Pleasant Valley Enthusiast:

I have recently exchanged several emails with Commissioner Callaham.
I thought I would pass them along.

Below are three emails. - The first email is one I sent to her
thanking her for attending our meeting and giving my personal view of
the discussion. The second email is her response to my email. The
third email is her response to issues raised in the February
enewsletter.

================================================================

From: cppv@upshotmd.org [cppv@upshotmd.org]
To: Callaham, Ruth A.
Subject: Thank you and some comments

Commissioner Callaham

Thank you for talking with us at the Feb 16 CPPV meeting. I learned a
lot about the trade-offs the BOCC is struggling with regarding both
APFOs and impact fees. I have attached two snap-shots from the
meeting. If you should ever wish to come and have a longer, less
rushed discussion, please just let me know ahead of the meeting. As
you could probably tell by the lively discussion, people care about
the County and have heart-felt opinions.

I would like to re-iterate three points I think you were making, and
express my personal concerns. If I have misunderstood any of your
points, please feel free to correct me:

Point 1: The County has a significant population of construction
workers who need jobs, and the County should help them.
	I am all for helping people, but if we simply encourage more homes
to be built despite the impacts on our public facilities, aren't we
just trading short-term pain for long-term pain? If we keep sending
the message that "less-educated" jobs will be saved by the
government, aren't we just perpetuating the problem? If the ultimate
goal is to help construction workers have a broad skill set that so
they can find other jobs, one option might be to have impact fees
include money for training
programs. Perhaps impact fees could be used to offset costs at
Hagerstown Community College for these workers to take courses and
pursue degrees. I know many construction workers would not like this
idea. However, if they do not want to help themselves enough to deal
with the reality that life long learning is a fact of modern life,
there is little the County can really do to help them in the
long-run. Please forgive the callousness of the proceeding statement,
but I can not see any way around this.

Point 2: Due to inflation, the County has ever increasing costs.
Increasing home building by either lowering impact fees or lowering
APFO requirements is the preferred way of dealing with these costs.
	Personally, I would rather see modest increases in taxes which keep
pace with inflation and keep the quality of life high in the County.
I am not in favor of selling-off the things which make this County an
infinitely better place than Counties such as Frederick or Montgomery.
I suspect that there are many people in the County which would agree,
as well as disagree, with me on this. Perhaps how you feel about this
has to do with whether you are taking a long-term view or a short-term
view.

Point 3: The proposed changes would encourage higher growth only in
designated high-growth areas. The rules in lower-growth areas are not
really changing.
	I certainly agree that if the County encourages growth, it should be
in the designated high-growth areas. However, you mentioned at the
meeting the scenario of a rule (such as the 26th house rule) inviting
law suits from developers which the County is likely to loose. I am
concerned that if you "loosen up" restrictions on growth in the
high-growth areas, it may open the proverbial flood gates to law
suits which might force the
County to "loosen up" in the low-growth areas as well. If you decide
to go down this path, please put a lot of thought into avoiding this
scenario.

Eric Whitenton
President, Citizens for the Preservation of Pleasant Valley

================================================================

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Thank you and some comments
From: Callaham, Ruth A. 
To: cppv@upshotmd.org 

Thanks Eric... the pictures are great!

I have taken the liberty of including the other Commissioners and the
County Administrator on this e-mail. The dialog at the meeting was
awesome. I too learned a lot. The more opportunity we have to explain
a point of view the more of a sanity check we give it.

I cannot disagree with your three points. It shows that as a
community we need to continue to talk about such things in a calm
manner as we did at your meeting.. My hope is that this Board of
Commissioners can stay flexible and tuned into what is happening
enough to adjust quickly to change. You are correct we need to
articulate the impact on the long term of the short term actions. Tim
Rowland has a good column in today's Herald Mail about roads that were
talked about in 1988 and not built. I
lived here then a recall the painful decision process the
Commissioners went through. Now we are ready to build those roads and
the cost is much greater. Something of a hindsight view but none the
less a look backward with an eye on the future is not a bad thing.

It would be great to sit with your group again. Think about inviting
a couple of commissioners, we all have a little different take on
things. I felt a little uncomfortable up front of everyone (too much
like a lecture) a roundtable type setting might be better.

ruth anne

=================================================================

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: February 2011 CPPV eNewsletter
From: Callaham, Ruth A. 
To: Citizens for the Preservation of Pleasant Valley 

Thanks for the news letter and all your hard work to keep folks
informed. I'd like to offer a couple of things for your
consideration:

** Attached is the 2/22/11/agenda for the Commissioners .... it has a
public hearing for AMENDMENTS TO BUILDING EXCISE TAX ORDINANCE FOR
WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND scheduled for 1:30pm. It would be a good
opportunity for folks to express their opinion about the doubling of
the excess tax for the construction of the 26th and over home in a
subdivision in a fiscal year. We do not normally limit what folks say
but the hearing is to be focused on the Excess tax rather than the
APFO.
The APFO will be taken up at a public hearing after the
recommendations for change to that ordinance are offered by the
County Planning Department. At date has not yet been set for those
recommendation to come forward.

** The appointment of anyone for any commission or board is a careful
process in which balance of membership by skill set is one goal. Every
citizen in the county has the right for representation such that those
folks that build houses have a right for thier skill set to be
represented with equality with members who might be a professional
planner, or farmer, or banker. The planning commission has 7 members,
each member has only one vote. The skills of the current members were
considered and 5 applicants were interviewed by the Commissioners for
the two vacant seats. All interviewed well.

Again thanks for your stewardship to our county
ruth anne