The Washington Times reported yesterday that the resignations of 10 board members from the University of Maryland Medical System came after the board selected John P. McDaniel, a former MedStar Health chief executive officer, to serve as chief executive officer of the University of Maryland Medical System over O’Malley’s pick Bob Chrencik.

Apparently with O’Malley as Governor, everything comes with a price.

To disregard his preference will get you fired.

To be appointed to an “independent” board, you have to contribute to the campaign… or subsidize a $500,000 loan.

What is happening here?

“There is a startling trend developing all across Maryland,” James Pelura, chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, told the Times in response. “Governor Martin O’Malley has been repeatedly interfering in the affairs of nonpartisan local boards and state boards to extract political vengeance and reward political allies.”

O’Malley’s appetite is out of control.

Since taking office two years ago, Mr. O’Malley has been focused in two areas:  binge spending and political purging. His first, well-documented purging attempt failed to remove state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick.

However, he was successful in removing Alison L. Asti from her job running the Maryland Stadium Authority after an audit showed severe mismanagement of the authority. However, a former authority chairman, Robert L. McKinney, also an Ehrlich appointed, indicated that the problems occurred with the agency prior to Mrs. Asti’s appointment.

Nine of the ten “resignees” reportedly received telephone notice, terminating their board service.

Gary Jobson, a target in the ten member purge, told the Times that Mr. O’Malley’s appointments secretary Jeannie Hitchcock called him to tell him that his service to the people of Maryland were no longer needed.

“She said: ‘The governor has decided not to continue your service to the board and to the people of Maryland. As of today, you are no longer a director,” Mr. Jobson said. “The vote was not acceptable to Governor O’Malley. So he stepped in and let his voice be heard.  That’s the reason why so many trustees decided that they could not continue to serve.”

Binging and purging is a well-documented condition.  However, no treatment can be proffered unless there is an acknowledgement that there is a problem.  And since the current composition of the UMMS board provides O’Malley carte blanche influence over the $1.9 billion state medical system, it appears that the bulemic tendencies of this administration will continue to go unchecked and untreated…at least in the UMMS system.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Maryland Politics, O'Malley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.