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Annexation may have been OK’d, but voters have yet to vote

Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006

At the Mount Airy Town Council meeting Monday night, the Quorum of Council Members (Chris DeColli, John Medve and Wendi Peters), along with a politically outmaneuvered Councilman Peter Helt, voted to approve the Zeltman annexation and its related agreement.

Both Mayor James Holt and Councilman Dave Pyatt opposed the annexation in its current form.

Although about 50 people in red shirts (as a show of public support against the annexation) attended, several others spoke in favor of it. Unfortunately, Medve hand selected those who could speak, and allowed only 15 minutes (five speakers).

Donna Needle, referencing ‘‘smart growth,” claimed that this was a divisive issue pitting Frederick County vs. Carroll County. But two of the five speakers against the annexation were both from Frederick County, and one emphasized that the land swap was a bad deal while another cited evidence that a middle school at the Zeltman site is at minimum 12 years away.

Lynn Galletti, citing her officer status with Mount Airy Youth Athletic Association, criticized Councilman Pyatt, who heads the Parks and Recreation Commission, for his position that the East West Park extension proposed by Larry Hushour might be sufficient to meet the association’s needs for more ballfields, thereby avoiding more residential growth overwhelming our already strained public facilities.

Galletti went so far as to promise votes in the upcoming election for the council members supporting the annexation. Hopefully, she has permission from the association’s board of directors for these statements, and realizes that the association’s entrance into politics may jeopardize any tax-exempt status.

Medve and Peters, who both serve on the Planning and Zoning Commission, argued that residents opposed to the Zeltman annexation ‘‘just don’t understand” the purpose of the commission’s review process for annexations.

Councilman Pyatt referred directly to Maryland’s Municipal League Handbook on Annexations, which explicitly states that public facilities (such as water, roads and schools) must be verified prior to annexation (none of which yet has been adequately addressed in this annexation).

However, both Medve and Peters, citing their tenure on the commission and support from its members, stated that if all the planning was done prior to annexation, there would be no need for a Planning and Zoning Commission.

Councilman DeColli voiced his support by ‘‘ayeing” nay votes on both the mayor’s and Councilman Helt’s proposals for extending the Planning and Zoning review period on annexations by 60 days and delaying the annexation vote 30 days, allowing time to review the water option report being prepared by the town’s independent consultant to overcome the town’s water problems.

In a recent article, M. Gordon ‘‘Reds” Wolman, chairman of the state’s water advisory committee, expressed concern that local officials sometimes plan for growth without taking steps to ensure that there is enough water and, as a result, there are places in Maryland that will ‘‘probably” run out of water.

After a public outcry in December, Mayor Holt and Councilman Pyatt called for an ‘‘independent” second opinion on Peters’ top secret and technically desperate surface water project on the South Branch ‘‘stream” of the Patapsco.

Peters, who initially sided with Medve that it would be a waste of money, secretly hired a consultant to look at other options and claimed credit for it just as the mayor formally proposed it (along with an independent oversight group of residents) at January’s Town Council meeting (as he was specifically requested to do by Medve). According to Mount Airy’s charter, the mayor is the chief executive officer of the town, but not with the Quorum in control, who do whatever is politically expedient.

However, according to Patty Williamson, ‘‘they won’t get away with rushing this annexation without a referendum.”

If within 45 days she is able to gather signatures from 20 percent of the town’s registered voters, the public will decide the annexation’s fate, likely at the same time of the May election, where both DeColli’s and Medve’s council member seats are up for grabs.

W. Todd Eudy is an executive at a fortune 200 company, and a licensed real estate broker and engineer. He lives in Mount Airy, and writes about local politics. You can e-mail him at w.todd.eudy@mris.com, or send a letter to the editor in response to the column to carroll@gazette.net.