Candidate Questionnaire: Citizens for the Preservation of Middletown Valley

CPMV sent the following questions to candidates for local office:

1. Do you support the current Comprehensive Plan? Please explain.
2. Do you think that Frederick County needs to grow beyond what is planned for in the 2010 Comprehensive Plan? Please explain.
3. Please state your position on the Dominion Transmission Inc. purchase and planned development (gas compressor station) of 135 acres of historic, agricultural land in Middletown Valley.
4. If elected, please list your top three priorities for the next four years.

The questions and responses will be published on the website for the Citizens for the Preservation of Middletown Valley: (http://www.cpmv.org/election.html)

Questions for the candidates for the Board of County Commissioners

1. Do you support the current Comprehensive Plan? Please explain.

It would be hard to imagine how I could be much more familiar with or more supportive of the updated and re-written 2010 Frederick County Comprehensive Plan!

During the term of the previous board, I was appointed to serve on the Citizens Zoning and Review Committee, which spent a year and a half reviewing and discussing and debating – and making recommendation about – the entire comprehensive plan…line by line.

As an interested citizen, and as the Director of the Frederick Regional Action Network, I sat in on a great many of the meetings of both the Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners during the previous board, and especially so during the process of updating the New Market Region Plan. The egregious nature of that region plan – the poor process, the lack of adequate consideration of infrastructure to support it, the sprawling development patterns that resulted from a plan driven by individual piece-meal rezoning requests (not a plan at all) and more – had a lot to do with my eventual decision to run for the Board of County Commissioners.

During the last four years, I have been the BOCC liaison the Frederick County Planning Commission, and, of course, as a county commissioner, As such, I have participated in virtually every public conversation about the new comprehensive plan, met with community groups, landowners, developers and others, worked with staff, and with my colleagues on the board with regard to every chapter of text, every map, every parcel.

Not surprisingly, I think the new, updated Frederick County Comprehensive Plan is an immense improvement, and an excellent blueprint for the county. I’m proud of what was accomplished: accommodating growth to meet state population projections while pulling back on sprawl, addressing infrastructure much more than earlier plans, incorporating a range of important environmental concerns, preserving agricultural areas and rural communities, and much more.

Those who want to become more familiar with the plan are encouraged to go here:
http://www.frederickcountymd.gov/index.aspx?nid=170

I should add that when you hear other candidates talk about “the downzoning of over 600 properties” in the comprehensive plan, you are hearing an intentional and specious misrepresentation of the fact by people who do know better, but want to mislead you.

The overwhelming majority of the properties they are including were subject to very minor changes which had zero affect on the value of the land, the use of the land, or the potential use of the land. For instance, a great many were on the list (of properties with changes) because the county adjusted our maps to reflect the new and more precise FEMA floodplain maps. Another example is that the county decided removed the Resource Conservation zoning from miles of minor tributary streams in and through land zoned Agriculture (in part because of the recognition that other regulations addressed and protected these small streams).

It is also completely inaccurate to say that every one of the goals and objectives of the plan could have been achieved without some of the downzoning. Large amounts of low density sprawl, on well and septic (in some areas applied to all the remaining areas or corridors of working farms and wooded stream valleys) was not compatible with the goals and objectives of the new plan.

2. Do you think that Frederick County needs to grow beyond what is planned for in the 2010 Comprehensive Plan? Please explain.

No.

But I should elaborate.

The Comprehensive Plan is a 20 year plan. But it will not remain as it is today for the next twenty years. Aspects of the plan will be adjusted are various intervals, and the entire plan itself will be revisited multiple times before twenty years have passed.

The plan as it is now responsibly plans for growth projected for the county during the next fifteen to twenty years. It will, however, be altered by the choices of municipalities in the county, which will be reflected in the plan. It will be altered by changes made as specific areas and corridors are revisited in a detailed manner. And so on.

As it is right now, though, it includes room for growth – in the right places, and in a responsible manner. And there’s no good reason to expand on that at this time or in the near future. We should focus on making sure that the growth that is currently planned is done well, and in a way that does not impose significant negative effects on our existing communities, such as increased traffic congestion, school overcrowding, inadequate parks and higher taxes.

3. Please state your position on the Dominion Transmission Inc. purchase and planned development (gas compressor station) of 135 acres of historic, agricultural land in Middletown Valley.

Broadly speaking, I have been supportive of the efforts of Citizens for the Preservation of Middletown Valley since the beginning. More specifically, I am utterly opposed to the Dominion natural gas compressor station proposed to be located in the agricultural landscape west of Middletown.

I attended a few meetings in Middletown, testified at the very well attended FERC hearing, corresponded with many concerns citizens in the area, worked to make county residents outside of the affected area more aware of the issue, helped draft the letters of opposition sent by the Board of County Commissioners to Dominion Transmission Inc. and the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency, and more.

Those letters expressed a number of the excellent reasons why locating the facility at the proposed site would be a big mistake, and should not happen. I can’t post them here, but would be happy to send copies of those letters to anyone who would like one. Email me at kai@catoctinmountain.com

The bottom line is that, even if the gas lines are necessary, it is not clearly necessary that they pass through this area, and it is certainly not necessary for the compressor station to be located in an area that is zoned agricultural – and, in this case, also part of a Rural Legacy Area (where the county and state have invested significant monies to preserve the area).

4. If elected, please list your top three priorities for the next four years.

I’ll mention four: Budgets and fiscal management. Growth management and transportation. Education. Waste management.

The county budget is the single most important responsibility of the Board of County Commissioners. How and how efficiently we invest tax dollars reflects the priorities of a complex community that will always have limited resources and competing needs and priorities. I have approached the challenging budget processes we have engaged the last two and a half years by being as informed and thoughtful as possible, taking a thorough and surgical approach, rather than the sort of meat axe approach some candidates seem to offer. I have voted for major spending cuts without crippling important services. Sound fiscal management during tough times has even earned an upgrade to the county’s bond rating. My commitment to truly smart growth also fights the “hidden tax” of subsidizing inefficient infrastructure for sprawl development.

Growth management and transportation is about much more than “Growth management and transportation.” By that, I mean it must be addressed in a manner that recognizes that is dramatically affects everything else – everything. How well we plan and shape our communities, including all elements, is part and parcel of successful and sustainable economic development, community life, county services, and much more. The new plan ends sprawl and supports smart, responsible growth, focused where infrastructure exists or is less costly to provide. It also protects rural areas and historic, cultural and environmental resources. We can’t go back to government by the developers, for the developers.

We are fortunate to have excellent schools in Maryland and in Frederick County. That we do is a reflection of well-placed values and priorities. It is essential that we continue to maintain that level of excellence, even as we must continually examine how to be more efficient and cost-effective. It is only one of many reasons to do so, but communities with outstanding educational institutions, at all levels, attract educated employers and employees. I have been a strong advocate for education, and I was endorsed – again – by the Frederick County Teachers Association.

The so called “Waste-to-Energy” incinerator is addressed in more details below, but would certainly be, by far, the greatest financial risk the county would face in the next few decades, if we do not back away from it while we can. The county overstated the need for the massive regional incinerator, exaggerated the benefits. under-appreciated the economic risk, and profoundly under-valued the benefits of a more flexible and integrated approach that produces more jobs without making us the trash capital of western Maryland. I am committed to voting to end the project, which will be a decision that the next Board of County Commissioners will have the opportunity to make.

I’ll continue to put people first. Good policy requires the right priorities and process: thoughtful and sound budgeting without increasing taxes; smart and efficient growth; and valuing and maintaining educational excellence. Stop the extremely expensive and risky incinerator.