O’Malley Visits Site of Ehrlich’s
Sleazy Deal for Developer

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley with Senator Roy Dyson.

The Ehrlich Administration’s plan to lay off good public lands on campaign contributors at bargain basement prices blew up in the face of the Republican Governor.
ST. MARY’S TODAY photos
 

ST. MARY’S TODAY

SALEM TRACT — Martin O’Malley, mayor of Baltimore, made a solemn pledge he would protect Maryland’s pristine state lands and will never try to give it away as gifts to developers like Governor Bob Ehrlich allegedly does.
“I pledge never to sell or giveaway parks and public lands,” declared O’Malley, as Senator Roy Dyson requested him to make the promise during a visit to the famous Salem tract of land, east of Indian Bridge Road. The Salem tract was made infamous by a shadowy deal involving Governor Bob Ehrlich and construction magnate Willard Hackerman.
Governor Ehrlich’s office strongly denies any wrongdoing or secrecy shrouding the deal.
O’Malley has thrown the gauntlet at Ehrlich, whose gubernatorial tenure has been marred by allegations of pandering to special interest groups.
A battery of reporters from the local media accompanied Dyson and O’Malley during their visit to the “acres of sin.” Governor Bob Ehrlich had his personal signature on selling the 836 acres of protected state land in a shadowy deal to Hackerman, owner of Whiting-Turner Contracting Co, with solid links in the corridors of power.
At the site, they were greeted by Linda Vallandingham, former commissioner Robert Jarboe, John Vallandingham and Bubby Norris, among others, who drove them to the heart of the acres of sin in all-terrain dirt buggies. Vallandingham’s great great grandfather Thomas Bean had owned the Salem tracts in the 1800s. Her mother still lives very close to the site.
“Salem tract is part of the headwaters of the western branch of St. Mary’s River,” Vallandingham said, explaining any disturbance to the topography would have brought untold environmental miseries for county residents.
“The plan was horrendous. St. Mary’s would have turned into another New Orleans,” Dyson said of the Hackerman project. “This is where the Bean and Norris families have lived for ages,” said Dyson. He said in the town of Great Mills the flooding is already very bad and had the land deal went ahead it would have spelled an environmental holocaust for St. Mary’s by opening flood gates.
The shady deal would have given Hackerman millions of dollars in tax breaks, and Ehrlich is said to have been well aware of each bit of detail. An outcry in the media thwarted the Governor-Hackerman plans.
Dyson said he was stunned when he first came to know about the irregularities surrounding the land deal. “Thanks God it fell apart,” said Dyson, also appreciating the role of the media and a handful of honest officials at Annapolis for baring the ghastly plan.
“As important as the Salem tract and the St. Mary’s River Watershed property is to water quality and the protection of the St. Mary’s River, we do not want to lose sight of the importance of Maryland agriculture and the contributions made by agriculture toward the protection of our environment, the Chesapeake Bay, open space land, agriculture products to the food chain, and the jobs provided by agriculture and agribusiness to the economy of Maryland,” Vallandingham said in a written statement.
“We are pro-businessman what else do you expect,” O’Malley paraphrased Ehrlich’s team attitude to crucial issues at a gathering of students and faculty at the St. Mary’s College. “They want to shuffle it out to the well connected through the backdoor,” O’Malley said of Ehrlich’s bid to giveaway Salem tracts.
He deplored the policy of the current Ehrlich administration to appease mega corps at the expense of the middle class. To a question, O’Malley described the middle class as all those who make a honest living trying to achieve their American dream.
Vallandingham told O’Malley it was very important that the office of the governor recognizes the importance of agriculture and sustainable development in St. Mary’s and keeps his door open to the concerns of local agriculturists. “There are times when we will need to be heard and have the opportunity to comment on issues that will or may have an impact on our industry,” she said.
At St. Mary’s college Cole Cinema auditorium, O’Malley told students and faculty about some of his achievements as mayor of Baltimore. He said since his taking over the mayoral position in Baltimore, violent crime had gone down by 40 percent while reading proficiency of elementary students have gone up from 16 to 61 percent.
He regretted that though Maryland had a triple A bond rating, it ranked 50th on teachers pension. O’Malley said he believes any cuts in college tuition would jeopardize the development of human capital in Maryland.
O’Malley lambasted the Public Service Commission for not living up to its name. He said at the time of the de-regulation of electricty in 1999, it was expected the process would bring in healthy competition among power suppliers but that it did not happen because of the apathy of the Public Service Commission.
This summer consumers would have to face a 72 percent rate hike in electricity.
Vallandingham, member of a very closely knit family, strongly advocates absolute power is corrupt. Recent rumors that she might run for a county commissioner’s seat sent shivers down the spines of Leonardtown officials, according to well-informed sources.
Vallandingham later told ST. MARY’S TODAY Salem Tract was just one piece of land that Ehrlich was eyeing to dispose off. “Salem tract was the biggest. Because of (an outcry on) this all others were also halted,” she said.
She pointed out the Ehrlich administration had made an inventory of as many as 3,000 acres of excess tracts around state parks that they intended to sell off.
Vallandingham said this fall a constitutional amendment had been put on the ballot through which the general assembly would scrutinize the sale of any protected land.
Ehrlich bagged more than 60 percent votes in St. Mary’s County in the 2002 contest, but his support base has apparently been eroded because of the Salem tract affair, according to local political pundits.