Dudderar Advocates Legal Battle,

But Some Fear Her Firm Will Benefit

By Ahmar Khan

ST. MARY'S TODAY

LEONARDTOWN --- Overzealous and confident, Deputy St. Mary's County Attorney Heidi Dudderar measured responses to the presentation she gave the St. Mary’s Board of County Commissioners at their Tuesday meeting, with the room taking on the air of the Circuit Court, a destination she was advocating.

“Yes, attorneys, they are bad,” Dudderar frankly admitted and shook her head when caught off-guard as Commissioner Tom Mattingly (D. Leonardtown) in a question, obliquely hinted she would be part of a prospective team of lawyers in the future for the expensive legal battle for a likely senior tax credit issue soon to find it's way into the courts.

But Delegate John Bohanan (D. Lexington Park) warns this action would be horrible waste of taxpayers monies.

Dudderar argued in an impassioned manner to take the senior credit issue to the court immediately, raising questions in the minds of some officials if that really happened would the private law firm hired to press the case be her present boss John Norris? Both Norris and Dudderar have announced their plans to form a new local law firm and be in business, in private practice, just in the nick of time to take this case.

“We need to defend our ordinance," said Commissioner President Tommy McKay (R. Hollywood). "We have to fight or at least argue for it.” 

McKay announced his views at Tuesday’s Board meeting, conveying an impression he might have been burning the midnight oil along with County Attorney John Norris, Dudderar and Company for his newest plan to propel the county into yet another lengthy legal action which saps the wallets of the taxpayers.

McKay made it clear that in the eventuality of such a lawsuit, a private attorney would have to be employed to do the job.

Commissioner Dan Raley (D. Great Mills), though repeating his fence-sitting on the issue, did question why any outside lawyer should defend the case when the county had already employed a lawyer at a huge salary of more than a hundred thousand dollars.

Dudderar was advocating taking the attorney general’s office to court, sooner rather than later, only Mattingly, among the commissioners, questioned the logic of fighting the case and said if the case was fought the outcome would be a couple of years down the road.

Mattingly pointedly asked Dudderar what were the chances of winning the case in court, and Dudderar said she could not provide any solid answer to that question.

Bohanan, in a phone interview with ST. MARY'S TODAY from Annapolis on Tuesday evening, expressed surprise why the county should be pushed into an expensive court battle, when many avenues were still available. “First of all it appears to be a waste of money.”

Bohanan said there were many inexpensive avenues but surefire solutions are available to the county to deal with the issue.

“One way is to rewrite and readopt the local ordinance. And this might avoid any of the sunset or constitutional questions that currently overshadow this program,” he said.

He said the House of Delegates had tried to get St. Mary’s County to avail themselves of many different resources available for them. Bohanan said the issue can be resolved if the St. Mary’s County officials sat with tax experts from the legislative offices, from the Attorney General’s office and the Governor’s department of assessment and taxation.
“I am not sure why none of these possible solutions are being pursued,” Bohanan said.