Jarboe makes re-election bid official

Commissioner running for fourth term overall

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009

Jarboe said Friday he was "just looking forward to representing the basic concepts of tax relief, open government and common-sense leadership."

Jarboe is now serving his second consecutive term. Jarboe was also county commissioner from 1994 to 1998; he lost a re-election bid in 1998 .

Two other incumbent commissioners, Kenny Dement (R) and Commission President Francis Jack Russell (D) already filed for re-election. Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D) and Daniel H. Raley (D) are serving their third consecutive terms and are barred by term limits from running again.

Jarboe has been the sole dissenting vote on a number of issues in this term. He voted against the current county operating budget, and the one last year, because they did not use the constant yield formula, which would have reduced tax rates.

He voted against revising the transferable development rights program because it did not exempt those building small houses in rural areas from having to use TDRs. He voted against the purchase of 172 acres in Leonardtown for $5.3 million in December 2008. He said then, "I do not believe this is right. This stinks more than a whole bushel of rotten crabs." Old appraisals of the property ranged from $3,612,000 to $4,070,000. Jarboe also voted this year against building a new Leonardtown library on that property. "I'm a firm believer in using existing infrastructure," he said. "You expand what you have."

He voted against purchasing 76 acres off Indian Bridge Road using $700,000 in state funds for use as a future county park. "The property isn't being used and we can't afford to develop it anyway," he said because it is all wooded. He and Dement voted against hiring Derick Berlage as the director of the land use and growth management department. They would have preferred to promote Phil Shire as director.

And Jarboe voted against allowing digital signs in the county, though the rest of the board voted for them because they were already here. Jarboe said he did not want to see the county end up looking like Waldorf with its digital signs.

Jarboe said, "95 percent of our votes are pretty much unanimous because they make sense. If you find me on the no side of the vote," he said, it's because there was an opportunity for open government, more common sense "and a better way to spend our dollars to help the taxpayers."

jbabcock@somdnews.com