Throwing More Money at Healthy Howard Access Plan

The Healthy Howard Access Plan is a plan that helps individuals or families gain access to comprehensive health insurance and health coaching. The plan fees run on a scale with income and can run from $50 to $115 per month. According to this Baltimore Sun report, to date, the County has 200 people enrolled in the program and 250 pending applications for an unknown number of people. That currently is less than 10% of the stated year one goal of enrolling 2200 people in the program.

Around 2500 other folks that have enrolled in the service have been referred to other programs at the state and national level that could help them instead. Many of them are children.

The County has not met its enrollment goals for the program, but combining referrals and health coaching to encourage proactive health monitoring may save the County lots of money over time.

Also, there is a $500,000 grant from the Horizon Foundation for the program that is yet unspent.

These are the facts that framed the County Council debate on spending another half million dollars on the program for FY2010. Councilman Greg Fox opposed that amount of money and sought to cut the funding by half given the program's enrollment challenges. He was soundly defeated.

Fox's message resonates with my feeling that Healthy Howard could do wonders for the county as a public health awareness program. It can achieve its goals by being a combination of a referral service and a program that educates the HoCo public about the importance of not being reactionary when it comes to health. The combination will help prevent very expensive emergency room visits, skipping out on those bills, and having that cost passed on to the insured in the County.

Healthy Howard does not have to be a gateway to local insurance plans. It can be effective with the stated mission above and not have to spend $1 million this year to do it.

County Council Member Shows Arrogance

I was catching up on HoCo news this morning at the Baltimore Sun and saw a story about the supposed success of the texting and speed camera legislation passed by the Maryland legislature. The legislative value of those laws aside - they are ridiculous and thinly-veiled taxes - there was a second part of Larry Carson's piece about efforts of Republicans to challenge Democratic domination of the eastern County.

Anthony C. Jordan, 29, a five-year resident of New Colony Village in Elkridge, said he's planning a run for the District 2 County Council seat now held by Democrat Calvin Ball, who was appointed in April 2006 to succeed David A. Rakes.

A former Air Force staff sergeant and married father of two preschool girls, Jordan said he has a fundraiser planned for May 2 at Houlihan's restaurant in Gateway shopping center and plans a vigorous door-to-door effort. County GOP Chairwoman Joan Becker said Jordan has been active for about six months and is a welcome addition to the Republican candidate ranks.

Not knowing Mr. Jordan, it's pretty cool to me that he is deciding to take the plunge. He wants to represent his community in a different fashion than how he defended it as a member of the military. Meanwhile, Councilman Ball shows his arrogance in response to Mr. Jordan's potential challenge.

"I think it would be challenging for someone with limited experience and who may not really have done a great deal in the community to be successful," said Ball, 33.

Let me get this right. Calvin Ball is 33. A solid four years older than Jordan. Ball basically has one full term in office under his belt. And, he is criticizing a man who served in our military as having little community experience? You gotta be kidding me.

It would seem that Mr. Ball is out of touch with this comment. Playing the experience card is hilariously wrong in this situation for several reasons. One, Mr. Ball has less than one full term of experience as an elected official. Second, in order to gain experience in the community and as a legislator, someone has to win an election first. Third, having experience doesn't necessarily work out to be a benefit. If the person with experience does a poor job, is ineffective, or has lousy ideas, then experience is a curse - not a blessing.

As someone who is yet to be elected to the position for a full term, it would seem that Mr. Ball should be more careful in his remarks.

Council Rejects Plan to Open Age Restricted Communities to Younger Buyers

ZRA 108 went before the County Council last night. It was a proposal from a local developer to allow up to 20% of homes in age-restricted communities to be purchased by people younger than the age threshold. (In most cases, that is 50 or 55.)

The Council unanimously rejected the proposal. Larry Carson in the Sun:

The bill was requested by Brantly Development Group as a way to attract more buyers during the recession, but council members sided with county planners and with scores of older residents who protested that they bought the specially zoned units because they were restricted for seniors. Changing the rules now would be wrong, they argued.

"I just don't think this is the right direction to go," said Fulton Republican Greg Fox.

"I didn't hear any answers to how homeowners' association would enforce this," said Jen Terrasa, a King's Contrivance Democrat.

"I could not find any redeeming qualities in this bill," said Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat.

I'm inclined to agree with the Council's findings. There are much broader implications for this kind of zoning amendment. Since these homes are generally priced below market rate for like-styled homes, these could be susceptible to prospectors and other dangers. Also, people who have already bought in these communities purchased homes under a certain set of assumptions about their neighbors. They are entitled to keep that kind of community.

Perhaps a better approach would be to offer to not charge property taxes on purchases of these homes for up to three years so as to encourage people within the age restriction to take the plunge. Builders, though, should not be bailed out for making bad decisions on construction - particularly when it comes to age-restricted communities.

Some Critical CB58 Documents

I got word through HoCo Free Market about Greensburg Gibbons' nopetition.com - a website that basically shares their message directly with the people of Howard County about their plans for Turf Valley Town Center.

While the idea may well be a bad PR move (seriously, the developer vs. citizens dynamic is a no win for Gibbons), I did find a couple of documents of interest. Namely, I wanted to provide the document that the County Council wrote to citizens in an effort to clarify what CB58 does and does not do. It clears up a lot of procedural and legislative misinformation being spread by commenters on this blog, other websites, and in petition drives. It should be read.

Also, we had a commenter on here who said that Greenburg Gibbons did not detail their campaign contributions to council members. Per the law and the ZRA petition form, they don't have to. Check it out yourself.

As I have said before, taking your case to the people is one thing. Providing them with misinformation and out-and-out lies is another. That goes for both sides.

An Update on CB 62

I decided to delve into the proposed legislation, CB 62, a little bit further. Having read the legislation over a couple of times, I noticed that the reporting in the Columbia Flier is missing a couple of details on the subject.

The prime detail is that the number of Moderate Income Housing Unit credits available under the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (not Act) would increase by 100 for units meeting certain requirements of square footage. These square footage standards actually violate portions of the existing county housing code for affordable housing units.

The legislation allows for the 100 additional credits to go to units that are (1) one or two bedrooms and (2) have maximum square footage of 900 sq ft for a 1 bedroom and 1100 sq ft for a 2 bedroom unit.

The county code calls for a MINIMUM square footage of 750 and 950 for 1 and 2 bedroom apartments, respectively. But, for townhomes, the county's minimum is 1400 sq ft for a 2 bedroom. This minimum is obviously larger than what is proposed in CB62. That would have to be resolved.

In my initial post, I discussed my concern with the portion of the bill that can exempt up to one-third of a development's units from having to get housing credits if they are moderate income units.

This problem, though, is equally troubling because it would likely lead to the construction of condo buildings to satisfy these conflicting minimums - as the legislation stands now. On the other hand, this legislation may compel affordable downtown units upon approval of the master plan for downtown Columbia. That would be a positive, especially considering the recent spring up in the number of short sale units in downtown condos. It could also be perceived that developers would be trying to create pockets of affordable units in lieu of mixed-income communities. That flies in the face of Columbia planning. It's a mixed bag.

Anyway, it sounds like the bill will be tabled for more review and rewriting.