FREDERICK,
Md. – Two Frederick County Commissioners took advantage
of the absence of two fellow commissioners to strike three
proposed interchanges and a proposed parkway in Emmitsburg
from the Thurmont Regional Plan on Feb. 25.
During
the last hour of a six-hour meeting of the Frederick County
Commissioners reviewing the Thurmont Regional Plan, Commissioners
John Thompson and David Gray voted to strike the road improvements
from the plan.
Thompson
also stated he was ready to vote to rezone land needed for
the parkway to make it more difficult to build the parkway
until Commissioner Kai Hagen left the meeting. “Well,
you are done for today because you won’t have a quorum
to make anymore votes,” Hagen said before leaving
the meeting after asking Commissioners John Thompson Jr.
and David Gray a dozen times in a 45-minute period not to
make decisions on the plan without all of the commissioners
present.
Thompson
said the road improvements should be taken off the plan
because they wouldn’t be funded within the life of
the comprehensive plan. “Roads that aren’t funded,
I don’t like putting them in there [the plan] because
it raises false expectations that somebody’s actually
working on building a road when they aren’t,”
Thompson said.
However,
County Planner Jim Gugel sees a use for having the symbol
on the map even if it isn’t funded. During the county
commissioners’ meeting, he told the commissioners,
“Funding shouldn’t matter when you’re
looking at a 20-year plan. I mean we need to have the ability
to pay for it to support getting funding at some later point.
If we remove that plan symbol, we lose that support to even
try to get funding for it in the first place.”
He
also said having the symbol on the planning maps allows
the county or municipality the ability to reserve rights
of way for the improvements.
Planning
Director Eric Soter told the commissioners that by linking
the planning maps to funding, they would essentially create
a map that illustrated their capital improvement program;
and even then, the only projects that were certain in the
CIP are those for the next year.
The
commissioners still voted 2-1 to remove the interchanges
and the bypass. When Hagen threatened to leave the commissioners
without a quorum, Gray called his actions “childish.”
Hagen told Gray and Thompson he would only stay if they
would agree to stop making motions to change the plan without
the full board present. Neither one would agree to that
and so Hagen left.
The
county commissioners will examine the regional plan again
on March 17. At that time, it is expected that the issue
of the interchanges and bypass can be revisited.
