Annapolis Capital Punishment

In a recent email blast in which he smeared members of the city council, pandered to and insulted Annapolitans with racial overtones, AA County Democratic Central Committee (AACDCC) member Chuck Weikel has shown that he is fair game for public scrutiny. His method of public discourse may be harming progressive and Democratic interests and that email was beyond the pale. An AACDCC member, associate and employee of the mayor does not just call a group of aldermen racist and then we forget about the whole thing--especially in the context of the charter amendment about our form of government. That's why this is a story. See: wacky-wacist-world-of-weikel .

Weikel has been a positive community activist on many issues. He has registered voters (see: chuck weikel talks the talk and walks the walk), worked on the Envisioning Annapolis program and runs the Annapolis Alive! celebration but this elected member of the AACDCC and once and maybe still putative mayoral candidate reserves his most spirited attacks for fellow Democrats--except the one elected Democrat who has done even more to harm Democratic unity, Mayor Ellen O. Moyer. Perhaps that is because she hired him as the city's “parking coordinator” during a time when the new Knighton Garage lost so much money. Was this based on any policies developed by Weikel? How much was he paid? What did he do in that position? What were his qualifications? Why was an employee of the Department of Transportation also listed as the parking coordinator on the city's web-site during this same period? After I left my position with the department of transportation, I called Weikel two or three times to talk with him about parking issues. He never called me back.

When Eastporters spoke up about gunfire and violent crime last year, I started writing about their issues and Weikel wrote a curt email asking if that group "put me up to it." Put me up to it? Not only do I live in Eastport, but it was quite newsworthy. I wondered if the mayor put him up to write me the email? I tried repeatedly to set up a meeting with him and Stanford Erickson, a leading activist in Eastport to meet each other and explore common ground. Erickson was most willing but Weikel did not return calls to meet with us.

The city's web-site currently lists him as the only member of the Transportation Board--and his term has expired. When Weikel asked for people to join, I offered. Again, he never responded. Perhaps he seemed worried that my well-known disdain for the transportation director was a political hot-potato, never mind my intimate knowledge of the department and of public transportation concerns. When I started inquiring with city officials about why the Board was vacant, Weikel fired off an angry email to Alderman Shropshire(and cc'ing others as usual) blaming him! What was Weikel trying to accomplish by attacking an alderman and fellow Democrat? Is it not up to the mayor to appoint board members? See the pattern--employ the mayor's same old techniques as her attack dog by blaming others.

See more at:The Beste Laide Planse, The Roade to ...

Weikel gave CP a small campaign donation two years ago, and we've had many good discussions about local politics and issues, and his goal of what he calls "disintermediating" the local newspaper. His goal--not mine. I have talked with him and written about the Bay Ferry proposal he and his sidekick, architect Craig Purcell have developed, but they were unhappy because I raised questions about it, and did not support it as enthusiastically as they would have liked.

He seems to enjoy crying wolf to the news media, elected officials and playing them off against each other. I've been victimized by his public email insults and his habit of trying to pressure and demand that media attend to his personal concerns. Almost every email he ever sends is copied to a host of others--often reporters. Soon after Sarah Palin became newsworthy, Weikel called me with supposed inside information about her that only he and a few others knew and he implored me to take his advice and "break" the big, national story, and become famous overnight. I was used to these big inside breaking stories from Weikel and explained that while half the journalists in the US were swarming all over Alaska with expense accounts to uncover everything about Palin, I was happy to stick to local news which did not include Wasilla or Juneau. I was not as circumspect when he used me with his "story" about supposed voter registration restrictions in HACA properties. It was a lot of rumors--mainly with Weikel involved one way or another and was little more than him trying to make mayoral candidate Trudy McFall, look bad.

In November I attended a transportation meeting on the Eastern Shore, where Weikel spoke on a panel as Mayor Moyer's personal consultant on alternative transportation or some such thing. I inquired as to who was paying for Weikel's trip and hotel room in Easton. Instead of a straight answer, he sent me sarcastic emails. For apparent retribution, at the meeting, he got in my face and hounded me because I wore a shirt that had been provided to me years ago when I worked for the city's transportation department. It had a tiny logo on it. That was the same department that had just cut the bus link it once operated to the Eastern Shore but somehow he was more concerned about a shirt. In no way did I identify myself or represent that I was a city employee. I ignored him and I ignored Craig Purcell who similarly hounded me.

Weikel then wrote a potentially libelous letter of complaint about me replete with falsehoods to the Acting City Attorney which he shared with news reporters! Weikel wrote that my "behavior is worthy of note and should be monitored." (Will the "acting" city attorney who did not know he had been effectively disbarred for two years consider the wearing of an old shirt to be worthy of monitoring?) Purcell then re-circulated the letter from Weikel, with some incoherent comments about the "War of Northern Aggression". (In one of his many mass emails, he called Weikel the "Dostoevesky of Annapolis" and copied the complete Wikipedia entry for Dostoevsky. Recently he sent one out with a huge picture of Teddy Roosevelt and a biography of noted muckraker Ida Tarbell).

Weikel's actions are all the more interesting because he is a Naval Academy graduate, former officer and a business executive with an advanced degree. His email signature identifies himself as the Director, Mergers & Acquisitions of the Chicago-based Kinsella Group, Inc., a self-described "boutique investment bank and business advisory group." His bio and picture appears on its web-site.

However, if Weikel or anyone else believes that I am worthy of note and should be monitored, they can easily do so by reading this blog. In this case, I hope more will take his advice but it is Weikel who is truly worthy of note and should be monitored--and here is the best place to do it. Part Two comes out tomorrow and looks at what Weikel says in his web-site. In part three, we will explore the fate of the company this business consultant owned and operated in Illinois and the unusual death of his business partner--an incident about which Weikel was asked to comment upon--and refused. But that may be his way of doing business.