BRIGHT BULB: Infrastructure improvements offset
Anne Arundel County legislators are sponsoring a bill that would increase the amount of money a developer pays to offset a building’s effect on things such as expanding roads and public safety. This is a fee increase with myriad benefits: It will increase the county’s infrastructure revenue; it will encourage people to build their homes where no new infrastructure is needed, thus benefiting the environment; and it will make life harder for people who want to build houses they cannot afford. It’s a win-win-win situation.
OUTRAGE: Historic cramps
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- Who: The Harford County Council
- What: Harford County officials want to stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep buildings too dilapidated to be used, but the council is stopping them, saying the buildings are historic and that the county needs all the office space it can get.
- Why they are doing it: Because the buildings are part of a historic district, the council is balking at the idea of auctioning the buildings.
- Why it’s a bad idea: There’s no way, at least not without a few millions dollars, these buildings can be updated enough to be used for office space. It’s sad to say, but not every historic building in Maryland can be saved — nor should they when it’s going to cost money the county doesn’t have. If taxpayers want to save the buildings, they can buy them at auction.
- Click to vent: Harford County Council
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“Even though Brenda was addicted to drugs and was prostituting doesn’t mean she deserved to be strangled. … She struggled with depression all her life, she just couldn’t get clean. People have to remember I loved my sister no matter what she did.” – Jimmy Wright, brother of Brenda Sue Wright, 46, whose skeletal remains were found behind an abandoned tractor-trailer in 2000. Police have not yet discovered how she was killed.
