Anderson Campaign Forum Paid For By Taxpayers

By Kenneth C. Rossignol

LEONARDTOWN --- Several years ago in an attempt to keep a campaign pledge to stay in touch with his constituents, former County Commissioner Chris Brugman, a Republican, threw a card table and a folding chair in the back of his pickup truck and went down to McKay’s Foodland in Leonardtown and borrowed the store’s sidewalk where he set up shop taking complaints about county government services and fielding suggestions on how to better improve the county.

In the last two weeks, as next year’s election approaches, Commissioner Joe Anderson (D. Drayden) decided he better get in touch with his constituents, as a recent review of one month’s several hundred dollar cell phone bill, showed that the taxpayers paid for 217 calls, where only 4 of the calls went to phone numbers in Anderson’s commissioner district.

Therefore, Anderson held two public meetings, one in Valley Lee at the firehouse and one last week at the Ridge American Legion Hall.

The chief difference between the way Brugman held his only meeting with his constituents and Anderson’s is that the taxpayers footed the bill for the event put on by the liberal Democrat while no taxpayer funds were expended for Brugman’s one two-hour meeting with "real people", as opposed to the people who come to monthly public forums which are held on the first Tuesday of each month.

In Anderson’s campaign "get to know his constituents" forum held in the last two weeks, it might be hard to compute the value of the effort put on by the county employees.

Full color flyers promoting Anderson’s campaign forum were produced by county workers on county time.

Augmenting the cost of making the flyers was the effort put forth by two very well paid county employees, the Assistant to the County Administrator Charlene Newkirk, who makes an annual salary of over $50,000 and Public Information Officer Linda Price who makes over $60,000.

Anderson could have used campaign funds to make the flyers and used campaign workers to distribute them, but he didn’t.

County public information office staff wrote up a letter to the editor for Anderson, requesting the attendance of citizens at his event, another service not supplied to candidates who may want to run against Joe Anderson in next year’s election.

Where Brugman hauled his own card table and chair over to McKay’s for his meeting with his constituents, Anderson dispatched a crew of county workers to set up tables and chairs at the Valley Lee firehouse the day before his election event on Jan. 17th and the next day they returned to take them down.

Anderson could have used campaign workers or family to perform this chore as he drives past the firehouse every day on his way home, but as with his excessive use of the county-paid cell phone, the sky is the limit.

Former County Commissioner Frances Eagan, a Republican elected in 1994 from Lexington Park, held a similar election-minded meeting with voters a year before her intended run for reelection in Lexington Park in 1997 and at that time she was questioned about her use of county stationary for promoting the event.

Eagan held her "meeting" in a Lexington Park coffee shop at tables already set up by the business and drew in about 8 citizens to talk about county affairs. There was no cost to the county for Eagan’s meeting.

Former Commissioner Larry Jarboe remembers that Eagan was criticized for her use of county paper and she offered to pay for it herself, a cost which should be dwarfed by the county resources used to pay for Anderson’s early campaigning.

"I didn’t use county funds for any meetings when I was commissioner," said Jarboe, "I was always going to county meetings and meetings of county citizens during my term in office, I didn’t feel I needed to have my own in addition to the dozens of times each month that I met with people all over the county."

One person who attended Anderson’s meeting remarked that Anderson had not shown up in Ridge since he was elected and when he did he showed up with a list of subjects to report on quickly and get out of the way.

Still Anderson was grilled on a list of questions from why he raised real estate and income taxes to record levels to a proposal to institute 20 acre zoning in St. Mary’s County, a zoning which will be the most restrictive in Maryland. In addition, Anderson had the audience salted with campaign supporters.

At the first meeting, residents of the Hunting Quarters townhouses showed up to complain about the Callaway commercial development, which Anderson attempted to derail last year.

The commercial zoning designation and use which has been approved in Callaway mirrors that of other commercial crossroad villages and is in keeping with desires expressed in community surveys and public meetings over the past 30 years.

The sentiment to not have to travel to the Lexington Park and Leonardtown commercial districts for everyday items has been widespread over years.

But new residents in Hunting Quarters subdivision in Callaway, like new residents in any rural county where growth has been more of a long-term goal purposely funded by intensive economic development strategies, are not pleased to see pastures turned into parking lots and new stores replace cedar trees as the long-range plans come to fruition.

Like opportunistic politicians everywhere who wish to harness perceived political displeasure with growing pains, Anderson has attempted to lock into the steam generated by irate townhouse residents who find the bucolic rural Callaway life-style changing to suburbia.

Anderson, who lost a race for commissioner to Brugman by over 3,000 votes when he moved in 1994 to Redgate so he could attempt to win election, moved back to the south end of the county in 1998 so he could challenge the witless incumbent, Republican Paul Chesser.

Anderson won the 1998 race by a large margin proving that even he could beat Chesser, a commissioner who was so inept that he often slept during official meetings and voted against his own motions.

The use of county staffers, materials and resources is probably legal, but may not be without it’s political pitfalls as voters learn about the use of county funds to fuel Anderson’s thinly disguised political campaign rally.

The payoff of the first of Anderson’s meeting in which he was warmly greeted by radical environmentalists who supported his initiatives to block the Callaway commercial development was counter-balanced by the large group of citizens who reportedly took Anderson to task in heated exchanges for his support of the proposed 20 acre zoning law.

Those who were at the Ridge meeting thought the 20 acre zoning issue had bitten Anderson in the rear end thereby making him the lightning rod for anger over a complete and total devastation of property values for farmland instead of building up warm fuzzy feelings of political paydirt.

As more people learn of the Draconian land grab which will take place as soon as this Board votes on it, the hue and cry will become much stronger and Anderson may never again schedule another meeting in his district, which consists of the county south of Lexington Park to Ridge, Park Hall, Valley Lee, Piney Point and Callaway.

About 1987 the commissioners first began to conduct public forums as part of their regular meeting schedule, with the forum held at 7 pm to accommodate citizens who are at work in the daytime.

The forums began to be dominated by special interest groups which showed up in force to support or oppose specific proposals before the Boards, so much so that the current commissioners attempted to end the forums when they took office.

After facing a firestorm of criticism for their attempt to end the public forums, the Board instead got crafty and decided to end the free-for-all subject matter at the monthly ass-whippings and began to set a topic to be discussed at the forum.

Oddly enough, instead of just using time at the podium as they wish, citizens have for the most part, gone along with letting the commissioners tell them what to talk about.

Brugman became a talk radio host on the afternoon on WPTX AM in Lexington Park, conducting sessions on the air in which he would regularly rake the current Board over the coals with criticism of their actions.

Commissioner President Julie Randall reportedly said that she would pressure advertisers of the radio station as long as he was on the air. In addition, the commissioners refused to go on the air as previous Boards had on a regular basis.

After about a year, Brugman was pulled off the air as a talk show host and was relegated to playing old Elvis records in a oldies format in which political talk was non-existent.

Last week, Brugman was terminated just two weeks before the station was set to be sold to it’s competitor, Roy Robertson, who now owns all four radio stations in St. Mary’s County as well as the only station in Charles County.

For the record, space in this newspaper for guest columns has been offered to the commissioners, just as space is provided to Sen. Roy Dyson and Congressman Steny Hoyer and was provided to Brugman and Larry Jarboe when they were commissioners. Only Commissioner Dan Raley has utilized this offer since taking office and he has done so only once.

It appears the Board of Commissioner prefers to use tax money to "communicate" with the voters and doesn’t want any of their words where they can be clipped out and used against them in the future.

For the record: the current Board of Commissioners has raised taxes to record levels, setting tax rates to their highest levels in history.