The first wave of bills filed in the 2010 Maryland General Assembly session includes legislation introduced this week by Harford County’s trio of state senators, which would give the Sheriff’s Office power to enforce noise control laws, alter the selection process for Liquor Control Board members, provide tax breaks for those with preserved farmland, and require drivers to vacate lanes occupied by stopped emergency vehicles.
Sens. Barry Glassman, Andy Harris, and Nancy Jacobs teamed up to sponsor the two pieces of Harford-specific legislation filed so far this session.
Senate Bill 152 authorizes the Secretary of the Environment “to delegate enforcement of specified noise control provisions in Harford County to the Sheriff of Harford County.”
Senate Bill 153 alters the process in which nominees are selected for vacancies on the Harford County Liquor Control Board resulting from expired terms by “requiring the County Executive to submit the name of one nominee to the County Delegation of State Senators and Delegates for its advice and consent; requiring the County Delegation to approve or reject the nominee within a specified time; requiring the County Executive to submit the name of the approved nominee to the County Council for its advice and consent; etc.”
Glassman is the lead sponsor on Senate Bill 155, which is co-sponsored by Harris, and alters the determination of the Maryland estate tax “to exclude from the value of the gross estate the value of specified real property that is subject to a perpetual agricultural preservation easement that has been granted to the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation and passes from the decedent to or for the use of specified relatives of the decedent; and applying the Act to decedents dying after December 31, 2009.”
Jacobs is the lead sponsor on Senate Bill 159, which is also co-sponsored by Harris, and requires “drivers approaching emergency or police vehicles stopped, standing, or parked on a highway and using any visual signals, except when otherwise directed by a police officer, to vacate the lane closest to the emergency or police vehicle under specified circumstances and to slow to a speed that is sufficient to ensure the safety of police officers or emergency services personnel in the vicinity of the emergency or police vehicle under specified circumstances; establishing a penalty; etc.”
Each of the four bills had its first reading yesterday or today.
Here’s how to end the noisy boombox plague:
Ask some poor wretch if he’d like to have a ten- or twenty-dollar bill. If his answer is Yes, tell him about your noisy boombox neighbor and then say:
“The money is yours if you can figure out something so I won’t have to hear that guy’s boombox again. Don’t kill him or beat him up. But do whatever you have to do to silence that Hollywoodized lowlife!”
Believe me, this is VERY effective. Heard of the VAB’s? They’re the “Vigilantes Against Boomboxes.” Or you can start your own vigilante group.
Reactions, anyone?