Harford lawmakers and county officials did all of Maryland a favor when they raised some ? well, let?s call it heck ? over Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown?s BRAC subcabinet meeting in secret.
Maybe we should call it the sub-closet. If he thinks he can stay on the down low planning state involvement in the federal Base Realignment and Closure process and keep the public?s trust, he is dreaming.
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Secrecy and credibility are mutually exclusive. If the subcabinet is going into closet mode routinely as it meets in affected areas around the state, Maryland voters and local government officials will lose confidence in the process of preparing for the biggest economic impact here in decades.
If they lose confidence, the process will not work. If it does not work, an economic blessing for Maryland will turn into a curse.
Harford delegates and county officials are intensely focused on Brown?s BRAC performance because that sylvan, rural area is home to Aberdeen Proving Grounds which gets the most direct jobs.
According to the 2005 Maryland impact analysis, 9,448 of 17,000 direct BRAC new jobs will go to APG.
Projections get a little fuzzier when analysts start trying to figure out secondary and tertiary job growth the shift of defense and intelligence work to Maryland will create, but estimates range up to about 40,000 generating 25,000 new households in addition to the region?s natural dynamic growth.
All this is great. But where is everybody going to live? Go to school? What about road capacity? Mass transit? Hospitals? Water and sewerage? Commercial development?
Chaos we don?t need. Nor do we need corruption. To lay everything right out in the sunlight: Some people are going to make a lot of money out of this whole thing on-base and off by building, paving, servicing, consulting and performing a myriad other lucrative functions that always buzz around huge federal projects like electrons around the nucleus of an atom.
Big money is coming our way. Who makes it, how and, most importantly, why, is the multibillion-dollar question.
The bigger question is whether this boon will be a dream or a nightmare for quality of life in our region.
Del. B. Dan Riley, D-34A, said of the process, “The citizens have a lot of concerns, and it seems we?re being shut out.” Yes it does.
And Republican Delegate Barry Glassman, 35A, said of a recent meeting, “I was there for the open part, which was more of a PR-type event.”
A public relations show is not what the public needs when it comes to this process.
Subcabinet spokeswoman Samantha Kappalman said, “Our aim is to have an open and transparent government.”
OK. Then do that. Keep all the doors open and lights on for public officials and the people they serve.
Even the appearance of secrecy threatens our state?s ability to cope with the blessings of BRAC.
