Subscribe
Community
Capital for a day just an introduction for governor, Cabinet
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
|
|
E-Mail This Article
When the state government moved to Leonardtown last Thursday it was a largely symbolic affair. Gov. Martin O’Malley announced additional money for the redevelopment of the Leonardtown Wharf and other waterway projects. During an interview he gave an extremely optimistic, if a bit wishful, forecast that construction could start during his administration on a replacement for the Gov. Thomas Johnson Memorial Bridge.
The governor talked to St. Mary’s farmers and with military and defense contracting officials. His Cabinet officers fanned out throughout the county to visit agencies and projects connected to their jobs.
Not much real state government business was accomplished during this Leonardtown stop on the Capital for a Day program that has the governor and his top officials setting up shop in towns and cities in the state that don’t otherwise see much of him. But don’t write it off as just a day-long public-relations stunt.
The real dividends, if they develop, will come in quieter ways over the coming years. All of us care more about people and places we know than those we only hear or read about. We’re more likely to pay serious attention when we’re asked to help along projects with which we’re already familiar.
This doesn’t mean the governor is going to be taking phone calls from everyone whose hand he shook last week in St. Mary’s. It does means that he may be better able to match up St. Mary’s projects with their spot in a budget document or proposed legislation. And his Cabinet will have a better idea of what’s going on down here in areas that they oversee.
As for the replacement to the bridge that connect St. Mary’s to Solomons, Southern Maryland can only hope his enthusiasm for it remains as high as he portrayed it last week. So far about $5.5 million has been allocated, starting with $1.5 million in planning money from Gov, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s administration, and then another $4 million from the O’Malley administration. That sounds like a good chunk of money, but project costs could be as high as $700 million. O’Malley was careful to acknowledge that actually starting construction on an accelerated schedule could depend on federal money, and the chance that the next president, as a centerpiece of economic stimulus efforts, will invest in infrastructure projects like the bridge.
Perhaps on these Capital for a Day trips the governor is anxious to tell people want they want to hear. But as result of the time spent here, perhaps in the coming months and years he and his staff will be more likely to really hear what people in St. Mary’s have to say about their expectations of state government.
