In June I attended a meeting at Golden Beach to hear what some of the candidates had to say. One of them was Joe St. Clair. When he had finished his spiel about his background and experience, I asked him why he had not mentioned his long association with Metcom (at least six years during which he had served as a Commissioner and for a time as Chairman of the Board). His response was “I was going to get to that next.” I’m still waiting. On October 16 I attended the candidates’ debate at the Lexington Park Library. Again, Mr. St. Clair spoke again of his background and experience with no mention of Metcom.
Why is Metcom important? While Mr. St. Clair was there and if Metcom had prevailed six years ago, we who live on Mohawk Drive in Charlotte Hall would be on public water (no sewer) costing each household $12,000 or more to shut down our wells and yet more to run lines from the road to our homes. Then we would have had the “privilege” of paying Metcom for our water. When several residents at one of the public hearings said “I don’t have the money for this”, one of the Metcom representatives smugly said “Don’t worry about it, we’ll take the money when the property is sold.”
Had we lost this battle, the residents of Indian Creek (on Mt. Wolf) would also have been forced into the same position. Just like dominoes, it would have been one neighborhood after the other. And let’s not forget that with public water being made available, it would have opened the door to townhouses and apartments.
Mr. St. Clair also says:
A. We need to streamline local government—offices are too far apart; staff needs to be co-located. Even if space were available for such a venture, it would involve disruption of services for long intervals and tremendous costs to accomplish the move.
B. Every child in the school system should have an electronic tablet. This would require a huge outlay of funds just to acquire the tablets. Then we have the issue of acquiring software, maintenance and repairs, and the inevitable loss or theft.
C. Electronic payments vs. checks for taxes, fees, etc. That would be nice but is writing an occasional check wearing anybody out? For most of us the “big” item would be the payment of our annual real estate taxes and those are paid by the lender from your escrow account, so where’s the beef?
While he labels himself a “fiscal conservative”, from all I’ve read and seen, it’s nothing but spend, spend, spend.
My vote will be for John O’Connor. He is young, energetic, and will represent us well. His background and experience goes far beyond a few local boards and commissions. We need a fresh perspective and we need someone who’s not a part of the “good old boy” network. I was born and raised in this County and I love it to the tips of my toes, but the days of the good old boys are hopefully over. After all, it’s only the good old boys who benefit while we, the people, are left to pay the bills.
