had, they are crazy talented.

Definitely get that and I totally agree. I think the way you have it written now is great. I generally don't expect a differentiation between implausible and impossible in like 99% of writing, so that threw me off.

I am 100% in agreement that the Board of Directors is really far out of line here (especially Alan Klein trying to sneak alterations into his contract, and it seems trying to make to CA's conflict of interest policy). He's my representative on the Board, and I will absolutely be casting my vote to get him out. Got removed for ethical violations, and then tries to changes the rules to make it okay going forward. That's repulsive.

That said, this line from the article didn't sit well with me:

>"Finally, even if there is an ethics violation committed by Ms. Boyd, it is implausible that the hypothetical violation was so egregious that it outweighs all the value Ms. Boyd is providing the community and justifies the board’s current course of action."

Why include that? Of course there are ethics violations that would justify using legal action to get her off the board. There is no evidence of any violations that I'm aware of, but to say it's implausible is ingenuine.

$1225. They did have to do a run of pcv through basically the whole basement because I didn't want the vent to be in the front of the house, but still seems high. I didn't end up calling around like I should have because our levels were pretty alarming and these guys came right out, but I guarantee there are cheaper options.

I used Radon Resolvers recently. I felt the were a little pricey, but they showed up the same day I called, and had the mitigation system installed 5 days later. Only took them 4 or 5 hours, though it wasn't a particularly complex project.

I had an AirThings radon monitor running for a week prior to calling though, so I already knew my levels and I had already installed a sump cover.

Columbia Association itself does quite a bit. The board, on the other hand...Funny that it seems like the rift may be due to CA trying to set some boundaries on the board so they can actually do some work.

I could be wrong, so definitely fact check if you're really interested, but I think the short version was the event used to actually be sponsored by Hopkins and would directly benefit HoCo General. Several years back, that stopped being the case and a private company started running it for profit (with some charitable proceeds, I think). CA owned a part of Symphony Woods that allowed access to the Symphony of Lights and used to grant an easement to Symphony of Lights to allow them to run their event. After the new event organizer took over, CA didn't want to allow the event to use the easement anymore (although, that may have occurred before the organizer switch, I'm not sure). I believe that is what they ended up going to court over.

Surprised this was downvoted because it's dead on. Turnhouse easily has the best burger compared to all the other places listed in this thread. Manor Hill Tavern and Victoria's do come close. Only other place I'd throw in is Frisco. Might be a little step down in quality, but it's a bit cheaper and probably has the best beer selection in Columbia.

And Turnhouse definitely occasionally has incredibly slow service. Depends on the server. Sometimes we're in and out in 45 minutes, sometimes basically the same order takes twice as long.

I actually have bought wood from both big box stores, but mostly pressure treated boards and plywood. If you pick through, you can normally find something straight and not full of knots and defects, but it can take some digging. Almost everything they offer is crazy wet still, so I often sticker it and let it dry a bit in whatever environment it's going to end up in. Hasn't caused too much warping for me yet. I've bought some poplar there, too, which was actually in really good shape, but was way overpriced.

Beyond that, I've had really good experience with John Wilson Lumber in western Howard County, and Freestate Timbers in Timonium. Freestate has a pretty crazy selection of slabs and boards, JW has more sheet goods. Both can cut things for you.

Beyond that, check craigslist and Facebook marketplace. There are often either small mill operations or people getting rid of a fallen tree or downsizing their board collection or selling leftover stuff from projects. Obviously selection can be rough, but you can get some great deals.

Howard County Woodworker Guild is a thing. Hcwg.org. They have almost no online presence in terms of making themselves known, but I think it's like $50 for the year or something fairly cheap. It gets you access to their shop at the Bain Senior Center. Supposedly, if you go there, they'll teach you how to use all the tools/machines, but the shop hours are terrible. They're only open 9:00am to 12:30pm on weekdays, which isn't particularly helpful for most people. They did a member survey recently and that's the number one thing I suggested they change, so we'll see. You also get access to classes/presentations from master woodworkers. I haven't attended any, so I'm not sure the skill level they are aimed towards.

OpenWorks in Baltimore has a bunch of classes and way more stuff than just woodworking, but I think that may be more expensive, though the hours are definitely better. They have much more in depth safety training from what I can tell.

Honestly, I picked it up entirely from YouTube at this point. I'm not great, but I've made myself a face-frame cabinet that is supposed to look like a built in TV stand, a small deck, an art table for my daughter, a stool, floating nightstands, my workbench, Cornhole boards, cheeseboards, a wall mounted frame for a monitor, some marking gauges, and a few other smaller projects, all with basically a circular saw and hand tools. I had no experience prior to jumping in with the nightstands beyond shop class in high school 15 - 20 years ago. Rex Krueger, Steve Ramsey, Stumpy Nubs, Bourbon Moth are all great channels and their videos should recommend videos from a lot of the other big woodworking YouTubers. So much of woodworking comes down to problem solving, and nothing develops that skill better than picking a starting reasonable project that you have most of the tools for and jumping in.