Larry W. Stout has worn lots of hats over the years; a decorated military veteran, ordained pastor, university professor in Europe, and missionary to the former Soviet Union. He has authored textbooks on human resource management and leadership that have been translated into six languages as well as had published two novels. He currently invests his energies as a foster parent and board member for eight different community organizations. He is a native of Montgomery, graduating from Montgomery Area High School in 1970, who married his high school sweetheart Debbie, and together they have raised two sons and two daughters, one of which is adopted, but they cannot remember which one.
Yes, it is a new year, and we are all thinking about the future, but for the moment, take a trip back in time with me. Imagine that I am meeting myself twenty years ago. 20th Century Larry (20C Larry) meets me (21C Larry), and we start talking about communications. “Oh, look at this,” 20C
After several severe storms that depleted the federal insurance programs, a law known as the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 was enacted. The idea was to require flood insurance premiums to actually reflect the real risk of flooding. At the time of the enactment, the National Flood Insurance Program was $24 billion in
In this column last year at this time, I wrote that a crude analogy could be made between giving birth to a baby and developing a government budget. The baby is incubated in joy, followed by a long and tedious growth process in the womb, and finally, in due time, through much agony and pain,
A frequent visitor to the County Commissioner’s Meetings is a Jersey Shore resident by the name of Todd Lauer. Mr. Lauer serves in the capacity of a self-appointed community conscience, often asking the commissioners questions about the validity of various expenditures or contracts. But at one recent meeting, he criticized the general public. He openly
This past summer, there was a major battle over a proposed county ordinance for a five-dollar county fee on every non-exempt vehicle registered in the county. Hours and hours of debate ensued over it before it was finally passed at a County Commissioners Meeting on June 15, 2017, as Ordinance 2017-02. The story “The Five
One of the urban legends of government spending is the $600 hammer. Immortalized by everyone from late-night comedians to political leaders, the infamous military hammer was simply a bundled purchase with many different spare parts, some very expensive. For bookkeeping purposes, all the items on the list were allocated engineering expenses divided equally, so the
