The Mystery Letter
In yesterday’s mail, I received a letter addressed to me (or “Current Resident”) with no return address and a red rubber stamp imprint that said “Important Tax Information Enclosed” where the return address should have been. Of course I opened it. This is what I found:
The basic gist is asking people to support the addition of “a size restriction to the TMX zoned properties.” For all intents and purposes, it’s an anti-Wal-Mart bill solicitation. Take what you will from the photo, because I won’t repeat the text here. They don’t deserve it.
My beef is this: I have no idea who sent this. Did anyone else get this? I want to know who these people are and how I got on this list. If they identified themselves and their agenda, I might be more than happy to get behind their cause. The fact that they didn’t fess up makes me think I might have to fight them.
Step forward and claim responsibility or I will be forced to use this bully pulpit to destroy you. That is all.
Ed. note: Those are clumps of cars at the top of the letter, but now that I look at the image in the actual post, it looks more like women with rollers in their hair.
UPDATE: I got a postcard in the mail today with the same messaging. The return address simply says “Germantown Residents for Smart Growth.” Sorry, but don’t these big box stores belong in farther out suburbs? Places like, well, I dunno, GERMANTOWN? Discuss.
13 comments Digg this13 Comments so far
Leave a reply
I was debating saying the cars looked like women with rollers, but I’m glad to see you were all over that one.
I got one in Wheaton too…I thought that political stuff had to state who was behind it
Are you a registered voter? Anyone can buy that list and use it, among others, of course, but that one is pretty common for political mailings like this.
I think that only literature endorsing a specific candidate has to have the organization name on it.
No Montgomery County citizens group would miss a chance to point you to their web site.
Interestingly, if you search Google for “Germantown Residents for Smart Growth” (with quotes to indicate that you are looking for that specific phrase), Google yields just one result. ThayerAve! BTW, Bing yielded zero results. But I digress.
Broad mailings like this are very, very expensive. Which means real estate owners, or a large business, or a group of aligned businesses. Maybe big box stores or developers in Frederick County, or land owners adjacent to Germantown, etc…
This mailing ticked me off for the same reasons, but I don’t have a blog, so thanks for taking up the cause!
I got this too and also opened and tought “women in curlers”?
the anon nature is troubling and disgusting – it implies it is from council chair Nancy Floreen which is misleading and plain old confusing – just own it, whoever you are
btw Germantown HAS a wal-mart and several other big box stores – what is this whole point of this
the oddness of this makes me almost suspect it is CLEVER campaign to get support FOR big box stores in the county
This is unrelated, but speaking of stuff in the mail, I just got my census form yesterday. How about a post encouraging folks on Thayer Avenue to fill out their census forms? I’m looking forward to running the numbers again for Thayer Avenue based on 2010 census and looking at how the block has changed from 2000 to 2010.
Mike March – I just wanted to let you know that it is not true that the voter list can be bought by anyone. To buy a list of voters you have to be buying it for political purposes. Though, it does sound like this time of mailing would fall under the reason of political purpose.
Yes, I got it too. Thought it very strange and meant to do some more digging but haven’t. Besides, we need more women in curlers in downtown Silver Spring.
@Brains: I’ve been thinking about you as all the census talk started. I will definitely mention that.
[...] lot of other people have gotten that anti-big-box-store-Germantown-Citizens-for-Smart-Growth letter I highlighted this past weekend. It even reared its ugly head at this week’s ESSCA meeting. The origin is still a mystery, [...]
[...] people who have been sending out the letters about the “big box” stores might have been unmasked. Well, at least another outlet for their useless, no-credit campaign [...]
I feel left out, I didn’t get one :’(