The following commentary is scheduled to be published in the October 25 issue of The Delmarva Farmer.

Pollution is expensive, and that’s not just the obvious costs associated with clean-up. Before nitrogen or phosphorous ever jump start an algae bloom in the Chesapeake Bay, much of it starts as a purchase a farmer makes at his local agriculture supply store. Fertilizer comprises a significant portion of a farmer’s overhead, so when it runs off of a corn field and begins its journey to the Bay, it’s like a stream of dollar bills disappearing into the creeks and streams of the Chesapeake watershed.

Same goes for topsoil, which can be blown away with the wind or carried away by the rain. Topsoil comprises the foundation of any farmer’s business plan; without it a farm operation is doomed to fail. And unlike fertilizer, topsoil cannot be easily replaced next growing season. When topsoil enters the water it chokes out sunlight from submerged grasses essential for the health of the Bay. Oysters are also wiped out by the silt, unable to escape being buried by mud.

Losing fertilizer and soil is a costly proposition for farmers and the Chesapeake; as such, making investments in programs that help farmers to apply only the fertilizers their crops require and that reduce runoff and erosion is a compelling way to make progress on long-standing problems. Thankfully, such programs already exist and are achieving results. Since 2003, federal farm conservation programs have reduced sediment loss on Chesapeake cropland by 55 percent, surface runoff of nitrogen by 42 percent, and loss of phosphorous by 41 percent; a few bright spots on an otherwise dim track record of Bay restoration.

Farmers have done more than any other sector to clean up their act on behalf of the Chesapeake. But as the newly created Chesapeake pollution diet is implemented, it is likely that farmers will have to do even more or possibly face the specter of increased regulation. Regulation is a four letter word in agriculture, strongly opposed by most industry groups as something just as threatening to farmers as floods or droughts. But unlike the weather, farmers have the ability to control how they meet new requirements.

Yet, troublingly, some of those same industry groups have recommended cutting voluntary farm conservation programs in favor of propping up crop insurance and farm subsidy budgets, which are often referred to as the farm safety net. The programs they suggest cutting are the same programs that will help farmers comply with new and existing regulations. Conservation has now become part of the farm safety net and the alternative to these incentive-based programs is likely a shift to a penalty-based paradigm that few farmers would support.

Conservation programs have proven incredibly popular with farmers over the years; helping them to do the right thing for the environment while making a living producing food and fiber for the world. With additional regulations potentially on the horizon, it may be time for agriculture industry groups to consider what a future without voluntary conservation program might look like for farmers.

Steve Kline is the Director of the Center for Agricultural Lands at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. He lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The Case Against Question 5

You may have noticed over on Facebook or in comment forums across the interwebs that a select few of the most partisan operators around are baying like cur dogs about the inequity! the unfairness! of Governor Martin O' Malley's recently released redistricting plan for Maryland's 8 Congressional districts. According to the Governor's commission on redistricting, 70% of Marylanders remain in their current district under the proposed plan, but that hasn't stopped the most rabidly partisan amongst us (and mostly Republicans at that) from screaming about the sheer partisanship reflected in the new redistricting plan.

It's been a long time since I've agreed with Republicans in Maryland about much of anything, but I agree with them about the purely partisan motivation of the redistricting plan. In an attempt to win seven of eight Congressional seats in 2012, the Democrats running the state have brought Roscoe Bartlett's Western Maryland district far down into that hotbed of liberal thinking, Montgomery County. The new 6th now includes Gaithersburg, Germantown, and portions of Rockville and its environs. The Washington suburbs are full of new immigrants of varying levels of legality, but are also chock full of well compensated and well educated DC commuters who, by and large, tend to vote for Democrats. These same voters have sent Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen to the House for the past five terms.

But truth be told, the changes in the 6th also create a much more competitive 8th district in which Van Hollen will likely have to compete against a credible challenger, and will actually have to campaign. More personally dismaying from my standpoint is that the new 1st district now extends further west than ever before, and some of the newly encompassed ground includes portions of Carroll County, northern Baltimore County, and a majority of Harford County. Carroll County citizens don't have a ton in common with Somerset County citizens, but that was not foremost on the minds of the Governor's Redistricting Task Force. They were willing to sacrifice ten years of inevitable Republican representation in the 1st for the sake of knocking off Roscoe out west.

Much as I don't support anything Andy Harris says or does, I don't necessarily want him to be summarily kicked from office because of a redistricting effort led largely by the other party. What I want are fair election districts, where a diverse array of candidates and ideas can be heard and where the election results are not preordained. This is where I differ from the GOP.

Maryland GOP leaders, which is something of an oxymoron given their permanent minority status, are calling the governor's plan unfair. Which implies that if they were in office, they would not be attempting the same type of shenanigans, which put the interests of partisan politics ahead of the interests of the people of Maryland. Of course, this is not the case. All over the country, Republican led states are doing precisely the same things, trying to finagle Congressional boundary lines for the sake of GOP advantage at the ballot box. There is no question that if the Republicans were in charge in Maryland, they would be doing exactly what they decry the Democrats for doing. No wonder 89% of Americans think that Congress is dysfunctional, we are represented by politicians who think first of personal ambition, then Party, and then the people, and always in that order.

Gerrymandering, the practice of altering Congressional district boundary lines in creative ways for partisan ends got its start by Elbridge Gerry (and as a side note, he pronoounced his last name similar to Gary not Jerry, so I am always sure to pronounce the word properly as garymandering, and not jerrymandering)who started this tradition as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812.

However, the lack of competition in our House seats is eroding the quality of our elected officials, and as such, is eroding the quality of our political debate. The vast majority of Congressional seats are now held firmly by one Party or the other, with incumbents virtually assured a safe seat as long as they care to serve. This only serves to create a House of Representatives full of the most partisan champions imaginable, whose commitment to ensuring gridlock is generally applauded at home, at the expense of progress and problem solving.

Some states have started to dabble with fair election rules, but only when the electorate clamors for genuine good government. As long as partisans rewrite the election rules every ten years, we will only ever have partisan driven redistricting. It is time to implement a truly fair system for holding elections, one where boundary lines are computer generated, with only population and regional equity as part of the determining formula. No more legislative districts that are only the width of a road in order to get to some select conservative or liberal neighborhood. The people should demand that their representation not be selected for them, if elections no longer matter, what else does?

I hope you will consider joining me in voting AGAINST Question 5 on the statewide ballot.

The Old Switcharoo

Much, much more on this issue in a later blog post, but I wanted to post to this Des Moines Register article before I added my own commentary.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110902/OPINION03/309020049/Farm-subsidy-switch-disheartening

Iowa Farm Bureau members cast a historic vote in Des Moines Tuesday urging Congress to tie federal farm subsidies to compliance with land conservation programs.

Alas, the members brought the resolution back for another vote the next day and killed it. For a brief moment, though, it looked like the Iowa Farm Bureau was serious about countering its reputation as an organization that cares more about making money with the taxpayers’ assistance than the environmental consequences of unsustainable farming practices.

We can only hope Congress does not listen to the Iowa Farm Bureau on this issue: If American taxpayers are going to subsidize farmers, the least they should expect in return is that farmers will be required to practice sensible land use so waters are not fouled and soil is preserved for future generations.

That expectation is met now. Farmers who accept direct support payments from the government are required to comply with federal conservation rules that prevent soil erosion and protect water quality. But Congress’ budget-cutters are poised to end direct payments, which set a floor under commodity prices. Iowa farmers aren’t likely to fight the cut because, with corn prices nearing historic record highs, they don’t need the direct payments.

There is another way to enforce conservation, however: The federal government subsidizes about 60 percent of the cost of crop insurance, which protects commodity growers from weather-related losses. But there is no link between federal crop insurance and conservation programs. The historic – though brief – proposal by the Iowa Farm Bureau delegates would have put the group on record as supporting such a link.

Iowa Farm Bureau Federation President Craig Lang deserves enormous credit for pushing the idea of enforcing conservation rules. In a meeting with the Register earlier this summer, Lang said two key elements of the farm bill should be preserved: Crop insurance and conservation programs, which he likened to vital national infrastructure, such as locks on the Mississippi River and dams on the Missouri River. He and others urged the Iowa delegates to take a stand for conservation by tying it to insurance subsidies.

It’s not clear why the Farm Bureau members reversed themselves. The notion was expressed by some members that while direct payments are expendable, crop insurance is not. Marion County farmer Corwin Fee said he was all for improving the organization’s public relations, but he said “this is my livelihood. Crop insurance is a necessity to farming.” Which can be read only one way: Conservation is not a necessity to farming.

The carefully cultivated image of farmers as noble men and women who feed the world is tarnished by the fact that, unlike other business owners, farmers have a direct pipeline into the federal treasury that helps protect them from risk and market gyrations. Especially galling is the attitude of farmers who expect those subsidies without interference from the government. “We’re for conservation,” David Wrage of Benton County told the Farm Bureau delegates Wednesday. “But my membership back home just doesn’t want the government coming onto their land and telling them what to do.”

Iowa Farm Bureau members this week were close to taking a principled stand against that attitude. It is a shame they changed their minds.

The Lessons of Irene

This past weekend, my wife and I survived our first hurricane on the Delmarva Peninsula. Hurricane Irene brought tropical storm force winds and a drenching 20 hours of rain to Centreville and most other Eastern Shore environs. Thankfully our communities were mostly spared from the catastrophe that some had predicted; but as the sun dawns bright, and the skies a clear blue, maybe its time to reflect on the past week of weather.

-While I suppose an earthquake isn't technically weather, last Tuesday I felt my first earthquake while on the phone at my Washington office. It was over by the time I figured out just what was happening, and thinking that the novelty had quickly come and gone, kept on with my conversation with a colleague from Montana. After the phone call ended, however, I went into the street to find a Diet Coke, and what met me in the building lobby was pandamonium. Crowds milled around the streets with no purpose and certainly no direction. I wouldn't go so far as to call it chaos; but if this truly had been an emergency of any magnitude, well, lets just say that the ingredients for chaos were all there in the right quanitities. Federal and state governments spend a ton of taxpayer dollars on "homeland security," but incidences like this one prove that after all those billions, there is no workable plan to get people information.

-Which brings me to my next point, communications. There were none in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Both cell phones and land lines were essentially useless in the couple hours after the event. Again, if this were a real emergency, those of us in downtown DC would be shutoff from the rest of the world in a way that would almost certainly be dangerous. It is somewhat frightening to know that the best method for staying informed during a low-level emergency were social media sites like Facebook.

-Fast forward a few days to Hurricane Irene. Both national and local news outlets were sold on the idea that Irene was going to be a catastrophe of the highest order; they then sought to sell that same idea to a general public all too willing to buy. Even the generally staid Weather Channel wasn't immune from the hyperbole, no longer simply forecasting weather but evoking a sort of doomsday expectation, a morbid and perverse attempt at higher ratings. Generally, the sensationalism of the news is something we can switch off and disregard, perhaps even chuckle at. But in this instance, when real information was needed, it was difficult to find the helpful amidst the high-pitched.

-As a result of this obsession with catastrophe (indeed seemingly encouraging it), my neck of the woods was ignored almost entirely. The Weather Channel, CNN, and every other national news outlet seemed to forget that a 500 mile wide hurricane cannot get to New York City from the Outer Banks without passing through Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I suppose that the potential for catastrophe just wasn't high enough on the Delmarva Peninsula for any meaningful coverage. But come to think of it, if the coverage is nothing more than vapid doomsaying, best to leave us out.

-We shouldn't cut every tree in every neighborhood down because occasionally a branch falls and breaks a window. Trees add to the quality of our lives, add to the livability of neighborhoods (if you don't believe that, go take a drive through treeless Northbrook). Sometimes they are dangerous (what isn't?) but let's not let a momentary passion possess us to do something we will regret for a long time.

-People can't drive. Generally speaking, we don't need bad weather to bear this out, but it becomes especially obvious in bad weather. If a red light is out at an intersection, it becomes a four way stop. It is not a license to barrel through as if you've never laid eyes on a drivers ed manual.

-The best lesson of Irene is that the Eastern Shore, and our small town of Centreville is a great place to call home. On Sunday, people came out to gossip and help each other clean up. I hear a lot about what is wrong with Queen Anne's County, but Irene helped us see a few things that are just right.

Thinking Outside the Big Box

My wife Kim and I sent the following email to our County Commissioners prior to the vote on Text Amendment 11-06, to permit 'big box' retail in suburban commerical zoned properties. Thanks to Commissioners David Dunmyer and Bob Simmons for their courageous vote against this damaging amendment.

Gentlemen,
Good morning. As citizens of Centreville, my wife and I would like to write in strong opposition to Text Amendment 11-06, which would eliminate the square footage cap for retail establishments in Suburban Commercial areas. It is our belief that the reasons for opposing this ordinance far outweigh any possible reasons for supporting the measure, and we would urge you to vote against the 11-06 on Tuesday morning.

1. The main property in question, near the corner of 544/213, is in a part of the county that, unlike Kent Island, maintains a strong rural character. However, if a big box retail store were to be located in this area, it would set off a chain of events that would be difficult to avoid: namely, the large-scale development of the 213 corridor in northern Queen Anne’s County, quickly altering the landscape from one of working farmland and centrally located small businesses, to one of vast parking lots and diffuse, unorganized large retail businesses that will undermine the viability of existing Kingstown, Centreville, Sudlersville and Chestertown businesses. It is also highly probable that this would kick-start many attempts by landowners to get their land rezoned, and if the commissioners have established a strict rationale that “any growth is good growth,” at what point will you be politically able to stop granting landowner requests for rezoning? It will get very tricky; best to take a reasoned approach to growth by voting down 11-06.

2. It is false to say that “big box” retailers will keep money in Queen Anne’s County. In fact, the opposite is true, since the vast majority of big box retail profits will be sent to corporate headquarters in far off locations (in the case of Wal-Mart, Bentonville, Arkansas; in the case of Home Depot, Atlanta Georgia). This as opposed to buying products from locally owned vendors, who keep all profits local, and generally employ local people at higher wages. Since altering the APFO is also reportedly on your agenda, it is likely that any positive property tax revenue (since ALL sales tax receipts are sent to Annapolis, and not kept in the County) created by a large retailer will be spent upgrading associated infrastructure such as roadways, storm and wastewater capacity, and the added cost of increased police and fire service requirements in a part of the county where police and fire costs are currently quite low.

3. While the population center of Queen Anne’s County is Kent Island, the 544/213 intersection is 38 miles from Kent Island. It is unlikely that any Kent Island citizen will choose Kingstown (38 miles) over Easton (30 miles) or Annapolis (20 miles) for its large retail needs. Indeed, I would like to see the County Commissioners focus on increasing Kent Island visitation to existing Centreville businesses and our plethora of existing retail and commercial space. Since it is true that so many people in the county cross the bridge to get to work, what reason would they have for driving nearly forty miles from Kent Island to Kingstown, when they likely work or drive in very close proximity to a large retail location four to five days a week?

4. For a variety of reasons, downtown Centreville is dying. From high rents to low foot traffic, the solution is likely complicated and will require the cooperation of both town and county officials, but as of right now, nothing is being done to ameliorate the problems of downtown Centreville. I can assure you that a large retailer located in Kingstown will be the final blow for Centreville; the county seat will continue its downward spiral into a ghost town. If Centreville continues on its current path, I believe that you will see a further loss in property values, and a decrease in tax revenue that will largely offset any gains a large retailer may bring to the County. I urge you to drop the idea of big box in suburban commercial, and instead focus on breathing life into our towns and communities. If you take this approach, you will have the complete support of all of your constituents. Comparisons to downtown Easton are simply naïve. Easton’s historic downtown was already a viable economic location prior to big box retail coming to greater Easton, which meant that there was some insulation against the pressures of big box retail, (although someone should tell that to the now defunct Legal Spirits, Thai food restaurant, and others that have since gone under). Easton also has place-appropriate anchors (Avalon Theatre, Tidewater Inn) that fit the identity of the town. Centreville lacks these anchors, but with the commitment of the commissioners to work on this problem, I believe new life could be breathed into Centreville, I will support your efforts to do this. But it cannot be done with a big box retail location ten miles up 213/301.

5. A big box retail location dropped in to 544/213 is the definition of sprawl. You absolutely cannot say that you are anti-sprawl if you vote for this measure. It may be true that Queen Anne’s County and Kent County are the only counties left in Maryland that do not have a Wal-Mart. I don’t think the people of Queen Anne’s County want, nor do I think the commissioners should be trying, to turn our county into a homogenous extension of the rest of Maryland. The fact that we do not have large retail blight sets us apart from the rest of the state in a good way, not in a bad way! Many other counties have Wal-Marts, Targets, Home Depots, and Lowes, but those counties are currently in precisely the same state of budget deficits that Queen Anne’s County is in; in fact, some counties with big box retail have it much, much worse. There is not one single example of a big box retail location solving a local (short term) budget crunch. Big box retail solves no problems, and creates many. Talbot County, which has a Wal-Mart, Target, Lowes and soon to have a Kohl’s currently has an unemployment rate fully one percentage point higher than Queen Anne’s County, and just went through a similar cut to their school budget as our County was forced to go through; the costs simply are not worth the benefits.

6. It deserves mentioning that the predatory nature of big box retail, which is a fundamental part of their very business model, is damaging to nearly all it touches. For every low-paying retail job that Walmart or Target creates, they likely kill two high-paying US manufacturing jobs, by forcing manufacturers to produce at rock bottom prices and shoestring profit margins, they essentially force through volume purchases the migration of US manufacturing overseas. So while cheaper back to school gear sounds great, cheap retail jumpstarts an endless race to the bottom that leaves middle class America holding a very large bill.

Please oppose 11-06.

Steven and Kimberly Kline
Centreville

The Race to Rock Bottom

Frank owns a factory that makes winter hats. He is the fourth generation of his family to run the factory, located in a small town in Middle America. Forty percent of the town has a steady, well-paying job in the factory. For years, the company's hats have been in local sporting goods stores, hardward stores and general stores across the country. They had a reputation for being made of the finest quality wool and leather, assembled in America, long-lasting, and good at keeping hard working Americans warm all winter long.

A large retail corporation with plans for global price and sales domination comes along, let's call this company Sprawl-Mart. The executives of Sprawl-Mart like Frank's hats, and while they find his company's family history, local roots, and quality product touching, they think his prices are too high. Too high by half, in fact. But they really want to sell Frank's hats, so the product development director of Sprawl-Mart calls Frank one crisp autumn morning, and offers to buy one million of Frank's hats. Frank's jaw drops! That is more hats than Frank's company has made in the last ten years. Frank will be able to expand his shop, hire more local people, and offer everyone a bonus come Christmas time. But Sprawl-Mart has one condition...the price of his hats needs to be cut by 75%.

Frank is speechless. He sputters into the phone: "But! I can't increase my production by 500% AND reduce my costs by 75%! It cannot be done!" Sprawl-Mart disagrees. They tell Frank that they will be ordering one million hats from someone, whether it be him, or his biggest competitor. Sprawl-Mart tells Frank that once they start selling his competitor's hats in large quanities across the globe, at rock bottom prices, it will put Frank's fourth generation company right out of business. "Find a way to make these hats 75% cheaper," Sprawl-Mart hisses into the phone.

Frank has no choice but to meet Sprawl-Mart's demands, because if he doesn't, it will likely mean the end of his family's business. So Frank calls a factory meeting, and tells the workers, some of whom he grew up with, that the company will be moving it's operations to Vietnam, and that the factory where four generations of locals have worked will be closing down. They already have a buyer for the factory, in fact. A Sprawl-Mart subsidiary, Concrete Jungle Developers will be bulldozing the place to put up high-dollar condos.

One day, Frank walks into a new Sprawl-Mart location just outside of town. He sees Helen, who used to be a foreman at the factory, now she is working for minimum wages and no benefits; she doesn't say hello. Frank see's Marty, who was a talented shop mechanic, fixing a light fixture high up in the Sprawl-Mart ceiling. He shouts a "hello" up to Frank; Marty shouts back down, "No time to talk, gotta wrap up here so I can head to my second job." Then he gets to the aisle where Sprawl-Mart stocks their hats. And there he sees it, the new version of his family's legacy, made out of foreign cotton, foreign imitation leather, and all put together in Vietnam.

This story is fictional in the strictest sense of the word, but many of the products hanging on the shelves at big box retailers across the country have a similar story to tell, stories that are all too real. For every one low-paying retail job that big box retailers create, there is no telling how many good paying American manufacturing jobs they put out of business forever; the kind of jobs that America was built on. This is the cost of the American obsession with low-priced goods. Your cheap back to school supplies and snacks for the big game have a low price, but an incredibly high cost.

Does this photo make my eyes look crazy?

This image of Michele Bachmann on the cover of Newsweek has caused a lot of heartburn lately. While markets tumble, and confidence in the American political system is deeply shaken both at home and across the globe, some people have decided that what's important is an "unflattering" picture of Bachmann on the cover of a magazine.

I'll be honest, the picture shows pretty clearly that Bachmann has crazy in her eyes. But it is obviously a picture that Bachmann willingly posed for, as opposed to some sort of candid, frozen in the moment snarl or expressive frown.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that this picture doesn't make Michele Bachman look any crazier than she actually is. She is a proud member of what Theodore Roosevelt one hundred years ago called 'the Lunatic Fringe.' The fact that Newsweek has a picture on their cover that makes Michele Bachmann look crazy doesn't bother me. Now the fact that she IS crazy is a whole other story.

Western Native Trout Adventures

I hope you all will check out this cool video put together by the Director of TRCP's Center for Western Lands, my friend Joel Webster. All across the nation, indicator species are serving as the proverbial canaries in the coalmine for our conservation efforts. Here in Maryland, species like the eastern brook trout and native oyster are telling us we have to do more. Check out the video!

Izaak Walton League * National Wildlife Federation
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership * Trout Unlimited

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 12, 2011

House of Representatives Strikes Double Blow Against Clean Water Protections

Washington, DC – The U.S. House of Representatives today struck a double blow against efforts to restore Clean Water Act protections for streams that supply drinking water to 117 million Americans and wetlands that provide flood protection and critical fish and wildlife habitat. The full House rejected an amendment to allow the Army Corps to proceed with Clean Water Act guidance and rulemaking, while the Appropriations Committee approved a fiscal year (FY) 2012 Interior Appropriations bill that bars EPA from taking similar action.

The House rejected an amendment by Representative Jim Moran (D-VA) to the FY 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations bill that would have allowed the Army Corps of Engineers to revise guidance and proceed with a rulemaking to clarify the waters protected by the Clean Water Act. The bill includes a provision (Section 109) barring the Corps from taking any steps next year or in future years to revise the proposed guidance or regulations. By voting against this amendment, the House would maintain the status quo of wetlands loss, stream impairment, and regulatory confusion.

“The vote today represented a clear choice between restoring Clean Water Act protections to important streams and wetlands and postponing those protections indefinitely,” said Scott Kovarovics, Conservation Programs Director for the Izaak Walton League of America. “Congressman Moran’s amendment provided a balanced path forward for clean water. Unfortunately, opponents of the amendment chose not to take that path.”

“Clean water must be a bipartisan national priority,” said Steve Kline, Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s Center for Agricultural and Private Lands. “Since 1972, the Clean Water Act has made significant progress in restoring our nation’s rivers, lakes, and wetlands. The job is not done, but votes like today’s are an ill-advised step in exactly the wrong direction.”

The Interior Appropriations bill includes a nearly identical provision (Section 435) blocking EPA action on Clean Water Act guidance or future rulemaking. It blocks such actions not only in FY 2012 but in future years as well.

“These provisions leave us with an intolerable status quo that threatens wetlands and tributaries that provide clean water for iconic systems like the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes, recharge aquifers, help retain floodwaters, and provide important fish and wildlife habitat,” said Jan Goldman-Carter, National Wildlife Federation Wetlands and Water Resources Counsel.

Loss of Clean Water Act protections for small streams and wetlands could affect more than our drinking water supplies and wildlife habitat – it could hurt the nation’s economy. Hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation contribute billions to the economy, but these activities could be sharply curtailed by water pollution and loss of wetland habitat critical for ducks, trout, and other wildlife.

“American sportsmen greatly appreciate the efforts of Representative Moran and others as they reminded the House what it seems to have forgotten: You can’t have fishable and swimable waters if substantial amounts of wetlands and headwater streams go unprotected by the Clean Water Act,” said Steve Moyer, Vice President for Government Affairs for Trout Unlimited. “Sportsmen will not forget these votes and will continue to do all in our power to defeat similar provisions that threaten clean water.”

For more information please contact:
Scott Kovarovics, Izaak Walton League, 301-548-0150 x 223, skovarovics@iwla.org
Jan Goldman-Carter, National Wildlife Federation, 202-797-6894, goldmancarterj@nwf.org
Steve Kline, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, 202-639-8727, skline@trcp.org
Steve Moyer, Trout Unlimited, 703-284-9406, smoyer@tu.org

BACKGROUND
The damaging House provisions would prevent the Corps of Engineers and EPA from finalizing administrative guidance that has been developed with an unprecedented level of public input. The Corps and EPA are collecting public comments on the proposed guidance for 90 days, through July 31. As written, the guidance increases clarity and efficiency for agencies, farmers, and businesses without expanding the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. Exemptions already in the Clean Water Act for common farming, ranching, forestry, and other land use activities would not be affected by the proposed guidance. As an administrative document, the guidance cannot – and does not – limit provisions of the Clean Water Act that specifically exempt these activities from the law’s wetland and pollution discharge permit requirements. It is ironic that these provisions also prohibit a formal rulemaking process. Stakeholders on all sides seem to agree on the need for a formal rulemaking as part of a long-term solution, yet the bills prohibit rulemaking not only in fiscal year 2012, but indefinitely.

Queen Anne's Cronies

Last week, the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners appointed Jim Moran to the county's Planning Commission. The vote was 3-2. Commissioners Arentz, Dumenil and Olds voted to appoint Mr. Moran. Commissioners Dunmyer and Simmons opposed the appointment.

Jim Moran is the owner of Increte of Maryland (you can check them out here: http://www.increteofmaryland.com/index.html). Increte is a decorative concrete company out of Crofton. Jim and I served together on the Task Force on Government Sustainability this Winter and early Spring; he was always professional, thorough and well-prepared. He also had a clear agenda: the promotion of growth as the solution to the county's problems. It was by no means a secret that Jim Moran saw more roads, more houses, and more business parks as the solution to what ails Queen Anne's County. But we'll come back to that.

The County Commissioners had received several applications for appointment to the Planning Commission. This is where the problems start. Included in the packet of applications, was a professional architect with experience working in Queen Anne's County. Another application for appointment was from a professional planner, that's right, a professional planner, with an impeccable resume.

But neither of those two candidates, qualified as they might have been, were going to do much good for the likes of Arentz, Dumenil and Olds. No, they needed a known quantity, someone they could count on to be a solid vote for growth on the Planning Commission. So they turned down a certified planner, for Jim Moran.

This is a fairly predictable state of affairs; Arentz and his followers on the Board vote blindly for their friends without considering what's best for Queen Anne's County. They make no attempt to get Jim Moran's opinions on the Comprehensive Plan (which as a member of the Planning Commission he will be expected to implement) nor did they ask any questions of Jim about his vision for the county. At least not that the public knows of. In fact, the public doesn't know what the county commissioners asked any of the applicants, because over the objection of Commissioners Dunmyer and Simmons, the board's deliberation over the Planning Commission appointment was done in closed session.

Public appointments to public commissions should be made in public. But Arentz, Dumenil and Olds wanted to be able to discuss the applicants "candidly," without the glare of the public. It seems likely that Arentz knew the public would never stand for such an obvious and odious case of cronyism, so he made the anointment, err, appointment, behind closed doors. As far as I am concerned, this is a blatant abuse of powers, I prefer that a real estate agent, an insurance salesman and a retired firefighter not have the right to determine which discussions the public can be a part of, and which they should be excluded from. This is an outrage. Who are Steve Arentz, Phil Dumenil and Dave Olds to decide what the public needs to know?

Of course, Arentz and his cohorts are well aware of Moran's vision for the County, he couldn't have been any more clear about that during the Task Force. They also likely know that Moran shares their dim view of the comprehensive plan. This is the whole purpose for his appointment, he will be a rubber stamp for growth in any form.

If this keeps up, this appointing cronies to various commissions, it won't be long before these commissions cease to function properly. The Planning Commission serves an important role in Queen Anne's County, namely to make sure that proposed development meets the needs of all of our citizens, both now and in the future. The Planning Commission must serve as a backstop for landowner and developer desires, can Jim Moran be expected to fill this role?

All through the campaign of last summer, I had to sit through candidate forums and listen to Steve Arentz, Phil Dumenil, and Dave Olds say that they didn't want to pave the county. When a website called Pave Our County cropped up, Arentz, Dumenil and Olds were indignant that anyone would claim that was indeed their intention. Yet what better way to pave the county, than to appoint a paver to the Planning Commission?

A Board of One

This statement was prepared and delivered today (June 14, 2011) by Commissioner David Dunmyer during a round table meeting of the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners. It is re-posted below without edit or commentary:

"Almost two weeks ago a meeting took place between Commissioners Arentz, Dumenil, County Administrator Todd and members of the governor's staff. The purpose of this meeting was to find areas of common ground, where we could work together. This meeting was requested by the governor's staff through contact with Administrator Todd. "

"Sounds great, right? I would have thought so too, had I known about it."

"Commissioner Arentz chose to hijack the process for his own political agenda by instructing Administrator Todd to withhold this meeting request from the other commissioners, namely Commissioners Simmons, myself, and maybe Commissioner Olds. I'm not certain if he knew of this, or played a part."

"I consider this action serious misconduct on the part of Commissioner Arentz and Administrator Todd. Are these actions of a commission working together to come up with solutions to move the county forward or are they sneaky, backhanded ways of push a developer-driven agenda?"

"When the state government contacts the County Administrator and requests a meeting with the commission, the commissioners who attend the meeting are now bound to represent the commission as a whole. Commissioner Simmons and I, and maybe Commissioner Olds, were deliberately left out of this process. Two commissioner representing the entire board illegally."

"I request that we have our county attorney come in at a future meeting and instruct the commission, in public, on the do's and don'ts of commissioner conduct and also to address the duties of the president of the commission versus the rest of the commissioners. I will not stand for being marginalized as a commissioner."

Why Wye? Part II: The Biotech Bust

Biotechnology. Anyone who has doubts about the development of Wye Mills is meant to be placated by that little-understood, but much-used word. Like a sweet lullaby, the mere mention of biotechnology is supposed to make Wye Mills skeptics sleep easy.

You see, the commercial development in Wye Mills is going to look different from the development every place else; it is going to be innocuous, barely noticeable, one might even say it will be additive to the rural landscape. Where the growth on Kent Island is offensive to the eye (and much else besides), development around Wye Mills is going to be bucolic.

Like a slick advertising campaign, the Wye Mills development plan comes across just a little too good to be true. But the sales pitch isn't being given by slick advertisers, but rather the same old 'any growth is good growth' crowd that now seems to have the ear of a majority of the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners. It's the folks that stand to make a buck or two when the bulldozers throttle up, and who tend not to concern themselves much beyond their own bottom lines.

They know their growth for growth's sake vision for the county won't sell to the general public, so they wrap it in buzzwords like "sustainable," "campus-setting," "the right kind of growth," even biotechnology has become a buzzword, offered up as a sort of fail proof economic savior for the county. There is a sporting chance that these advocates for growth at any cost don't even know what biotechnology means, they just know it sounds better, sounds higher-paying, sounds more fundamentally agreeable than just plain old growth.

The only problem is, the biotechnology idea requires an uncomfortably high level of faith. Queen Anne's County is not a biotechnology hot spot; in fact, there are several biotech centers on the Western Shore and in Delaware that Queen Anne's County's nascent biotech industry will have to compete with as it gets started. It is unlikely that Queen Anne's County currently has the human resources that such a facility would require, making the county something less than attractive to prospective biotech start-ups, who will not be interested in paying for employee relocation.

There is also the little matter that the biotech bubble, to which Queen Anne's County is not the first to hook it's Pollyannish economic dreams , has largely burst. An article from just a few months ago (link at the end of the blog) details the investment that the state of Florida put into a biotech center in a rural part of the state, to the tune of a billion and a half dollars. The biotech facility created 1100 jobs, or more than a million bucks per employee. Hardly the economic engine anyone predicted, rather a wasteful taxpayer funded jobs program. $1.5 billion is more than a decade of Queen Anne's County's total spending, and no one from the state government seems inclined to invest in this biotech pipe dream.

As good intentioned as the County Commissioners might be, and that is perhaps a debate for another blog post, they will not be the ones developing the Wye Mills parcels. All that the commissioners can realistically do is rezone the acres from agriculture to a more commercial designation; once that is done, the commissioners role in the development is largely over. And despite all the flowery language and "sustainable" growth talking points, it will quickly become apparent that biotechnology was the spoonful of sugar meant to help get the Castor oil of growth down the public throat.

The result of all this is that the development of still-rural Wye Mills will look just like the development of once-rural Kent Island. Fast food, gas stations, and other quick stop retail establishments for the reach-the-beach traffic will dominate; the kind of growth whose benefits to the citizens of Queen Anne's County never seem to catch up to the costs. By the time we realize we've had the wool pulled over our eyes, it will be decidedly too late, and Wye Mills will be nothing more than a congested intersection of redundant commercialism.


Link to the Florida biotech article:
http://palmbeachscripps.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/scripps-cant-justify-states-investment-in-its-biotech-research/

Why Wye?

In 1998, President Bill Clinton hosted leaders from the Middle East in Wye Mills, Maryland, a small and historic village that takes its name from the river that flows not far away, south and west to the Chesapeake Bay. It was a summit meant like so many before it, and indeed after it, to broker peace in a region of the world where that word was little more than an abstraction.

In Wye Mills, peace is anything but an abstraction. A community that straddles the border of Queen Anne's and Talbot counties, it is not a difficult place to miss. Like so many Eastern Shore towns, it appears at first glance to be little more than a place where the speed limit abruptly slows, and then gradually rises again to accomodate the pace of life of those just passing through.

Wye Mills has been a quaint hub of rural industry little changed in three centuries. When Washington took his troops across the Delaware, the mill turned. When 600,000 Americans lay dead or dying on homegrown battlefields north and south, the mill turned. When American boys stormed the beaches of Normandy, thousands of miles away the mill quietly turned. As Richard Nixon prepared to give his resignation speech in front of an unforgiving camera in the Oval Office, just across Chesapeake Bay from Washington the mill, as always, turned. When terrorists brought our world to a halt in 2001, Wye Mills turned still. For more than three hundred years, the mill has turned, marking the passage of time; serving as a symbol to the world at large that the river of life runs on. Perhaps the reason it has remained virtually unchanged is because change is not always necessary.

Nothing is sacred.

Drastic change may be headed for sleepy Wye Mills. Predictably, the effort comes from nearby landowners; they'd like to disregard the county comprehensive plan and take advantage of a generally pro-growth board of county commissioners by having their agricultural land rezoned for commerical use. What are now fields of crops would assuredly become seas of concrete; towers of brick and mortar would rise to meet the sun and the rain, in a place where, for as long as anyone can or cares to remember, only corn, wheat and beans greeted the weather. The character of Wye Mills, unashamedly rural for time immemorial, would be forever altered.

Little makes sense in this plan, except possibly the thinly veiled personal greed. It is contemptable to listen to land speculators carry on about the county's need for jobs and commerical revenue as they attempt to justify their own real estate conniving. Let's not pretend anyone is offering their land for sacrifice to the great consumptive commercial machine for the sake of Queen Anne's County and her citizens; that demeans everyone. No, the landowners are simply in the money making business, and there is nothing wrong with that, so long as we call it what it truly is.

The trouble with this plan is that its tough to see how it does anything but cost Queen Anne's County in both the short run, and the long. There is no sewer capacity in Wye Mills for extensive new development, which means that a wastewater treatment facility would have to be built and sewer lines run to the properities in question, costing the county millions. The development would take place on diagonal corners of Routes 50 and 213, further tying up an already jammed stop light that forces drivers to slow and stop quickly from high cruising speeds, often on their way to the beaches. The traffic situation would surely devolve further, eventually requiring an expensive overpass that would mean years of construction and further millions of state and county road dollars, dollars that neither the state nor the county currently have.

But the more serious problem for the people of Queen Anne's County is a little more difficult to see. It was, however, explicitly stated in the June 2nd Record Observer, by the attorney for one of the landowners in question. His logic made the rezoning seem as natural and inevitable as the Wye River tide itself. You see, the reason we need to rezone and develop these two agricultural parcels is simple in his estimation: the other two corners of 50/213 are already developed. This is obviously true, one corner boasts a gas station, the other the campus of Chesapeake College. Following this logic a little further however, one finds doom for the rural Eastern Shore. For it is the very definition of sprawl, a growth begets growth recipe for lining the Route 50 corridor with endless commercial development, from Wye Mills west to the Bay Bridge, and eventually north up Route 213 to Centreville. In the article the attorney says that his client is not trying to develop the rural hinterlands, but this is a damnable step in that very direction.

From the pages of the NY Times

Friedman hits the nail on the head:

"In America, President George W. Bush used the post-9/11 economic dip to push through a second tax cut we could not afford. He followed that with a Medicare prescription drug entitlement we cannot afford and started two wars in the wake of 9/11 without raising taxes to pay for them — all at a time when we should have been saving money in anticipation of the baby boomers’ imminent retirement. As such, our nation’s fiscal hole is deeper than ever and Republicans and Democrats — rather than coming together and generating the political authority needed for us to take our castor oil to compensate for our binge — are just demonizing one another."

Find the full article here: http://http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/opinion/01friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Memorial Blight

I snapped this picture early this morning at the Kent Narrows commuter bus stop under the Route 50 bridge. This should be a picturesque location, or I suppose about as pictureseque as a parking lot under a bridge can possibly be. But with litter strewn for fifty yards in any direction from those overflowing trashcans, the place resembles a dump more than a waterfront park. It is a visual symbol of our throw-away society.

A few things come to mind when you look at that picture, which is essentially the same scene after any reasonably fair weather weekend: Two trash cans are not enough for the location, and more likely need to be added; people need to consider taking their trash home with them; or what might be even better: try making less trash altogether.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Guess who is the co-chair of the newly minted Chesapeake Bay Watershed Congressional Caucus? That's right! Our very own member of Congress, the honorable Andy Harris! Andy seems to think this is a great opportunity to come together with his "colleagues on both sides of the aisle on finding common-sense solutions to protect our Bay." Brings to mind a quote from George Carlin: "kinda makes you want to puke in your suit, doesn't it?"

You'll remember in my last blog that Andy voted to defund the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) during the FY2011 budget process. These were the plans that would have set real benchmarks for pollution reduction in each of the watershed states, and would have fostered meaningful cooperation between the states and the feds. It was exactly what Andy proposed on his campaign website, yet he still voted, lemming-like, with his Party. He sold out the Chesapeake Bay in the name of Republican solidarity. Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican who, like Andy is a member of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Congressional Caucus, took a principled stand against his Party and for the Bay by voting against the funding limitation.

Not long after that vote, Andy signed a letter along with many Congressional colleagues that asked the EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers to cease and desist from issuing Clean Water Act administrative guidance, a perfectly legal and appropriate Executive action. The guidance will restore federal protection to important waters and wetlands that are crucial to water quality in places like the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes. From 1972 to 2001, these waters had been protected by the Clean Water Act; Congress knew that you can't protect iconic systems like the Bay without safeguarding the upstream wetlands and tributaries that feed them. But a series of judicial decisions, and Bush-era guidance eroded the act in the name of polluting streams and filling wetlands. The Obama Administration moved forward with guidance (released for public comment on April 27) over the objection of clean water opponents like Andy Harris.

Then, Andy again voted against the Chesapeake Bay by voting to not only allow, but to mandate, drilling for oil off the coast of Maryland and Virginia. Barely a year after Deepwater Horizon crippled the Gulf seafood and tourism industry, and cost billions to clean up (a process that will be ongoing for a decade), Andy Harris decided that the chimera of cheaper gas was more valuable than the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland's coastal bays which would be hammered by any kind of spill. The Bush administration's own Energy Information Agency stated unequivocally in 2008 that no amount of drilling that the United States could possibly engage in would ever succeed in lowering gas prices in a meaningful way. Andy Harris sold out the Bay for a talking point.

And after all this, Andy Harris has the audacity, the gall, to join the the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Congressional Caucus. I would be frustrated, if I weren't so damn angry. We should all be so angry.

Andy's Follies

The Chesapeake Bay is a shadow of its former self. Oyster and menhaden stocks are depleted, nutrients from front lawns and farm fields choke the life from the bay in the summer, and wetlands have been degraded across the watershed. The Chesapeake once supported local economies; but these days a new cottage industry has cropped up, one that threatens the future of the Chesapeake Bay as surely as pollution and overfishing: the business of blame shifting and finger pointing.

Developers blame farmers, farmers blame developers. Maryland blames Virginia's lax crabbing restrictions and runoff from the Susquehanna. Septic owners blame wastewater treatment plants, and recreational fishermen blame commercial fishermen. Everyone spends a lot of energy blaming someone else. Truth be known, no one in the Chesapeake watershed, stretching across six states and 64,000 square miles escapes blame for the current state of the bay.

A problem to which everyone contributes requires a solution to which everyone contributes. But given the pervasive culture of buck passing, this type of shared resolution eludes us. Various states, having all mostly failed in their individual efforts to clean up the bay, formed multistate alliances to achieve cleanup goals; those goals have gone unmet. There have been regional consortiums of federal, state, and local governments, stakeholder groups and non-profits working in concert to restore the Chesapeake, but again the results failed to materialize. What is clear is that no single state or any loose affiliation of states and stakeholders can achieve meaningful restoration of the bay.

What is needed now more than ever is forceful leadership. Leadership that does not incessantly redefine success, that does not sit back idly and watch deadlines come and go, and that understands the importance of accountability.

On May 12, 2009, President Obama decided that only the federal government could provide that leadership. With the signing of the Chesapeake Bay executive order a process was put into motion that had never been attempted before: an entire-watershed approach to cleaning up the Chesapeake. Each state in the watershed would be mandated to draft a Watershed Implementation Plan, requiring the establishment of clean water benchmarks, and a systematic review of the actions necessary to achieve those goals.

The federal government pledged to make a sensible financial investment in the cleanup effort, and to ensure that an independent evaluator was reviewing the progress made to make certain that dollars were being spent wisely, in ways that furthered overall restoration goals. Those evaluations were to be made at regular intervals and the data upon which they were based was to be made public.

Final phase 1 implementation plans were submitted by each of the states to the Environmental Protection Agency beginning in November of 2010. Maryland's plan, at 234 pages, is impressive in its scope and comprehensiveness; boasting aggressive reduction goals for nutrient runoff and sedimentation. But identifying problems is the easy part; solving them is the true challenge.

As so often has happened on the Chesapeake, however, politics got in the way. At about 10pm on a Friday night in February, the US House of Representatives voted on an amendment to a 2012 omnibus appropriations bill that sought to restrict the federal government from using any funds to “develop, evaluate, or implement watershed implementation plans for the Chesapeake Bay.” Eastern Shore Congressman, Andy Harris voted to cut off funding.

Harris’ campaign website states that protecting the Chesapeake is a priority which requires a “multi-faceted approach, dealing with urban runoff, sewage treatment plants, and agriculture runoff.” He goes on to say that since the watershed is made up of multiple states, there is an “important federal role in bay restoration.”

The watershed implementation plans are exactly what Mr. Harris said was needed to achieve restoration goals on the Chesapeake, and still he voted to cut the plans off at the knees. There are countless communities in Maryland’s First Congressional District that are counting on bay’s improvement for their very existence. Thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic impact, not to mention a centuries-old way of life, are at stake. Cleaning up the bay will require shared sacrifice and inspired political leadership. Regrettably, Mr. Harris’ does not appear poised to provide that leadership.

I've taken the liberty...

Recently, the Maryland General Assembly was debating a few new legal provisions that have nothing to do with one another. One bans the reading of text messages while driving. The other would legalize gay marriage. Completely unrelated, right? One has to do with the safety of our streets and highways. The other ensures that the state will recognize the right of two taxpaying and consenting adults to enter into a contract with one another.

Far too many accidents, fatal and otherwise, are the product of distracted driving: putting on makeup, eating, trying to find your favorite CD on the floor behind you, yelling at misbehaved children in the backseat, trying to hide narcotics from the cops. Your eyes leave the road for a second or two, and suddenly you find yourself rather uncomfortably positioned underneath a tractor trailer. Or maybe you veer over the double yellow line momentarily. When it comes right down to it, there isn't much difference between driving impaired and driving distracted, especially when one considers the often grisly end result.

There is no text message worth my life. I'll let you decide about yours. This new law will no doubt save lives and make our roads safer; opposition to the bill would seem counterintuitive and perhaps downright irresponsible. Be that as it may, my senator, EJ Pipkin, and a lot of other GOP state senators have decided to oppose the text message ban as an unmitigated attack on civil liberties. A sweeping intrusion of the nanny state government brought to you personally by that notable bete noire, Martin O'Malley. The audacity! I do know this: checking a text message while you are driving is many things, it is not a liberty.

Which brings us to gay marriage. One might reasonably expect good ol' EJ to support gay marriage, you know, as a reaffirmation of civil liberty, freedom, and personal responsibility. The ability of two consenting adults to do what they like, provided it causes no harm to anyone else. Heck, it's practically what George Washington fought for at Yorktown, right?! Who needs more laws telling people what they can't do, right?

No?

It appears that liberty has its limits, which happen to extend to just this side of the GOP's collective comfort level. EJ and the vast majority of the GOP state senate caucus are opposed to gay marriage. They, along with their religious right accomplices, cite scripture, "God's law," and the ability to procreate as foundational principles in the definition of marriage.

First of all, God's law has no place in the laws of the United States, or the several states. Perhaps that is sacrilege to some, but your God might not be my God, and if a few Qur'an toting fundamentalist came to Annapolis and started firebreathing a lot of rhetoric about God's law, you bet that EJ would be apoplectic; spewing Jefferson quotes about the separation of church and state. It's a slippery slope.

Secondly, 'marriage' as defined by the state has nothing to do with God, love, sex, kids, bridal veils, garter belts, plastic cake toppers or apron dances. A marriage is simply a state-recognized contractual bond between two people. Pretty easy to get into, a little tougher to get out of.

Legalizing gay marriage will have virtually zero impact on anyone who isn't gay. But lots of politicians tell us that gay marriage undermines traditional marriage, or that a gay couple raising a child means that child will be prone to interior decorating and tend to use overly expressive hand motions. It's all hogwash, undeserving of a response. And do Republicans really have a problem undermining anything, anyway? The tax policies they advocate undermine the state's fiscal health, and the natural resources policies they espouse undermine the state's environmental health.

So let's throw the theory that Republicans are truly concerned about the future of traditional marriage out the window. The real issue is that gays give Republicans the heebie jeebies. The idea that two people who have the same anatomy get together and have fun with one another behind several sets of closed doors makes people like EJ Pipkin supremely uncomfortable.

The two positions that Pipkin has taken are woefully untenable. They are irreconcilable. They represent the starkest of contradictions. But no one seems to notice; the Republicans can keep on pretending to be the party of personal freedom while they deny personal freedoms to a significant portion of the American population.

Go West Young Man!

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Emigrant, Montana about 90 miles outside of Bozeman for a week of team building and communications workshops at the B-Bar Ranch. Politically it's a tough time to leave Capitol Hill, as the GOP brings an appropriations package (some are wrongly calling it a 'continuing resolution') for the rest of 2011 to the House floor this week. There are bound to be lots of environmental shenanigans, but I will miss them as I will be mired in the technology void that is the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. To be sure, there are fewer places I'd rather be than in the Rocky Mountains, but perfect timing, this ain't.

While I'm gone, keep an eye out for my letter to the editor on Ordinance 11-02 in this week's Queen Anne's Record Observer and Kent Island Bay Times.

Keep it Rural.

Can We Afford Democracy?

The following was submitted as a Letter to the Editor to the Queen Anne's Record-Observer.

At their meeting on February 22, the Queen Anne’s County Commissioners will be considering ordnance 11-02, which changes the way commissioners who have vacated their office prior to the completion of their term will be replaced. Current law requires a special election, providing registered voters in Queen Anne’s County the opportunity to properly elect their representation in Centreville.

In the name of ‘fiscal responsibility,’ ordnance 11-02 turns good democracy on its head. It usurps the power of the people, and places that power with a small group of partisans whose names most voters wouldn’t recognize. Under ordnance 11-02, special elections would be eliminated, and instead the respective Central Committee would have the power to replace a vacant commissioners’ seat. In the 2010 elections, a scant 10% of the registered voters in Queen Anne’s County voted to elect members of the Central Committees; these should not be the people tasked with choosing our representation in Centreville.

What’s more, as of this writing, the Queen Anne’s County Board of Elections has no available estimate of what a special election might cost the county; which means that the commissioners are not aware of what it might save the county.

There are many programs and projects that our county could reduce or eliminate to save taxpayer dollars. But cutting elections to save money is an untenable and undemocratic idea that must be rejected.

Steven Kline lives in Centreville and serves on the Queen Anne’s County Task Force on Government Sustainability.