Planning "summit" shows up the county leadership

     Commissioner Doug Howard thinks the summit to trash Maryland's plan went well, and showed that it needs more time. Maryland Secretary of Planning Richard Hall says it was a missed opportunity to talk about something of substance.
     Put your money on Hall's assessment. Oh, sorry; you've already invested, and will continue to invest, in the agenda of  the Board of Darkness, the Council of Conspiracy.
     Much has been written about the use of taxpayer dollars to beat a tired conspiracy drum; the state, according to our leaders, has no business meddling in Carroll County business. They are mired in the mud of a time when there was no planning, no zoning, no awareness of the impact of a growing population on resources not only here at home, but downstream, to the Chesapeake Bay and beyond.
     The state acts in haste, they allege, and the county wants more time to rebut the case for responsible growth with this board's version of facts.
     These commissioners will never have enough time to catch up with the Maryland plan for a number of reasons, primary among them the fact that they don't want to.
     While the rest of the world moves forward, we are led by people who want to run full speed in reverse.
     The summit in Pikesville was designed to give Rothschild and other know-nothing conservatives a soapbox for the day to trash not just the state plan, but the fact that the state even has a plan that includes Carroll County.
     If they could, this board of five commissioners would take state transportation money only for the purpose of building a moat around the the county; there would be drawbridges to allow residential home buyers to arrive, then commute to the metro area high-paying jobs.
     Then we have the letters of support from the usual letter writers, the ones who think Rothschild is a genius and Frazier is a financial wiz.
     People ask me just about every day how this board got elected. I tell them they got lots of newsprint when they criticized the master plan efforts, spending, and general operations of the previous county administration, but little scrutiny.
     These five, who complained about the money being spent by previous administrations, is using taxpayer dollars in a down economy to sell a threadbare ideology. They would be more frugal, they promised. More open, inclusive, respectful of opinions of others.
     And at least three of them -- Howard, Rothschild and Frazier -- probably truly believed that they could all but secede from the state of Maryland, perceived by the Rigid Right as too liberal for Carroll Countians. They're finding out they were wrong, but don't look for them to concede that fact. Instead, they will continue to spend your money to appeal to like-minded know-nothings and bask in the adulation of the more outspoken ignorant.
     They are less open with the general public than they are with their back-room friends and loyalists. It is enough, obviously, to be obstructionists, to create chaos rather than find solutions to complex challenges that face all Maryland residents, and not just Carroll Countians.
     Why not? It's the new national model for politics.
     Now that they're in there, they are getting the scrutiny they should have had as candidates, but it's too late, and their publicity is costing the taxpayers more than has been tallied -- and the meter is still ticking.