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Land sale amendment will be on ballot

Friday, Oct. 28, 2005

St. Mary’s County is a long way from home for Sen. Brian E. Frosh, but the trip proved fruitful for one of the legislature’s leading environmental advocates.

Last week, Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda toured an environmentally sensitive 836-acre tract that the Ehrlich administration had offered to sell to a wealthy private developer last year, which touched off waves of criticism from Democratic legislators about the state’s land transaction procedures.

‘‘It’s very useful to see it first-hand,” said Frosh of the so-called Salem Tract that the state proposed to sell to Baltimore investor Willard J. Hackerman for the same price the state purchased it for in 2003. ‘‘... The state shouldn’t be selling off parkland.”

Hackerman, who stood to receive approximately $7 million in tax breaks in exchange for donating about 200 acres to St. Mary’s for schools and to preserve the remaining land, pulled out of the deal when it was learned that he planned to build houses on portions of the property.

Sen. Roy P. Dyson accompanied Frosh to the rural forestland, near Great Mills and accessible only on foot or by all-terrain vehicle.

‘‘The last thing we want to do is sell off that [land],” said Dyson (D-Dist. 29) of Great Mills. ‘‘We worked very hard over many generations to protect it.”

The aborted land deal prompted the General Assembly to pass a bill — principally sponsored by Frosh and Dyson — that called for a constitutional amendment mandating legislative oversight of land transactions. That amendment, which Dyson said will ‘‘get an enormous amount of support,” will appear on next year’s ballot.

Both Frosh and Dyson said they believe Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) will endorse the amendment.

‘‘I think he realizes how misguided this whole thing was,” said Dyson, noting the negative reaction of St. Mary’s residents to the proposed land sale.

‘‘Even though the administration opposed it all the way through, when it finally made its way to the Senate floor, the [Republican] opposition collapsed ... because they knew their position was untenable,” Frosh said.

The land was valued at just under $2 million when the Glendening administration agreed to buy it. But it was never reassessed before Hackerman was offered the parcel at $2.5 million.

If developed, Dyson projected, the land could be worth as much as $70 million.

‘‘The open space in Maryland is diminishing so rapidly, we have to be at great pains to protect what we do have,” Frosh said. ‘‘It’s so difficult and so expensive to put land aside for development that to take land that we’ve already protected and put that on the auction block ... I just think it’s terrible public policy.”

Frosh later spoke at St. Mary’s College’s Center for the Study of Democracy, touching on an array of topics including juvenile justice reform, environmental initiatives, medical malpractice and the legislative investigation into state hiring and firing practices under Ehrlich.

Frosh talked about the unsanitary conditions and ineffective programs at youth juvenile centers such as Cheltenham Youth Facility and the recently closed Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore.

‘‘We’re wasting money, because this is an expensive system and we’re wasting these kids’ lives,” he said, noting many youths leave the facilities no better than when they entered. He called juvenile justice reform ‘‘a very difficult and vexing problem that unfortunately does not have easy answers.”

Frosh then explained how the Ehrlich administration’s clean water initiatives fall far short of what is needed.

‘‘Anything we do for the Chesapeake Bay is good, but it isn’t even a Band-Aid,” he said of the Corsica River Pilot Project. ‘‘It’s wiping off the cut.”

Frosh also engaged in a passionate debate on medical malpractice with St. Mary’s College President Jane Margaret ‘‘Maggie” O’Brien, who said bloated liability insurance rates will ‘‘run out every doctor in Maryland.”

Frosh, who chaired the Special Commission on Medical Malpractice Liability Insurance last year, acknowledged that although some progress has been made, more must be done to protect physicians from high insurance prices.

‘‘I don’t want to declare victory in Maryland, because I think there are still strides to be done,” he said.