Edgewood residents and activists have started a petition drive and will hold a special meeting Tuesday to discuss the implications of a Harford County Council bill which would place a waste incinerator next to a community recreation field.
Community activist Omar Simpson has created an online petition for the public to tell their elected officials they do not want a waste incinerator next to Cunion field.
As of Sunday morning, the petition appeared to have been signed by only 8 people.
There is a very important matter before the Harford County Council…a matter that will effect where our children play and where you live. The County Council has put in a Bill (Bill 09-36) that would put an enormous trash and waste incinerator right next to Cunion Field! The location for the facility would be directly across the street from Cunion ...Continue Reading
At the request of Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie and several Edgewood residents, the Edgewood Community Council has called a special meeting to discuss Bill No. 09-36, Acquisition of Prologis Park, and it’s potential impact to the Edgewood Community.
WHAT: ECC SPECIAL MEETING
WHERE: Harford County Council Chambers, 212 South Bond Street, Bel Air, MD 21014: 410.638.3343 or 410.879.2000
WHEN: Wednesday Nov 18, 2009
TIME: 7:00 PM
AGENDA ITEM: Bill No. 09-36, Acquisition of Prologis Park, Edgewood/Waste Incinerator.
AN ACT to provide the County Executive, or his designee, with the authorization to execute, on behalf of Harford County, Maryland, an Intergovernmental Installment Purchase Agreement with Maryland Environmental Service, in substantially the form attached hereto, to purchase a parcel of real property, known as Prologis Park, Edgewood, Maryland 21040, containing approximately 134.210 acres, more or ...Continue Reading
A bill to repeal Harford County’s development impact fee lost a co-sponsor and was defeated in a 6 to 1 vote of the Harford County Council on November 3 (Tuesday). Councilman Chad Shrodes was a co-sponsor of the repeal effort, but asked for his name to be removed from the bill just prior to the council vote, leaving fellow sponsor Dion Guthrie as the sole supporter of the failed bill.
In a related move, a bill to reduce the amount of the impact fee was introduced by every member of the Harford County Council, except Guthrie. Guthrie told The Dagger he didn’t plan to support the bill, which he said would cut the impact fee on a single family home from just over $8,200 to $6,000, lower the fee on a townhouse to $4,200 and on all other structures to $1,200. Guthrie called the bill a “waste of paperwork”. Guthrie ...Continue Reading
A bill to repeal Harford County’s impact fee created some strange bedfellows when it was first introduced by Dion Guthrie, a Democrat representing Edgewood and Joppatowne and Chad Shrodes, a Republican representing the rural north.
Now, the repeal effort has sparked a rift among the leaders of the anti-tax Tea Party movement and drawn a number of local organizations into the fray. The bill is scheduled for what may become a lively hearing October 20th (today) at 7 p.m. in the County Council Chambers at 212 S. Bond Street in Bel Air.
The impact fee offsets the impact of new household creation on the cost of public schools by dedicating revenue specifically to public school construction needs.
Bel Air Tea Party organizer Tony Passaro would be expected to join other anti-tax advocates and support the repeal, but he sent a recent email to the members of the Harford County ...Continue Reading
Is Harford County’s impact fee a vital source of revenue for public school construction, or an unfair tax that has stymied new home sales?
Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie (Dist. A) says it’s the latter. Along with co-sponsor Chad Shrodes (Dist. D), Guthrie introduced legislation on September 15th to repeal the county’s impact fee.
Guthrie, who voted against imposing the fee in 2005, said in a phone interview that the impact fee was not generating the revenue that was originally anticipated and it was not stimulating the economy. Guthrie said “It’s time to get rid of it.” He said the revenue lost by repealing the impact fee could be “easily overcome” by the revenues generated from increased economic activity resulting from more homes being built.
The impact fee is a set amount charged to developers to help offset the impact of new homes on the cost of public schools. ...Continue Reading
(Edgewood, MD) – - On Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 10 AM, Harford County Executive David Craig, the Department of Community Services, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will celebrate Edgewood’s renaissance at the Washington Court Groundbreaking ceremony on Cedar Drive in Edgewood.
Washington Court, a 26 acre tract of land purchased by the U.S. Government in 1941 and located in the heart of Edgewood, has sat abandoned and dilapidated for 15 years. Once used for military housing and residential purposes, Washington Court is now a modern day ghost town –abandoned and boarded up, overgrown with weeds, walls littered with graffiti, an unhealthy dwelling for the homeless, and an ideal home for crime.
In 2006, Harford County Executive David Craig announced plans for the complete restoration of the site; since that time, the Administration and the Department of Community Services has worked diligently ...Continue Reading
During an oddly serene session Tuesday night, during which neither NIMBY nor developer stormed out of the chambers, the Harford County Council unanimously approved 67 Comprehensive Rezoning amendments – setting up what is expected to be a smooth approval next week of the new official Harford County Zoning Map.
Compared to the confrontational rezoning process of two years ago, which culminated with a veto by then-newly appointed County Executive David Craig and mandated restart of the process, Tuesday’s meeting was subdued and only attended by a few dozen people – mostly developers, activists, and members of the county Planning and Zoning Department.
Here is a summary of amendments and comments by district:
District A – Joppatowne/Edgewood:
“You can’t make everybody happy. You try to do the best you can and what’s best for the county,” – Councilman Dion Guthrie
Guthrie’s 14 amendments consist mainly of upzoning residential land to commercial and business property, which would ...Continue Reading
If you don’t agree with the way the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation figured your property tax bill recently, you are not alone.
In a June 26th letter to Governor Martin O’Malley, Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie says his constituents are complaining about the State’s “refusal to reevaluate real property valuations…in light of the real estate market’s virtual free fall over these last two years.” Guthrie says appeals are costly and unnecessarily time-consuming and that citizens are feeling “ignored, helpless and frustrated” and believe their State representatives appear “unsympathetic to their plight”.
Councilman Guthrie’s letter to Governor O’Malley concludes:
I respectfully request, therefore, that the State seriously reexamine this issue to help the State utilize a more potent procedure for arriving at a more realistic assessment estimate or value – one which could only serve to alleviate some of the burdens of our citizenry which ...Continue Reading
Harford County Councilman Dion Guthrie (District A) is urging citizens to ask County Executive David Craig to veto the amended FY10 budget. Guthrie raised the possibility of a veto in an email to supporters yesterday afternoon, noting that the budget had not yet been signed by the county executive. Guthrie said he would favor a veto to provide an opportunity for a review of budget cuts recently approved by a majority of the county council, and to restore funding to certain departments.
The Harford County Council approved cuts to Craig’s total proposed $811.6 million budget on May 29th. The cuts included a 5% reduction in operating funds for all departments and agencies except public safety and education, to support a decrease in the real estate tax rate.
Here’s the text of the email from Guthrie dated June 8:
The struggle for the public’s right to elect members of the Harford County Board of Education ended happily a few weeks ago when Governor Martin O’Malley signed a bill to allow for a blended board with 3 appointed members and 6 members elected in-district. The first school board elections will be held for Districts A, B and D in 2010, followed by Districts C, E and F in 2014. The next step will be to urge good candidates to run and for citizens to exercise their hard-won right to vote.
Which calls to mind what Benjamin Franklin said after the Constitutional Convention, when he was asked whether the new American government would be a monarchy or a republic: “A republic,” he replied, “if you can keep it.”
Despite having used the quote as the title of a few stories, I didn’t fully appreciate what Franklin was driving at until I ...Continue Reading
