District hearing draws crowd

South Carroll not happy as community remains divided

Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005

Few South Carroll County residents noticed in November when a proposal to change the makeup of the Board of County Commissioners appeared on the ballot.

Lobbying for or against the proposal was practically nonexistent in South Carroll, but residents are taking notice now.

The November vote — in which county residents approved changing the commission from three at-large members to five elected by district — created a committee to draw a map that would divide the county into five districts.

South Carroll residents have since noticed the change — which divided many of their communities — and many came to a hearing at the County Office Building in Westminster Tuesday night to speak their minds about it.

While most residents Tuesday said they knew what they were voting for in November, some were not happy that their communities would be divided. Others were not happy that their voting power will be diminished.

‘‘Have faith in the electors that they did know what they were doing and what they were getting themselves into,” said David Roush of Westminster, during the standing-room only hearing.

Sen. Larry E. Haines (R-Dist. 5) of Westminster suggested a couple months ago to change how voters cast their ballots in November by proposing that people vote for all five commissioners at large, as voters currently do. The General Assembly must approve the change during the 2006 session.

Del. Susan Krebs (R-Dist. 9B) has called Haines’ claim ‘‘an insult.” Her constituents knew what they were voting for, she has said.

Many residents at the meeting Tuesday agreed.

‘‘Voters, especially in our Freedom District, were clear in voting for the referendum to elect five commissioners by district, which guarantees geographic representation to all areas of the county,” said Ross Dangel, spokesman for the Freedom Area Citizens Council, in a letter to the local delegation.

‘‘In my mind there’s no misunderstanding of what it meant for us to do,” said Hank Sturgeon Jr. of Westminster. ‘‘Carroll County voted for five commissioners by district.”

Another resident argued that he didn’t understand losing his voting power. Right now, argued Charles Henkel of Hampstead, he votes for all three. In 2006, he said, he’ll vote for just one commissioner to represent his issues.

Charles Cull of Westminster agreed. ‘‘I’m deeply concerned about adequate representation,” he said. He suggested the county have all possible candidates run in the general election, and do away with the primary elections, calling his idea a ‘‘better cross-section of the electors.”

Ben Perricone of Manchester said he was worried that if the commissioners have to ‘‘go along to get along,” his district’s representation on the board could be lost. ‘‘I would like to have my voting rights back,” Perricone said. ‘‘At which point do you want to carve the pie into crumbs?”

The local delegation also asked residents which map they preferred.

Hampstead Mayor Haven Shoemaker, president of the Maryland Municipal League, said the league had been unanimously in favor of Option 2.

‘‘Usually you can’t get a unanimous vote that the sky is blue,” Shoemaker said.

Shoemaker said Option 2 best serves the ‘‘communities of interest,” which he said were Hampstead and Manchester.

Sykesville, Eldersburg and Finksburg residents disagreed, calling their areas ‘‘communities of interest” that shouldn’t be split.

The final map, known as Option 2, splits Sykesville from Eldersburg and splits the unincorporated Finksburg down Route 140. Eldersburg is grouped with Mount Airy, while the two separate municipalities of Manchester and Hampstead are grouped in one district. Residents in the Manchester and Hampstead area, along with Sykesville, Eldersburg and Finksburg, say that their communities shouldn’t be split.

Larry Helminiak of Sykesville argued that while voters did cast ballots in favor of five commissioners, voters did not have a say in the district lines. He argued that Sykesville and Eldersburg should not be split.

‘‘The people who live in Sykesville and Eldersburg go to the same grocery stores ... same schools ... same churches,” he said, adding that there’s one fire department and one post office in Sykesville.

‘‘I think we got a raw deal,” Helminiak said. ‘‘Sykesville and Eldersburg belong together. ... Option 2 doesn’t give us that right.”

Donald Hoffman of Finksburg said he supported five commissioners by district, but didn’t support the finalized map. ‘‘The best interest of Finksburg is to be kept together as a whole,” he said.

Jim Johnson of Finksburg agreed. He said Manchester and Hampstead are at least four miles apart, where Finksburg is split in half, along with Sykesville and Eldersburg, in the proposed map.

New Windsor Mayor Sam Pierce argued the same reasons why his municipality should be grouped with Taneytown and Union Bridge, as it is in the favored option. The other map, Option 1, grouped New Windsor with Mount Airy.

‘‘I have nothing against them, but we have more in common with the people of Taneytown,” agreed New Windsor resident Melvin Baile Jr.

The local delegation will meet within the next 30 days to finalize the map and decide on whether or not to require potential candidates to live in the district they represent.

Residents who had an opinion Tuesday asked for a one-year residency requirement.

The referendum in November called for the creation of a committee to divide the county into five equal districts. The committee, comprised of three members from the county’s Republican Central Committee, three from the Democratic Central Committee, and the president of the Board of Elections, met throughout the spring and summer to finalize a map.

In an August report to the local delegation, the committee submitted its final map, recommendations, and the process it went through to finalize the districts.

The local delegation’s goal is to have an emergency bill finalizing the county’s districts to present the first day of the Maryland General Assembly in mid-January 2006.