The image reflects the message

     Just about the time I think this board of commissioners cannot stoop to a new low, they prove me wrong.
     Previous commissioners and candidates for office have let it be known they do not support the expansion of mass transit to and from the Baltimore area. But this is the first time I know of that they have tried to make it official.
    It's one of the questions I got when I ran: Will you keep us out of the Baltimore metro plans for mass transit? The implication is that if you build it THEY will come.
   You know, Those People.
   We have this image around the state for being a bit of an isolationist county. Many new residents have even said, in effect, now that they have moved to Carroll County, you can burn the bridges and pull up the drawbridge and make sure the moat around us if filled with alligators -- or the NRA.
   It's so prevalent that the working title for my novel, What Price Eden, was Fortress County. That was a term that I used in remarks before the metropolitan transportation council in Baltimore as a new commissioner back in 2003 or '04.
    They were surprised I attended. A few said the only thing they heard from Carroll County was NO when it came to working with other metro area counties on long-term plans for the future of commuting to and from jobs in the Baltimore/DC corridor. Or for workers to get to jobs in Carroll County.
    I ran into a young African American woman at the University of Maryland who said she turned down a great job offer from Western Maryland (the name of McDaniel at the time) because everybody she knew said this was Klan country.
    A young black student who interned for me when I was editor of a local paper turned down my offer of a job for the same reason -- and he grew up here.
    I know, I know, it's not the color, it's the criminal element that locals want to keep out. We're not racists, right?
    When I hear someone say that a rail line or bus routes bring criminals to rob us and then return to Baltimore, I point out that most of the criminal charges I see in the paper are filed against locals, and they're white and under-educated and virtually unemployable. Many are drug addicts.
    We have an image problem.
    When you're looking in the mirror before leaving for that job in Hunt Valley or Howard County, consider that the nice outfit or hairdo is what you see, but others see something else.
    Your elected officials are the face of all of us around the state. Their words are how we are known.