County Executive Budgets for Route 40 Design Manual

We have been talking in this space for many months about the need for comprehensive commercial zoning and design planning in Howard County. This has been talked about in the context of Marc Norman's charge to take Council Bill 58 to referendum. The battle over how best to achieve holistic commercial zoning in the County has spilled over to the Letter to the Editor pages of County publications, including a back and forth between myself and former Council member Angela Beltram.

It looks like the discussion is paying dividends. County Executive Ken Ulman is proposing $100,000 in the budget for a consultant to draft a Route 40 Design Manual. Council member Courtney Watson engaged Ulman and the DPZ to compel Ulman to decide that an outside consultant should be brought in to write the manual. This is exactly the kind of thing I have been calling for all along and I'm very pleased to see that it may well make the final cut of the budget.

GGP to Shorter Columbia Mall Hours in May

While I was on vacation in Orlando last week, a lot happened, including an announcement that GGP would be shortening the hours of the Columbia Mall. The new hours seem to be based on when people actually shop, as opposed to when retailers wish people would shop. It doesn't seem to be being received negatively.

In my mind, this highlights that leveraging too much on retail for Columbia's economic development downtown is a problem. This is particularly true given our current economy and its likely continuation into 2010 - maybe even 2011. That doesn't mean that we should just demolish the mall and replace it with a business park and condos. Still, it is an important lesson to heed when considering the future of downtown.

Turf Valley Referendum Halted on Court Ruling

It appears that the drive to take CB 58 to referendum may wind up never making it to the ballot. It isn't for lack of signatures - Marc Norman's group has submitted over 9000 - but rather because of a ruling made in a Maryland court in December.

Derek Simmonsen has the news:

The review by the county Board of Elections was prompted by a recent Maryland Court of Appeals decision that changes how signatures on petition forms are verified.

Board of Elections Director Betty Nordaas said today that the board went back and reviewed the initial batch of signatures in light of a December Maryland Court of Appeals decision.

The review was suggested by the state attorney general’s office on March 11, according to a letter Nordaas gave to Norman the following day.

The court decision placed tighter restrictions on how signatures should be verified, Nordaas said. Voters now must sign their names on the petition form using the exact name that is on their voter registration; variations on a name will no longer be accepted, she said.

After elections workers invalidated more than 1,000 signatures, Nordaas said the referendum failed because there was no way for Norman’s group to get the 2,500 signatures needed as part of the first batch.

Norman, rightfully so, was shocked at the news. It appears that this review happened after counts on the second batch of signatures was halted due to a lawsuit filed by Greenburg Gibbons. Norman argues that this review is unfair because it is a retroactive review of signatures that Norman claims he acquired using guidance provided by the Board of Elections.

Very curious case, particularly since the precedent came from a case involving the Montgomery County BOE and a lawsuit surrounding "gender identity" as a protected voter class. It seems totally unrelated.

That in mind, it seems like the precedent established in this case would not have been apparent to the Howard County BOE. The state AG's office may have found this after the lawsuit was filed and decided to consider this review before taking a look at the Gibbons lawsuit.

I would be surprised, too, if I were Norman. This is a bizarre development.

Citizens Sue County, Ulman About Land Use Decisions

This story is a little dated, but I wanted to take my time in thinking about it before I decided to make a post about it. The short of it is that Susan Gray, an attorney who has been involved in multiple land-use lawsuits in Howard County, is now the attorney for a multi-party, class action lawsuit against the County and several of its representatives.

Larry Carson reported in the Sun two days ago about it:

A group of development-wary residents have filed a lawsuit against Howard County that claims the government's process of making land-use decisions illegally denies citizens the right to challenge them by referendum.

The suit alleges that the county has violated the county charter for years by making land-use decisions via County Council resolutions and administrative decisions instead of by bill or ordinance. The practice, according to attorney Susan B. Gray and several independent plaintiffs, denies citizens the ability to petition decisions to referendum because only bills can go to voters.

The suit, filed Feb. 17 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, asks authorities to declare a series of Howard laws void, seeks federal supervision of county land-use decisions and requests $10 million in damages.

Among those involved are Frank Martin and Paul Kendall - critics of Turf Valley expansion plans. Philip Rousseau is also involved and was a part of the series of Wegmans lawsuits. That doesn't change how you should view the filing, but it is good to know who is involved.

It's likely that this lawsuit will go nowhere fast. The County is already calling it frivolous. I won't go that far with my comment, but this lawsuit presents moral hazard to me.

The citizens are seeking $10 million and a repeal of all land use decisions in the last three years. They want federal supervision of land-use decisions in the hopes that they could contest any land-use decision and take it to referendum, a la Council Bill 58.

They wouldn't get the money. That's frivolous and not worth discussing. The two critical points are calling for federal supervision of land-use decisions and a reversal of land-use decisions of the last three years. They won't get the latter. So, the thing to focus on is calling for federal supervision of land-use decisions.

This is an interesting claim. It is interesting because many like-minded folks to those behind this suit were up in arms when Executive Ulman sought to move soil conservation decisions to DPZ from Howard Soil Conservation District.

That, and the lawsuit claims, seem to represent a distrust of County officials in anything pertaining to land use. In that case, then, why should the County Council or Planning Board or any County entity be able to make final, binding land-use decisions? If the litigants of the lawsuit want the opportunity to contest any land-use decision, then hypothetically, every land-use decision should be put to referendum. There should be no filter for selective decisions to which a party should not be able to vote.

My question for those behind the suit, or that support it, would be what their ultimate goal is. Is it to have every land-use decision put in the hands of voters and run like a campaign? Is it something else?

New Columbia Blog

Towson University Journalism student Jack Cole has started a blog about Columbia, its people, and its institutions. He covers some very interesting topics and people, and it's well worth your time to check it out.

If you ever wanted to know anything about the Columbia bike guy, you can at Jack's blog.

Bobo, Democrats Go Back on Their Own Tax Vote

The Columbia Flier has the news that a tax bill that Republicans in HoCo's state delegation thought was ok'd by majority Democrats was "reconsidered" and subsequently voted down.

State legislators today reconsidered and rejected a bill they had approved the previous week, sparking accusations from one delegate of partisan retribution.

State Del. Gail Bates, a West Friendship Republican, said the bill, which would have granted some county residents a property tax credit, was rejected today at the delegation meeting as “payback” for the withdrawal of a soil conservation bill favored by Democrats.

“Someone was mad because the soil conservation bill went down,” Bates said.

Bates said she believes that “someone” is County Executive Kenneth Ulman, who, she said, specifically requested the reconsideration.

We don't know if it's Ulman, or even if the accusation is true. Still, it seems awfully fishy to reconsider a bill that seemingly was already done.

Among those that changed their minds was Delegate Liz Bobo. Her explanation? Hilarious.

“I did not vote (on Feb. 11) the way I intended to,” she said. “I thought we were voting on the soil conservation bill. That’s not responsible of me, but it’s the truth.”

You gotta be kidding me. Then Delegate Bobo is basically admitting to any of a few things: (1) a lack of awareness about the bill on which she was voting, (2) a lack of reading comprehension, or the most likely (3) she's issuing payback and needed an excuse for the media. Pitiful.

The party line coming from the Dems is that approving the tax credit would set a "dangerous precedent" to credit taxpayers for services that they don't use. What's dangerous about that?

And preemptively, I will ask to not bring up paying for public schools because I will likely agree with you that paying into that service provides a community benefit of some kind to people that don't necessarily use the schools.

HoCo Delegation OKs Speed Cameras

I hate speed and red light cameras. I think they do worse for public safety than good. Study after study, and jurisdiction and jurisdiction are moving away from these cameras due to hard data that shows intersections and areas with these cameras become more accident-prone than before they were installed. Additionally, anecdotal evidence suggests that people in Montgomery County - already living with these ridiculous money making cameras - just slow down in the places where there are cameras, and then speed up once they are out of sight. This causes an inconsistent speed and flow to traffic, which is worse for traffic and safety.

Despite all of that evidence, the Democratic state delegation approved a bill that would allow speed camera use in the County. They voted along party lines - 6 Democrats to 3 Republicans.

Sen. Edward Kasemeyer has this convenient excuse for ok-ing the cameras.

"Fundamentally, the issue is about speed," state Sen. Edward Kasemeyer said. "If you don't speed, you won't have to worry about the cameras."

Awesome. That sounds like what we heard from the Bush Administration when we had our uproar about warrantless wiretaps and scanning machines at airports that were effectively x-ray machines for humans. "If you have nothing to hide, you don't have to worry about it."

Sen. Kasemeyer's claim is preposterous and aims to circumvent due process and other moral problems with this approach.