From Harford County Council District C Councilman “Capt’n” Jim McMahan:
To My Constituents:
Four days last week I attended the Maryland Association of Counties annual convention in Ocean City.
I prepared a report for those council members that could not attend and have attached it to this memo if you care to read.
August 24, 2012
Memo: TO: Fellow Council Members
From: Capt’n Jim Dist. “C”
Re: MACo Conference 2012 Recap of meetings attended in addition to General Sessions
Subject: Welcoming Session Aug 16 correct date (0900 to 1000)
Subject: Sitting as the Board of Appeals (Aug 15th 0830 to 1130)
As all of you know, we sit as the Board of Appeals for zoning cases and this year I attended the MACo course for certification. It is my understanding that all of you took the course online and we should have a certificate on file in our office should the occasion arise to present it for verification.
The three-hour course placed great emphasis on the fact that case law, especially with objections brought to the Attorney General, supported strict adherence to staying away from conversation regarding zoning matters even though you may think the issue will never come before us as the appeals board. At the beginning of the seminar, I referenced the charter amendment we approved to loosen the parameters with which we can speak to constituents about issues that may come before the board of appeals. A representative from the Attorney General’s Office said case law repeatedly ruled in favor of the plaintiff, resulting in recusal on the part of the board member who spoke in public.
In light of our revised rules, if passed, I would suggest that all council members weigh the pros and cons of public debate when there is even the remote possibility a variance would come before us, the appeals board. If it’s in the news…..better not snooze. Zip it.
Subject: Evolving County Relationships with Military Presence (Aug 16 0800 – 0900)
We in Harford County are far ahead of the curve on this one. Mayor Mike Bennett of Aberdeen was a panelist.
Subject: Plan Maryland Aug 16 (1200 to 1315)
The State of Maryland is going full steam ahead on Plan Maryland which, in my opinion, is a great affront to our authority as the County Council. Under the new catch word “sustainability”, it is obvious the State of Maryland is taking the approach that mother knows what is best and don’t talk back. Sustainability when defined as the proper utilization of resources is fine but, when it becomes part of the “takeover”, it is a threat to liberty and freedom. (Learn more about Agenda 21.)
Subject: The Election Process (Aug 15 Noon to 1 PM)
With social media and IT dominating the 21st century culture, the seminar I attended on the electoral process “Now and in the Future” was a real eye-opener. The legislature will be asked to review the 150 K Rule which says you must have 150,000 voters for every early voting location. As we know from experience here in Harford County, there is no margin of error allowed even when trying to accommodate the voters. In Prince George’s County and Montgomery County, they are experimenting with things like voting by mail, even looking at voting by computer and other modern enhancements.
Maintaining a permanent list of absentee voters gave rise to much debate centering around who knows when a voter dies. What prevents someone else at the residence sending the ballot back in? Yes, there is a stiff penalty for anyone caught doing that but the problem is who is going to enforce it. The bottom line is there is no enforcement.
The absentee ballot process has become a financial albatross to most counties. It demands high volume printing just to cover all possibilities. It is extremely labor intensive with stuffing of envelopes and mailing. Postage alone is very expensive (about $0.80 per envelope). Human error continues to plague the absentee ballot system and there is little more that can be done about that on the local level.
Larger counties are looking at a new system whereby a new company (Runback Election Company) performs that function for the County. I believe at least two counties pay for the service and they report it has worked out well and actually resulted in cost savings by reducing printing and man-hours for local election boards.
Subject: Economic Development Loans and Grants Aug 17 (1300 to 1400)
The meeting with regard to economic development and appropriate incentives drew quite a large crowd. The discussion with regard to processing of applications and permits dominated the meeting as opposed to dealing with grants, loans and incentives to developers. The Deputy Director of the State Office of Economic Development indicated that the State of Maryland had a budget of $50 million a year that the state gives away in the form of grants or enticements. It is my understanding that the Harford County Office of Economic Development got $2 million of this. It was never explained where the connection was between the $2 million the county gets from the State of Maryland. No one attempted to address whether matching funds are part of overall state-wide economic development regulations, policy or law. No one explained the legal basis for what determines the amount a county is legally required to match a state grant. No one on the panel explained when the matching formula went into play. I still wonder what the legislation is requiring matching grants on the part of the county.
One very interesting discussion came of out of this with regard to grants to businesses in general. That discussion centered on the fact that bureaucracy associated with the permitting process has caused over the years, losses to developers through insurance costs, down time and interest payments on principal. To offset these losses, lobbyists persuaded elected officials, years ago, to create the “enticement” program as a way to remediate the government’s inefficiency. The result is what we have today. Grants, pilots, etc. do nothing more than reimburse the developer for the lost time, interest payments and insurance costs during the time they are waiting for approval from government. That certainly has the propensity for impropriety and could smell!
So, if government does its job to streamline the permitting process, thus eliminating down time for the developer, we can eliminate this boondoggle of grants and other givebacks that are costing county/state taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I firmly believe the bureaucratic permitting process could be streamlined and could start right here in Harford County.
For those councilmembers who were not able to attend MACo this year, I hope these notes and comments will assist you as we tend to the people’s business in the coming months. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Regards,
“Capt’n Jim”
Mr. McMahan , you said ” we can eliminate this boondoggle of grants and other givebacks that are costing county/state taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.” – and yet you voted to give $100k of Harford County tax payer money to Smith’s Detection. Sorry – but you can’t have it both ways. I agree , we can eliminate this “boondoggle”. We can vote out any elected official that thinks redistribution of wealth is a good idea.
I applaud your stance on “Plan Maryland” . Unfortunately , ICLEI ( International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) is in your back yard pushing a United Nations agenda. Maybe you could start by doing something about that?
Can you tell poeple about the 22% rise That what i would like to know about. you help layoff works years ago now you think its ok to give your employee a rise? LETS TALK ABOUT THAT!!!
Umm… what? He help layoff works? Something is rising? What are you talking about?
HE vote to cut the county bugget and that lead to layoffs and 5 days with out pay but times were bad so we all did what we had to do and we were happy to have jobs but when you see them giving one of there employee a 22% rise what is a slap in the face. we were are told to do more with less and we have for 4 years we have find ways to save money and work wiht less employees I think tax payer should check out how the coucil spend there money sorry your money
Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Mr. McMahon. Can you explain more about “Evolving county relationships with military presence”?
I’m glad to see that you’ve been looking into Agenda 21. I hope that you are equally concerned about ICLEI as this is how counties and towns are lured into complicity without their knowing.
Capt. Jim: “The absentee ballot process has become a financial albatross to most counties.” Really? There is more to a democracy than saving money. You cannot look at an election the same way you look at merchandise at Wal-Mart. Democracy may cost money but it is our sacred right to vote and any expense is justified to keep the process valid.
And speaking of Wal-Mart you have yet to answer the question of what you are doing to keep that monstrous super store from destroying our neighborhood at Plumbtree and Rt.924.
Please forgive me for not knowing but when is Councilman McMahan up for re-election?
We are not & have never been a ” democracy” we are a constitutional republic. There’s a significant difference.
” Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. ” -Ben Franklin
Apparently you do not understand the concept of property rights. While I do not want to see a Wal-Mart on Plum tree it is within their rights to build one if they own the property.
The issue is that the county & state will end up footing the bill to make 924 capable of dealing with the traffic. That burden will be passed on to the tax payers. My other issue is in making 924 capable of dealing with increased traffic through road will be widened & personal property WILL be effected.
The way this SHOULD happen is Walmart foots the bill for the roads. If the roads need widened Wal-Mart should reimburse those who have had property effected & if that property owner does not want to give up his property then we won’t have a Wal-Mart there.
Sadly Wal-Mart will line the pockets of a few politicians & in the event it damages or takes property from an individual
Bob, three things: One, the citizens through their government, do have a right to mitigate property by way of zoning. If you don’t think so, may I put a porn shop or a gas station next to your house if I own the property? Second, you don’t understand the concept of zoning. Wal Mart is ONLY required to improve road infrastructure on roads that are directly adjoining their property. It is impossible to pass those millions in costs onto Wal-Mart. Sorry you will just have to pay for it so Wal-Mart can squeeze more profit out of you. Thirdly, if the state wants your property for a road, they can take it no matter what you want. It is called eminent domain.
The only thing I think one can do is put pressure on your elected officials, especially ole Capt. Jim in whose district this lies, to do something to stop it.
Getting off track here, but to your second and third points:
2- They are also only required to mitigate the estimated traffic of their project alone, not others in the area. This obviously poses some issues. However, though they are not required to expand the improvements they undertake, the scope of the project and traffic study is determined by the size of it. And one of the points of a traffic study is that the company wants to know how people can get to their store, because if they can’t easily get there that hurts sales. So in many instances many other surrounding intersections are also improved. For example, the Boulevard at Box Hill project is working on plans to improve the intersection of 924 and Singer, which is some distance away. The key for the Plumtree site is holding their feet to the fire and getting as many of those improvements out of them as possible.
3- Eminent domain has limitations. The government has to make a legitimate case to use it and this has been thrown around in the courts many times. They can’t just take land, it’s not that simple. But in this case, the reality is it would probably work out that way.
BTW , The Baltimore Sun reported this : “Harford County Executive David Craig and 17 members of his administration attended last week’s Maryland Association of Counties conference in Ocean City, as did four Harford County Council members and one council aide.
The total cost to county taxpayers will run to more than $20,000, once all reimbursements due are paid out, according to information furnished by the county administration and the council office.”
It always makes me chuckle when someone gives a thumbs down to the reporting of a fact.
I know right? This happens far too often.
However, a person could take exception to the following:
1) You did not provide a link for your quotation, although yes, they can go look it up themselves and giving the link means you get moderated
2) The article is written in such a way, and the quote you provided, is slightly misleading, because there are further details in the article that mitigate the “wow” factor of the headline and implication of the quoted portion. One of those facts, for example, is that the legislative aid paid their own way on the trip.
So context is important. But I also am amused when people are confronted by facts or arguments they don’t like and the only response they can muster is making a face and cliking the thumb down button.
Mr. McMahan: The state loans and grants to which you refer date back to 1999 with the creation of MEDAAF, the Maryland Economic Development Assistance Authority and Fund – the first instance of the 10% County Matching Funds can be found in MEDAAF’s 2006 Fiscal Year Report. If you go to choosemaryland.org you can access all ‘Program Reports’ on the left menu, and go to archives. I do not know the bill which introduced the matching funds.
In reading these fiscal reports, you can see that the reason given for these conditional loans is not government inertia, but more often ‘retention of jobs’ which in my mind reads as ‘corporate bribe’.
It is my hope that the Council Members do some serious research before they put their stamp of approval on additional county funds being doled out in this manner.
I also noted his apparent “cover” story for the handing out of taxpayers funds as bribery and greasing the contracts. My goodness really we just pay the chosen companies extra because we’re slow to get the paperwork out? Seriously? I’ve heard a lot of BS in my day and nothing against Mr. MacMahon personally but come on; that’s absurd.
Go to http://www.harfordcountymd.gov/Videos/ and watch the video recording of the 7/10/12 County Council Meeting. How anyone that watches this County Council meeting could possibly vote for these fools is beyond me! Harford County’s ruling elite spends money like drunken sailers with loans to multi million dollar companies, big screen TV’s, huge salaries and raises for their friends and family program, ya da, ya da, ya! Vote them all out, and just hope they don’t steal us blind before we can vote them out.
Just want to thank you, your colleagues and the county executive for the efforts made in helping the veterans and the American Legion in Edgewood. As you remember the building collapsed in a large snow storm several years ago. You guys did absolutely nothing. You even made them pay $19,000.00 to hook into the water line, and you wouldn’t even give them time to pay it. So when you say you support the veterans we will now know it is just for votes.
Richard D Schafer, a Cold Star Sibling