State's Smart Growth Plan is a 'War on Rural Maryland'

Frederick County official sees an ulterior motive in Gov. O'Malley's push for PlanMaryland. Note that O'Malley is one of 10 governors appointed by Obama to serve on his newly created Council of Governors. The creation of a CG should be of serious concern to all liberty loving Americans. That more of us who are not as concerned as we should be can be traced to the mistaken belief that the American people have nothing to fear from an overreaching federal government. This is pure folly! We have far more to fear from Washington, D.C., than from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, or any other potential terrorist state. It is Washington, D.C. — and Washington, D.C., alone — that has the power, opportunity, and propensity to squash our freedom and sell us into tyranny. With the stroke of a pen, Obama significantly increased the ongoing effort to federalize the states and take control of the National Guard in violation of the now more or less moribund Posse Comitatus Act. Posse Comitatus was effectively annulled by the 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act. The act provides the president with power to declare martial law under revisions to the Insurrection Act and take charge of United States National Guard troops without state governor authorization. Parts of the act were repealed in 2008. - Obama Establishes Council of Governors to Take Over When Martial Law is Declared

O'Malley's Smart Growth Power Grab

September 19, 2011

Blaine R. Young Editorial in Baltimore Sun - Smart Growth or partisan planning? That is the question an increasing number of county and municipal officials throughout Maryland are asking. The issue that spurred this debate is the new "PlanMaryland" idea presented by Gov. Martin O'Malley at the recent Maryland Association of Counties conference in Ocean City.

The governor and his minions went to great lengths to assure us all that PlanMaryland is merely a logical extension of existing Smart Growth legislation. Smart Growth was enacted in the 1990s and has as its core the stated purpose of directing new development to areas with existing infrastructure. Of course, to accomplish this goal, the state injected itself and its regulatory muscle into many land-use issues that forever had been the province of county and municipal government.

Many of us said at the time it was enacted that Smart Growth was just the first step toward ultimate state control, or at least "veto power," over local land-use decisions. PlanMaryland makes me think we were right.

What I find extremely interesting about PlanMaryland is not necessarily the content but the process. Unlike with Smart Growth, which was debated in the legislature for at least two full sessions, the O'Malley administration has presented PlanMaryland as an executive branch regulatory initiative. No legislation has been proposed, and thus there will be little opportunity for delegates and senators to debate the plan. I find this troubling. Why is the governor intent on bypassing the legislature on this extremely important issue?

If you don't yet think that PlanMaryland is a significant power grab by the state over local control of county and municipal growth and economic development, I urge you to read it. It is such a giant step toward the ultimate takeover by Annapolis of all land-use decisions that, at a minimum, it should be debated fully, openly and vigorously in the General Assembly.

Certainly, the governor is not avoiding the legislative debate because he doesn't think he has the votes. PlanMaryland is skewed in favor of the large metropolitan jurisdictions in, around and between Baltimore City and the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Those of us in the western, northern, eastern and southern counties are outnumbered and outvoted by the predominantly liberal Democrat jurisdictions in the metropolitan areas. The governor has used this demographic fact to his advantage many times.

Unfortunately, I think it is clear that PlanMaryland is merely the latest in a series of initiatives aimed squarely at the non-urban counties. Last year, the governor offered a septic system bill that would effectively stop all new housing to be served by well and septic development. Of course, that only impacts the more rural parts of the state. Combine that proposal with Smart Growth and the new PlanMaryland, and it is clear what the impact would be on less densely populated areas, like my home of Frederick County. We would have little or no development or economic growth.

So there must be another reason Governor O'Malley has chosen not to implement PlanMaryland through legislation. I believe he simply is not interested in hearing our views, as expressed by our representatives in Annapolis. We are a nuisance to him.

With public water and sewer unavailable to rural and many suburban areas of the state, and with the new limits being imposed to protect the Chesapeake Bay, all new development would be driven into metropolitan and urban areas, and our children and grandchildren would be forced to live on top of each other. And cities tend to vote for liberal Democrats.

The governor told us in Ocean City that a house on an individual septic system pollutes the Chesapeake Bay 10 times more than a house on public sewer. Of course, there is no real science to back this up. But it is his justification to keep our children and grandchildren from building a home with a nice green yard near where their parents live and work.

Urban living, though preferred by many, is not for everyone. Those of us in the outer counties enjoy our lifestyle just as much as our counterparts down the road, and we have as much right to protect our way of living as they do theirs. We need to let the governor and the rest of the state government in Annapolis know that we will not stand for being steamrolled once again in the interest of another regulatory scheme that is being enacted "for our own good."

It is time for all of our senators and delegates, Republican and Democrat, to stand up for us in Annapolis and tell the governor and his cohorts that even though we do not live in one of their populous pet jurisdictions, we are Marylanders, too. After all, if you are going to have "One Maryland," you cannot have two classes of citizens.

Blaine R. Young is president of the Frederick County Board of County Commissioners. His email is blaine@blaineyoung.com.

Officials Call for Program Changes

November 1, 2011

Frederick News-Post - A call for extensive changes to the state's smart growth blueprint draft emerged out of a meeting of officials from Frederick County and other rural areas Monday, as time for public comment on the plan runs low.

Some have called the sustainability plan along with other state efforts a "war on rural Maryland," Commissioners President Blaine Young said at the forum. Gov. Martin O'Malley's drafted policy, called PlanMaryland, has garnered criticism from many county officials who worry it will usurp local authority over land use decisions.

"It basically constitutes theft of unalienable property rights," said Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild.

He and other officials urged the governor to rework the document by adding a clearer guarantee that the state will respect local control over planning and zoning.

The policy draws on a 37-year-old act that allows the governor to lay out a land-use plan for the state.

Over the next 20 years, the policy could save the state $29 billion in road construction in maintenance costs and $406 million in water and sewer and school construction costs by encouraging denser development, according to estimates from the Maryland Department of Planning. State officials also say the policy could conserve up to 300,000 acres of farmland and forest by 2035.

But at the Monday forum, a crowd of about 120 officials and stakeholders listened to presentations that argued with the assumptions underpinning the document that state representatives call a "game plan" for sustainability. The Pikesville forum was organized by the Carroll County commissioners, who have been vocal in their concerns about PlanMaryland and have worked closely with Frederick County leaders in response to it.

Speakers at the meeting questioned the benefits of compact development, argued with the wisdom of favoring mass transit over cars and even challenged the plan's use of the terms "sustainability" and "quality of life."

A former British government adviser gave a data-packed presentation that included his calculations for the astronomical costs of battling global warming by following the plan. Carrying out the plan's strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions would be 1,844 times more expensive than simply dealing with the consequences of a temperature rise, Lord Christopher Monckton estimated.

"Sit back, enjoy the sunshine and do nothing. And more important, spend the money on something a lot more useful," said Monckton, science adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

But the plan isn't the only state project that concerns local officials, Young said at the outset of the forum.

New storm water regulations could cost Frederick County and its municipalities between $4 billion and $5 billion by 2020. And a proposed septic ban would prevent development in many areas of the county, he said.

"The impact on the rural counties in Maryland would be particularly devastating, as we would be asked not only to foot the bill for all these new regulations, but our ability to grow our economies would be stifled," Young said.

Commissioner Paul Smith also attended the forum.

Maryland planning officials who attended the meeting responded to many of the concerns by saying PlanMaryland is an effort to coordinate government agencies and doesn't grant the state any new authority.

The document won't disempower county officials and doesn't primarily stem from concerns about global warming, said Rich Josephson, the state's director of planning services. The goal of the document is to slow down a pace of development that is unsustainable, he added.

"If we keep converting our farmland to development, that's the war on rural Maryland. ... It's all going to be suburbia," he said, adding that the state's goal is to partner with county officials through the next phases of the plan. "Let's work together to implement how things will look at a local level."

The state made public its first draft of PlanMaryland in April. In September, state planners released a second draft, a document that is 88 pages shorter and they say more plainly written.

The state is taking public comment on this version until Nov. 9, and planners will then offer it to the governor.