Airport, waste to energy are issues; police force won't be

     Now that the electing games are over and the governing work is beginning in Carroll County, here's what I think will happen on several issues:  Enlargement of the airport runway, waste to energy plant co-operation with Frederick County, and local law enforcement.
      The replacement of the runway at Carroll County airport will most likely be carried through as the facts become clearer to the new board of commissioners. They were willing to milk the controversy stirred up by a handful of objectors while seeking office, but the truth will make it difficult for reasonable people to justify any change in direction on the airport plan.
       All the processes were followed, the work is needed, mostly paid for already and with way more benefit to the entire community than drawbacks. Not doing anything will, in the long run, cost more than going ahead.

     WASTE TO ENERGY
     The waste to energy plant could go either way. Frederick County's new commissioners, ironically, were elected in part because they were in favor of the project, showing that the apparent tidal wave of emails and wailing from another engaged and enraged group did not, indeed, represent the public will after all. And Frederick County will be the actual site of the plant.
     Carroll County is positioned to be a partner with Frederick County, which would ensure some cost-benefits, environmental controls and overall consistency in waste management as Carroll continues to build on its reputation as one of the more forward-looking counties in the state -- not my words, but the assessment of other administrators in sister counties and the state capital.
     But Carroll's new commissioners may opt out, just to make a show for the base constituency that helped them gain office. If so, the county may lose some money, but Frederick will be just fine, finding willing substitutes in Howard County, perhaps, or even Baltimore County, and others who know a good deal and a right course of action when they see one.
     It will be then up to the new commissioners to decide -- quickly -- if, when and where the next landfill will be located in Carroll County, assuming that the state Department of the Environment would issue permits. There would be public hearings, of course, and the new kids will find themselves on the other side of the table from those neighbors and former friends and supporters who will protest any site in the county.
     Or, this board of commissioners may choose the head in the sand approach, and hope something turns up to take them off the heat.  But waste management issues and expenses will not go away.

     COUNTY POLICE FORCE
     Finally, there is the so-called county police force issue.
     It is a dead horse. It was dead before it was ridden and whipped harshly during the recent election campaign. It died in the back-room dealing in the state capital.
     It was supposed to be a public discussion, and became tool for inciting a mob.
     Any real discussion about the viability of a county police force was blown all out of proportion by those whose vested interests lie in an expanded sheriff's department. As with the controversies inherent in discussion such issues as airports, "incinerators," and master plans and zoning, it was accomplished with a cagey manipulation of the natural populist inclinations of the local news media.
    The county police controversy is best described as an example of what happens when government transparency is turned against itself.
     There was a question to be answered:  Since the costs of maintaining a contract with the state police was getting to be so much higher than the cost of funding the sheriff's office, should the primary law enforcement agency designation be handed to the sheriff's department and let it go at that? Certainly in two or three years, a lot of money had been requested by the sheriff, and granted by the board of commissioners.
      But there were -- and remain -- those who were worried about the tendency of elected sheriffs to build empires, making the people vulnerable to higher costs without representation at budget time. A popular elected sheriff works at being popular and asking for money, but does not have to account to the voters for rising costs. Patterns in other Maryland counties and in jurisdictions across the county indicated that it was a legitimate concern, one that should be studied.
     When that intent to bring together a panel to examine the possibilities of a third option -- a county police force with fiscal controls in the hands of the commissioners --
got turned around and presented as a "takeover" and a "done deal," supporters of the sheriff's department showed up at a hearing with the delegation and asked the representatives to Annapolis to strip the commissioners of their rights under the state constitution to make local decisions regarding local policing.
     Annapolis being the place where people meet to trade votes, went along with the idea so long as it did not apply to their counties. Done deal.
     So, the plan to bring as many points of view to the table as possible and really go over the pros and cons of local policing before making a final decision was hijacked, became another election issue, and now, I see, some of the most ardent supporters of the sheriff's expansion plans will be covered by insurance in case they get sued.
     Not sworn officers -- they're already covered. The ones who will benefit from the most recent request for spending to the delegation are the auxiliary police, who wear uniforms to make them look like deputies. They already got the county cars the sheriff unilaterally decided to give them with a new paint job that says "community patrol" (those cars might have been deployed to other county uses or traded in as new cars were purchased, but the commissioners never made an issue of it).
     At first the idea of extending liability insurance to the auxiliary police was apparently presented as a "cost-saving" measure, but when the hard numbers were crunched, it costs more.
     Richard Rothschild, the neo-conservative, was heard to say that it was a little more money, but not much. He should be careful; that's the brink of the slippery slope to liberal, overspending politician status.