Debate over fencing off a wooded area in Edgewood Park, which divides the neighborhoods of Harford Square and Meadowood, has sparked a war of words between two candidates for public office and the director of Harford County?s Department of Parks and Recreation.
“Ithink he is completely out of touch with the needs of the community … a poor representative of the county,” said Harford Square resident Mark Franz of Director of Harford County Parks and Recreation Joseph Pfaff. Franz is also a Democratic candidate for District 34A of the House of Delegates.
Franz said he attended a meeting between county and community leaders shortly after the murder of 37-year-old Edgewood cabbie Derald Guess in December of 2004. At this meeting, which he claims Pfaff attended, he asked the county to erect a fence around the wooded area of Edgewood Park to stop the drug activity in the park.
Franz says Pfaff never gave him an answer, and when Pfaff went to leave, Franz followed him outside and put the question to him.
“He practically hissed through his teeth, and said, ?You?ll get your fence, Mr. Franz, but it won?t be a nice fence, it will be a security fence,? “recounted Franz. “I said that would be fine. When?”
Harford Square resident Mike Neuman confirmed Franz?s account of the conversation almost verbatim, saying that he followed Franz and Pfaff outside the Harford Square clubhouse. Franz said there is still not a fence that closes off the woods between Harford Square and Meadowood. Pfaff denies that he ever promised Franz a fence around the wooded area.
“I believe Mr. Franz is running for public office. … I am not. I will tell you that I have never promised Mr. Franz a fence and have on numerous occasions told him that I would not erect a fence along the sliver of park land that separates his community from the neighboring community of Meadowood,” Pfaff said in an e-mail to The Examiner.
