The Spy

Spy Art Moment: Being Hopeful at Washington and Dover Streets

July 11, 2020 by The Spy

Early Friday night, a crowd of about one hundred gathered in Thompson Park for the unveiling of two art sculptures by Maine artist Charlie Hewitt entitled “Hopeful” which will be seen on Dover and Washington Street as part of the Hopeful 2020 project.

The Dock Street Foundation and the Mid-Shore Community Foundation are the two major sponsors of Hopeful 2020, which plans to engage citizens to express hope for the future by contributing funds to the Mid-Shore Community Foundation’s Covid-19 Response Fund. Those contributions, in turn, will support nonprofit organizations that provide food, shelter and health services to Talbot County’s underserved residents.

The Talbot Arts Council is so partnering with their encouragement of arts groups to consider new projects in music, fine arts, crafts, poetry, and writing related to the theme of “hope.”

The Spy captured some of Hewitt’s comments regarding the meaning of being hopeful.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. For more information about the Mid-Shore Community Foundation Covid-19 Response Fund or make a donation, please go here.

And Yet Plein Air Easton Perseveres: A Spy Chat with the Avalon

July 10, 2020 by The Spy

Like many arts organizations, the Avalon Foundation found themselves with a daunting decision to make after COVID related social distancing became mandatory. In Avalon’s case, it was what to do about Plein Art Easton, their flagship event for the past eighteen years.

The first option of merely cancel Plein Art was discarded quickly. Nobody, be they Avalon staff and board members, artists, or artist patrons, wanted this major art event, which already had social distancing baked into its programming, to disappear.

The better option was answering the question of how to make Plein Art work during a coronavirus crisis. And with that goal in mind, the Avalon’s Al Bond and Jessica Bellis started working with their long term partners and stakeholders to come up with a plan of action.

In their Spy interview, Al and Jess talk about how their team quickly pivoted to make Plein Art Easton 2020 exciting and safe at the same time.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. To learn more all of what Plein Art Easton offers please go here.

Spy Moment: Honoring John Ford at Easton’s Rails to Trails Park

July 9, 2020 by The Spy

Just a stone’s throw away from the late Town of Easton Council President John Ford’s house is the gateway to the Rails to Trails Park entrance. It seemed like the perfect location for naming a tree is his honor to his thirty years of public service to the town he loved so much.

With Mayor Robert Willey leading the dedication this morning, over a hundred of John Ford’s friends and colleagues gathered to pay their respects to a special town leader. John’s wife, Peggy, did the honors of the unveiling of the plaque, and expressed her gratitude to the town for acknowledging her husband’s devotion to Easton’s civic life.

COVID Makes New Partners with the Avalon, Tidewater Inn, and Wylder Tilghman Island

July 7, 2020 by The Spy

There was a lot in common with the Avalon Foundation, the Tidewater Inn and Wylder Tilghman Island before COVID-19 came knocking on their doors. All three have always been heavily dependent on the summer months for special events, weddings, and seasonal crowds all eager for entertainment and hospitality services. But after the coronavirus crisis hit, most of those long awaited plans were left in the dust in the wind as stay-at-home orders came down from the Governor’s office.

Nonetheless, the desire by all three to partner on a creative way to create new revenue was almost immediate. With the Avalon’s Suzy Moore, using her eighteen years as its artistic director, securing popular local bands, coupled with chef Jordan Lloyd at Wylder and chef Daniel Pochron at the Tidewater on the food front, the team has formed a dinner and music program that has already become a huge success on Tilghman Island and in downtown Easton.

The Spy asked Suzy, Jordan and the Tidewater’s Lauren Catterton to spend a few minutes to talk about this new alliance and how Wednesday and Thursday nights have been turned into the Sunlit Summer Song Series, an al fresco style dinner and some of the region’s best performers.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. For more information about the Wylder Inn concert series please go here. For the Tidewater Inn’s programming please go here.

Cybercrime is Another Epidemic Talbot County Needs to Worry About

June 26, 2020 by The Spy

Almost every resident of Talbot County knows there is a significant and dangerous epidemic threatening the region. The arrival of COVID-19 on the Eastern Shore has already done considerable damage to both families and businesses, and only through a conscious effort to protect one’s home or store can this severe pandemic be controlled.

But Fred Christie, Easton Utilities’ Chief Information Officer, wants to add to that list of severe threats by including another type of epidemic, that of the rise of cybercrime.

Despite the lack of publicity, cybercrime is growing, not retreating. The use of sophisticated ways to access personal accounts as well as large networks by criminal hackers is posing a significant danger to individuals and companies. Like fighting any pandemic, Fred Christie wants EU customers to be proactive in protecting their accounts and cloud-related assets.

The Spy talked to Fred in the spring about protecting your identity, financial accounts, and other valuable information on the web with some simple, common-sense solutions.

This video is approximately two minutes in length. For more information about Easton Utilities please go here.

Ask Irma: How’s Londonderry during COVID-19?

June 23, 2020 by The Spy

From March 15, when the coronavirus crisis canceled our regular “Ask Irma” monthly interview, the Spy hadn’t actually heard from Irma herself. Given that her day job is being the C.E.O. of Londonderry on the Tred Avon, we realized she had many things on her mind, but that didn’t stop a certain worry for her and her community of close to 200 hundred residents that call Londonderry home during a major pandemic.

So it was with great relief that the Spy and Irma finally sat down last week to continue our conversations on aging that we heard everything was ‘a-ok’ on Port Street in Easton. In fact, since COVID-19 hit the United States, Londonderry (knock on wood ) has not had one single case of the virus.

But that didn’t end Irma’s challenges as she and her team found ways to maintain a sense of a community for residents that would not be able to leave the houses for many months to come.

In our latest installment of Ask Irma, we talk about Londonderry’s response to COVID and the importance of staying in touch throughout the day with those in the hood.

This video is approximately three minutes in length. For more information about Londonderry on the Tred Avon please go here.

The Talbot Boys Conversation (Redux): John Ford

June 21, 2020 by The Spy

Editor’s Note. On August 23, 2017, the Spy published an extensive interview with the Town of Easton Council president John Ford. One of the topics we discussed was his belief that the Talbot Boys statue should be removed from the Courthouse green. President Ford passed away on February 4, 2020.

This video is approximately two minutes in length

Spy Minute: BAAM Marches in Celebration and Protest to Honor Juneteenth

June 20, 2020 by The Spy

Building African American Minds, otherwise known as BAAM, decided to take a new approach with their annual recognition of Juneteeth this year.

Under the direction of two of BAAM’s younger leaders, the organization hosted a march through downtown Easton to bring attention to the importance of this national day of celebration with the formal ending of slavery in the United States. But it was also staged to be a call to action to end systemic racism, acknowledge that Black Lives Matter and demand the removal of the Talbot Boys, the Confederate statue on the Talbot County Courthouse green.

The Spy was there on Friday afternoon as more than three hundred citizens started to gather in front of the BAAM campus on Jowite Street to begin the march.

This video is approximately one minute in length. For more information about BAAM, please go here.

From & Fuller: Defunding the Police, 2020 Senate Races, and Franchot on the Talbot Boys

June 11, 2020 by The Spy

Every Thursday, the Spy hosts a conversation with Al From and Craig Fuller on the most topical political news of the moment.

Today the Spy commentators to discuss the political ramifications of the emerging “Defund the Police” movement, President Trump’s impact on 2020 Senate races, and Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot’s prompt call for the Talbot Boys memorial be removed by the Talbot County Council.

This video is approximately fourteen minutes in length.

Background

While the Spy’s public affairs mission has always been hyper-local, it has never limited us from covering national, or even international issues, that impact the communities we serve. With that in mind, we were delighted that Al From and Craig Fuller, both highly respected Washington insiders, have agreed to a new Spy video project called “The Analysis of From and Fuller” over the next year.

The Spy and our region are very lucky to have such an accomplished duo volunteer for this experiment. While one is a devoted Democrat and the other a lifetime Republican, both had long careers that sought out the middle ground of the American political spectrum.

Al From, the genius behind the Democratic Leadership Council’s moderate agenda which would eventually lead to the election of Bill Clinton, has never compromised from this middle-of-the-road philosophy. This did not go unnoticed in a party that was moving quickly to the left in the 1980s. Including progressive Howard Dean saying that From’s DLC was the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

From’s boss, Bill Clinton, had a different perspective. He said it would be hard to think of a single American citizen who, as a private citizen, has had a more positive impact on the progress of American life in the last 25 years than Al From.”

Al now lives in Annapolis and spends his semi-retirement as a board member of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (his alma mater) and authoring New Democrats and the Return to Power. He also is an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School and recently agreed to serve on the Annapolis Spy’s Board of Visitors.

For Craig Fuller, his moderation in the Republican party was a rare phenomenon. With deep roots in California’s GOP culture of centralism, Fuller, starting with a long history with Ronald Reagan, leading to his appointment as Reagan’s cabinet secretary at the White House, and later as George Bush’s chief-of-staff and presidential campaign manager was known for his instincts to find the middle ground. Even more noted was his reputation of being a nice guy in Washington, a rare characteristic for a successful tenure in the White House.

Craig has called Easton his permanent home for the last five years, where now serves on the boards of the Academy Art Museum, the Benedictine School, and Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. He also serves on the Spy’s Board of Visitors.

With their rich experience and long history of friendship, now joined by their love of the Chesapeake Bay, they have agreed through the magic of Zoom, to talk inside politics and policy with the Spy every Thursday.

St. Michaels Walk for Unity to Pay Homage to George Floyd

June 7, 2020 by The Spy

With St Luke’s United Methodist Church as the backdrop, hundreds of St. Michaels residents and visitors gathered on the sidewalks on Talbot Street to pay homage to George Floyd and walk for unity during this troubling time in America.

As Christ Church, from across the street, filled the gathering with spiritual tones to support the theme of unity, demonstrators prepared to make a solemn walk through this historic town.

A Spy was there to record part of this historic gathering.

This video is approximately two minutes in length

Sections

More