Hodge warns on state cuts; Cooper rips connector critic

Commissioner notes

Friday, Dec. 12, 2008

However, Commissioner Gary V. Hodge (D) warned the board Wednesday that more state cuts to funding for counties are on the horizon.

The latest round of state revenue projections is due next week, and the state's Board of Public Works is scheduled to meet Wednesday to cut the state's budget in order to accommodate falling revenues.

Hodge predicted that the cuts could range from $150 million to $200 million. He said that he does not yet know how those cuts would affect the county.

The county is also seeing financial trouble in its recycling program, according to County Administrator Paul W. Comfort. The county's recycling program made $100,000 last fiscal year selling recycled materials, but the program could end up costing the county's solid waste fund $100,000 this year.

Cooper fires back

The last few months have not been kind to the commissioners' ambitions to complete a cross-county connector highway between Waldorf and Bryans Road as both state and federal agencies have questioned the need for the project and the amount of environmental impact it will have on the Mattawoman Creek.

And then there are the local opponents of the project, who showed up at Wednesday night's annual District 2 town meeting and, like they did last year, demanded that the commissioners halt the highway project and take further action to prevent destructive development in the Mattawoman basin.

During the fourth such lecture from Jim Long of the Mattawoman Watershed Society, the normally long-suffering commissioners' President F. Wayne Cooper (D) finally hit back.

"We as commissioners do not get up every morning and ask how we can destroy the Mattawoman," Cooper said, repeating a sentence he's used before to defend the commissioners' decisions. But this time he didn't stop.

"Over the last six months, we've taken tremendous steps," Cooper said. "You don't appreciate a darn thing that we do. We never hear, ‘Thank you.' You just want more, more, more."

The commissioners have passed a law requiring pervious paving and setbacks for development in the Mattawoman basin, and denied zoning requests for two housing developments planned for the basin.

Long thanked the board for its work, but stated that he would continue to ask for more protection for the creek.

New trailers for two schools

North Point High School and Theodore Davis Middle School in Waldorf are getting new portable classrooms, but this time it's part of a plan.

The commissioners approved a $1.9 million budget transfer request Tuesday that will provide funding for one new eight-classroom trailer for each school. According to the Charles Wineland, the school system's capital projects manager, the money comes from leftover cash from the all-day kindergarten projects at Gale-Bailey and T.C. Martin Elementary schools.

Wineland said the school board overbuilt the "core capacity" of the hallways and gathering areas of North Point to accommodate more students than the school's classrooms were able to hold, anticipating that the population would outgrow the school and require portable classrooms.

"That's what core capacity is," Wineland said. "We planned to do this."

WSSC water to raise rates

If all goes according to plan, the county could be ready to buy drinking water from the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission next week, but it is still working out exactly how to pay for it.

According to county staff, a $65,000 interconnection between the county's water system and the WSSC system will be completed by Dec. 19. A decades-old agreement between the county and WSSC will allow the county to begin purchasing water at 70 percent of the current WSSC rate of $3 per 1,000 gallons.

The purchase will allow the county to dial back the use of five of its wells, giving aquifers a chance to recharge, but Melvin C. Beall, director of planning and growth management, said that the county would not abandon the wells.

Staff provided the commissioners with three options for paying for the new water. The first would have the average residential user pay an additional $19 a year and commercial uses pay $172 in additional fees each year. The second option would raise the average residential bill by $200 a year. And the third option, not recommended by staff, would double the average commercial bill each year.

The commissioners decided to take time to review the options before making a decision.

County to reduce minimum house size

In an effort to jumpstart the county's flagging housing market and create home ownership opportunities for young families, the commissioners agreed to introduce legislation to reduce the minimum size of county houses.

The current 1,650 square foot minimum on the county's zoning books was established in the 1980s, after the county's housing market suffered from a glut of cheap townhouses.

Planning staff suggested lowering the minimum size to 1,250 square feet in mixed residential zones, allowing for cheaper houses to be constructed, so long as they are near more expensive homes.

By mixing the housing types, the county hopes to prevent a repeat of the 1980s slide in property values.

"I strongly support the recommendation that the staff has made," Hodge said.

"We went through a trend where everybody was buying McMansions, but that demand it not there now," Cooper said.

jfriess@somdnews.com