Accusations hurled over New Market Region Plan

Residents question board’s contact with affected developers

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Plans for new residential development can be a political hotbed, stirring up plenty of controversy and accusations. In Frederick County, questions and accusations about the New Market Region Plan have now turned ugly.

Frederick County commissioners are getting a number of e-mails from residents questioning whether the five received or solicited money from developers looking to rezone land for growth as part of the New Market Region Plan.

Some go so far as to ask whether any board member has met privately with developers who support the plan.

Commissioner Bruce L. Reeder (D) is so angry about the e-mails that he has refused to reply after seeking advice from the county attorney’s office.

Reeder said he was told he was under no obligation to reply and residents wanting that information can apply to the county through the Freedom of Information Act.

‘‘I’m not responding to them,” Reeder said. ‘‘Whether I meet with various people is my business and the people I meet with is my business. I don’t have to tell them.”

For one commissioner, the line of questioning was an attack on his integrity making his response clearly anything but friendly.

An e-mail sent to board members on Aug. 9 from New Market resident Moira Bogley asking whether they have met privately with supporters of the plan and received campaign contributions drew strong reaction from Commissioner John R. Lovell Jr. (R).

In capital letters Lovell replied, ‘‘Have you stopped beating your children?”

Bogley was clearly not pleased with his response.

‘‘As you can imagine, I think this sort of response is rude at best, but also clearly evasive,” she said.

In an interview Monday, Lovell, who has announced his intention to seek re-election in 2006, said he regrets his answer, blaming it on a ‘‘bad day.”

But Lovell also feels Bogley called into question his integrity as a county commissioner and elected official.

‘‘I had a headache, but those things hit me wrong,” he said. ‘‘Being human, I reacted. I try to stay out of these things... but I’m insulted when somebody asks me that. Somebody asking me that is like slapping me in the face.”

But these accusations concerning the New Market Region Plan are nothing new.

During the last several months, they have clouded the formation of the plan, which calls for the development of 13,000 new homes in the New Market region. Specifically the plan calls for an estimated 35,000 new residents by 2025 in an area that extends from the east Frederick city limits to Carroll County and from Ijamsville Road north to Gas House Pike.

‘‘We have received a fair number of e-mails and some have questioned campaign contributions,” Commissioner Jan H. Gardner (D) said.

Gardner said she makes it a point to respond to all e-mails, even those asking whether she has held private, closed-door meetings with developers.

Gardner also meets with residents and zoning applicants when requested.

‘‘You do meet a fine line and you don’t want to cross it,” she said. ‘‘But there are some citizens who are applicants, not just lawyers and lobbyists.”

Gardner has unsuccessfully tried to push for a resolution to the county’s ethics ordinance that would ask her colleagues seeking re-election not to solicit or accept campaign contributions from individuals or groups that have business before the board.

Speculation over the plan began back in February when the newly formed public interest group Friends of Frederick County Inc., called on New Market residents to speak out in opposition.

The group distributed fliers claiming that land developers and builders served as the driving force behind the growth document and influenced members of the Frederick County Planning Commission to rezone and outline more commercial and residential growth in the New Market region.

Members of the Planning Commission balked at the idea that developers had pressured them.

The plan is now in the hands of county commissioners who find themselves on the defensive and responding to resident questions in vastly different ways.

Commission President John ‘‘Lennie” Thompson Jr. (R) makes it a point to tell residents who e-mail him that he has not had any private meetings with developers looking to rezone land in the New Market region.

Thompson, who continually pushes for legislation banning closed-door meetings among commissioners, developers, lawyers and lobbyists, tells residents that he has not solicited or accepted campaign contributions from proponents of the growth plan.

In an Aug. 8 e-mail from Mary and Karl Schreder of New Market, Thompson answers their questioning by stating he had not had any ‘‘private meetings” with proponents of rezoning for development in the region, he has also not solicited or accepted campaign contributions.

Thompson did write that he agreed with the couple’s opposition to the growth outlined in the plan and even added his assumptions that ‘‘the Town of New Market and the Frederick County Planning Commission are welcoming the out-of-county and out-of-state developers as liberators.”

Commissioner Michael L. Cady (R) has devised his own solution to the controversial line of questioning, since he too has announced his plans to run again for office in 2006.

Cady said he has asked his campaign treasurer not to tell him who has contributed financially to his re-election bid. That way, Cady said, when making development and rezoning decisions in the New Market region and throughout the county he will be unaware as to whether the applicant has donated financially to his campaign.

‘‘I will oversee the expenses and oversee the account balances,” he said. ‘‘I will authorize every expenditure, but I will not know who has contributed.”

Cady, who is also not accepting campaign contributions over $500, has no intention of reading his campaign finance reports naming each contributor, he said.

Commissioners do agree that residents and developers questioning the formation of a region plan or asking to have their land rezoned is nothing new. During the recent formation of the Urbana Region Plan commissioners received numerous e-mails from residents and landowners and they expect the same during the upcoming Walkersville Region Plan update.