Recession?  Depression? Not for St. Mary’s Board

 Commissioners Agree to Buy 250 Acre Farm in Leonardtown

LEONARDTOWN (Dec. 10, 2008)  ---  What fiscal crisis?  The St. Mary’s County Commissioners are about as adept, or corrupt, as the St. Mary’s College which recently paid far above market value to purchase property owned by a member of the college board of trustees.

Now comes word that the commissioners have agreed in fact to pay $5 million dollars for a 250 acre farm, during the worst slump for real estate prices ever before seen.

This parcel of land was the subject of a sale just 18 months ago for a purchase price of $3.5 million but a local builder who had the contract on the land backed out due to the depressed sales of homes.

But St. Mary’s County doesn’t let falling prices hit them in the head and they are going after the farm, in fact, betting the farm, right when builders are going broke, retailers are shutting down and institutions such as Bell Motors, the second oldest Chevy dealer in the nation, is in the process of closing its doors.

But the St. Mary’s Commissioners, who raised taxes by $14.5 million dollars, on the votes of Kenny Dement (R. Piney Point) and the three Democrats, Jackie Russell (D. St. George’s Island), Tommy Mattingly (D. Leonardtown) and Dan Raley (D. Great Mills).   Only Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R. Golden Beach) voted against the tax hike which could have been avoided had the board maintained the constant yield and lowered the tax rate to make up for higher assessments levied by the state.

The commissioners are hell bent to blow your tax money at a time when revenues are falling in every way for every level of government.

Government employees are being laid off at the county, state and federal level with 67,000 Maryland state employees set to take furloughs of up to five days this month in order to balance the budget.

The nation experienced its worst loss of jobs in a single month last month, in more than 30 years.

But still the board is mired in mediocrity when it comes to financial advice.

Commissioner Raley told the board as it approved new hires at their Tuesday meeting, that the country should see a quick recovery and everything will be okay. 

Clearly Raley needs a brain scan or he is the repository for the most remarkable bloom of native intelligence on economics that ever existed.

Commissioner Mattingly last spring proclaimed that the local economy is solid and the county didn’t need to begin making cuts in spending.

St. Mary’s County owns a parcel of land behind Leonardtown High School which can handle a new school and the county turned down an offer of a free parcel of land for a school on the Clark Farm.

The purchase of the Hayden farm is supposed to be for a school site but it could be used as a new regional jail facility which would house inmates from Calvert and Charles as well as St. Mary’s. Another use for the property could be for a new homeless shelter campus which would house up to 1,000 homeless people.

The St. Mary’s Board has been on a spending spree lately, buying a parcel of land on St. Andrews Church Road which was owned by a builder who is on the ropes.

That property will be utilized as a new park even though the Myrtle Point Park, which consists of 192 acres and with 2000 feet of waterfront, sits right on the Patuxent River about a mile away.