Pictured Above: Dan Ichinowski and Jackie Meiser
California, MD— The St. Mary’s County Metropolitan Commission is proposing to raise fees and charges once again this week at a public hearing April 7 at 6 p.m. The Commission has gone unchecked over the last eight years by increasing customer costs and fees charged to the public.
Also, MetCom has borrowed money that it is not utilizing, and the public is paying more than two million annually in interest for this dead money.
Metcom was created and approved by the Maryland General Assembly on April 15,1957. It was organized as a non-profit body politic outside of County Government. Metcom did not become operational until 1962 when the then Board of County Commissioners agreed to appoint the Metcom Board of Directors.
St. Mary’s County is divided into ten (10) sanitary districts, the individual boundaries of which are adopted by the Board of Directors and must be approved by the Board of County Commissioners.
The jurisdiction for implementing water and sewer services for these sanitary districts consists of seven (7) voting members appointed by the Board of County Commissioners and one non-voting member, the Commander of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station—or his/her designated representative.
Recently, Metcom has come under scrutiny by several St. Mary’s County Commissioners and there has been a discussion as to whether they should come under the umbrella of County Government and Public Works similar to Charles and Calvert counties. Several of the Commissioners recently brought the issue to the legislative agenda in the early fall of this year. Several of the current legislative leaders echoed their lack of support for any change, simply citing the fact that people on well and septic certainly shouldn’t be required to pay debt service on a system which they don’t use.
The real question that the legislative leaders should have asked is “whether they could do anything about the 500-600 percent increase imposed on property owners who are trying to connect to the current system,” said one builder in the community.
Advocates for Code Home Rule advise that under the proposed legislation county commissioners “would have the ability to put a stop to spiraling increase which goes unchecked.”
Metcom has recently come under the guidance of a new executive director, Scott Bundy, who was recently appointed after a search. He is currently feeling his way through the maze of spiraling costs and rate hikes over the last several years.
Previously, Metcom was under the guidance of Dan Ichinowski and Jackie Meiser who was pushed out as executive director because of a study and reorganization when it was discovered that she was operating as both Executive Director and Legal Counsel.
Recently there has been a discussion concerning fiscal policy since Ichinowski retired regarding the runaway rate hikes and golden parachute offers which had been available on his watch.
Keep in mind that Metcom initiated a retirement and lifetime health package for corporate executives in 2008, and it has grown out of control at the tune to close to half a million dollars a year.
Also Metcom under the guidance of Ichinowski allowed the General Counsel to work on a part-time basis and run her law office during the day all the while earning $165,000 a year plus benefits.
The current board has questioned the validity of this arrangement, as it violates current Metcom policy.
It should be pointed out that the county attorney works full time at a lesser amount, and he/she precludes the deputy county attorneys from doing any outside legal work as does the States attorneys office.
The new director will be exploring his options and asked about the arrangement his comment was “that the prior Board allowed it .”
Several members of the current board, who were also Metcom Commissioners under the current board, deny that they were informed of this policy position from the prior Board