Eastern Shore Undercover Editorial: Who Was Telling the Truth About the Nursing Home Meeting Request
A lot has been said about the Wicomico County Nursing Home situation. I want to walk through what I found out, because words matter and misinformation from our government officials is just unacceptable.
At the last Wicomico County Council meeting, Council Member Jeff Merritt spoke about the nursing home during a portion of the meeting where the council can speak to the community .
Mr. Merritt stated, "We have to fix this. Sooner the better. Not in November. Sooner the better. It should have been fixed weeks ago. It could have been very easily fixed weeks ago if somebody had sent the council president or the council an email saying, "We got problems. We need to have a work session. And work this out. That never happened. As usual, the council finds out from the public. I got almost three pages of council comments, so I'll save most of it for later. As usual, we find out from the public after the fire has not only been lit, it's raging, and we have to come in the room with two fire extinguishers."
You can hear those comments yourself at the 1:27:15 mark of the Pac-14 video. I have attached that link to this article.
(Link To Pac-14 YouTube Video on Council Meeting)
His comments made sense to me. For six and a half years running Eastern Shore Undercover, I have said that a lot of the friction between the county council and the county executive comes down to communication.
Some of it is personal, other times it is just childish banter but I think communication is a major factor.
I wanted to hear it from the people involved, not just from social media arguments or the whole "He said, she said" nonsense so I reached out to County Executive Julie Giordano and I asked her directly why she did not send the council that information.
Her answer was simple. She emphatically said that she did. She was very upset and angry that the council once again attempted to make it look like she was lying and hiding things, which she did not.
She told me she had requested a meeting with Council President John Cannon and Council Member Shanie Shields. She said that President Cannon said that a closed door work session should take place.
That left me with a problem. Mr. Merritt was saying he never knew a work session had been requested. The county executive was saying she asked for a meeting with President Cannon and Council Member Shields.
They could not both be right. So I asked the county executive if she had proof.
She told me there was an email conversation that backed up what she said. I filed a Public Information Act request for that email chain.
The request was for correspondence between Wicomico County Council Administrator Laura Hurley and AK Kenny, the county executive's public relations liaison. I wanted to find out who was telling the truth.
At 1:00 PM on Monday, September 21, 2026, I received the email and in that email, Mrs Laura Hurley stated the following: "As I recall, the council members were getting contacted about the administration of the nursing home. About the same time, the County Executive asked for a meeting with John Cannon and Shanie Shields, but the Council President suggested having a closed work session with the entire council". That backed up what the County Executive told me.
(That screenshot can be seen below in the images)
So one of two things happened. Either Mr. Merritt was not being truthful about what he knew, or Council President Cannon never passed that information along to the rest of the council.
If Mr. Merritt genuinely did not know, then this is not on him. In that case, the responsibility falls on Council President John Cannon for not telling the other council members about the request.
What cannot be denied is the fact itself. The county executive did request a meeting to discuss these matters, and Mr. Merritt's public comments were incorrect and unfair to her.
I believe the right thing for Mr. Merritt to do now is to correct the record publicly and offer the county executive a private apology.
