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Originally Posted by willie Oz,
What would have been the benefit to St. Marys if developers got the Salem Tract? It was reported that it was at a rediculously low price, was that correct? |
St. Mary's County would have received a very large land donation (50 acres I believe) for a school site. Millions of our tax dollars will now be spent to acquire land for this project (high school) which is in the BoE's CIP Budget for 2012 - 5 years from now. So $2-3 million dollars of your money and mine is now allocated in 2009 for High School site land acquisition.
The mistake that was made is that Hackerman was going to pay the same price paid by the state several years ago to acquire the land without consideration for property value appreciation. This is where the deal fell through, and probably rightly so. The process worked - he should have paid fair market appreciation for the land at today's value, and that didn't happen - so the Board of Public Works derailed the deal.
There is no concrete reason to vote for this ammendment. It is nothing more than a political ploy to dillute the power of Governor Ehrlich should he win re-election, and more unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape for the State of Maryland.