Municipality in CRE

[johnycarcinogen]

Name calling? Does not accomplish much.

The goal of this is to spread the word and start the education process. There will be a petition in the not so distant future. There will be a referendum vote. No single voice or opinion matters. The voters will decide.

Research yourself and spread the word.
Maryland Municipal League - The Association of Cities and Towns

Why are you so afraid of revealing who you are? You talk a huge game and if you start a petition you will have to show your name so why not come out now and let all these people you hope to get on your side know who you are?

 

[ladyhawk]

I have no desire to meet yet another of Eney's minions. And I am done with the current BOD. Ineffective at best and criminal at worst and I won't waste another second of my time with any of them.

I lived in a very successful municipality for 30 years. Included in the municipal area was police, public works and a top notch recreation department among the many services afforded. The question is can it be done here.

I'm sure they did their homework.. Those that are successful usually have the infrastructure and tax base before they become a municipality..

And to June...when you live in a municipality, a portion of your county taxes get returned to the municipality. All you have to do is look at a Maryland tax form to figure that out.

Yes a portion! It could be a sizable one or a very small one. It is dependent on what is collected...

As I stated before nobody has ever figured out what that might be. If the portion returned continues to fall short, the municpal taxes will rise until it can meets its obligation of providing services...

Tax Estimator - Methodology » Research » The Maryland Public Policy Institute

"Except for Baltimore City residents, this application does not consider municipal taxes and spending. If you live in a Maryland municipality, your financial support of government will be higher than what is shown by the Estimator"

State municipality rules differ from state to state...
I watched as Craven County made many promises to the residents of James City in order to get residents to annex themselves into the city.

Problem was that James Cities combined residential and business tax base were so low Craven County needed more money and tried to get other outer lying areas including riverdale, where I grew up to annex.. They refused and have NEVER joined the city.

June

 

[twinoaks207]

Another layer of bureaucracy. Always more efficient!

Without an income source besides income and property taxes a municipality will fail.

Look at the few municipalities in the area. The beaches have a tourist trade and restaurants, and their government is more dysfunctional than the CRE board. Leonardtown has businesses.

CRE has _____________ (fill in the blank)

Really? Not from where I'm sitting -- and that's in my living room in my house which is located in Town limits, and I've been here in this house and this community for over 20 years.

Hopefully you weren't speaking of MY beaches. If so, you've been woefully misinformed.

 

[MMDad]

Really? Not from where I'm sitting -- and that's in my living room in my house which is located in Town limits, and I've been here in this house and this community for over 20 years.

Hopefully you weren't speaking of MY beaches. If so, you've been woefully misinformed.

Are you taking issue with me saying they have a tourist trade? Or they are dysfunctional?

For the dysfunctional part, I can only go by what I read in the paper.

 

[OmyGawd]

Good question.

Amazingly, it is probable that our taxes will go down or at worst stay the same. If we were a municipality we would be eligible for 17% of the residence income tax. We get nothing right now. This is explained in the attached literature.

It will depend on the amount of services the community decides they want.

Ok then who pays for all the improvements that everyone will want, the expanded police force that will be required, do our property taxes go up?, there is no extra state money right now. If you do this what becomes of the fees we pay ow? They go away, that means no money for roads or the amenities unless people want to pony up more money for them. That has to come out of the taxes and the 17% money you expect. The county has to buy off on all this, because it takes money out of their pockets. These are all questions that must be answered or addressed, so that the voters here can be truly informed. There are just way to many questions yet to be answered.

 

[OmyGawd]

Another layer of bureaucracy. Always more efficient!

Without an income source besides income and property taxes a municipality will fail.

Look at the few municipalities in the area. The beaches have a tourist trade and restaurants, and their government is more dysfunctional than the CRE board. Leonardtown has businesses.

CRE has _____________ (fill in the blank)

Amen. Without more sources of income, it will fail. People aren't willing to pay for what they have now, what makes them think a municipality will be any better at not wasting our money. Just more money to be given to another layer of government that will ignore the voters wishes.

 

[twinoaks207]

Are you taking issue with me saying they have a tourist trade? Or they are dysfunctional?

For the dysfunctional part, I can only go by what I read in the paper.

Sorry that my bolding wasn't clear -- I was taking issue with you saying that they are dysfunctional. By the way, NEVER believe anything you read in a newspaper these days without confirming the information via at least one other source and preferably two or more other sources. The fact-checking in newspapers is not what it used to be -- especially with our local newspapers.

 

[exnodak]

The question is simple. Ask anyone living in an incorporated municipality if they would change places with us? Then ask yourself: If we were an incorporated town would we even consider dissolution to become a dysfunctional HOA?

Municipalities operate under constitutional authority. HOA's operate under statutory and contract law and do not provide constitutional protection for its members. Once you sign a contract, you give up your constitutional freedoms.

Where in the process does it say that the municipality boundaries have to be limited to the boundaries of POACRE? Wouldn't it make sense that the Town center be included? After all, it is chiefly our trade that supports it.

Where does it say that the County has veto power? That is simply not true. I've read the law a number of times, and read several case briefs, none of which say the County has any power to block the process unless they can prove harm to the County. Several have tried, but no County has ever succeeded in proving that kind of harm. If the law is interpreted in black and white, no municipality could ever be formed anywhere in Maryland.

In Calvert, the County's role is ministerial, not legislative or judicial.

Revenues coming from State sharing and NOT direct taxation would nearly triple the current cash flow into the community. This is made clear if you just read the Maryland Municipal League documents.

 

[stsssn]

Why are you so afraid of revealing who you are? You talk a huge game and if you start a petition you will have to show your name so why not come out now and let all these people you hope to get on your side know who you are?

I am afraid? You are the first person that has asked me who I am, many people on these forums know me. I am not looking to get "people on my side". The facts speak for themselves. This is not about me or any single person. This is about the community.

I am Terry Hess. I have lived in CRE 6 years. I have been volunteering with CRE for 9 months, after retiring from the military.

Personal email is stsssn@yahoo.com

These forums are anonymous by design. I have no idea who you are. I have been linking and attaching everything that I have said. It is not my opinion it is referenced.

I will be asking POACRE board for permission to advertise community discussions about a municipality at the BOD meeting Monday night (01 March). I will be happy to lead a discussion or provide information to you or anyone else that wants to lead there own. We have to communicate the facts to our neighbors.

There are many details that will have to be worked out prior to a referendum vote. The residents I have talked with so far have said they want a third party to evaluate the community and provide an estimate of costs for selected services. This will include an estimate of tax base vs. desired improvements such as roads.

There are many steps we need to get through before the vote. I just want us to get started. We should be ready by next year at this time for a petition.

 

[hotcoffee]

If Eney & Vajda had their municipality they could save the cliffs and build their own airport but just raising the taxes.... we could only vote them off to get someone else... and we all know taxes never go down

We already have an airport, TYVM

You don't have the hangers to rent out.... and it's been a couple of years since the runway got any attention. Oh and let's not forget that the homeowner on the airport who wanted to build his own "observation tower "[a description by Eney himself] got slapped with a law suit.....

Already the snarling starts?

We currently have the added layer of bureaucracy, it is POACRE. You are correct that we have a small tax base. Yet, POACRE runs services from fees alone. The taxes are used in the county.

Will the municipality fail worse than our current system?

If you have a better Idea I am happy to listen. As I am sure most residents would be.

One better Idea is better management.... get the board president out of the office and let the manager do her job...

The idea includes having the management work with the board, committees, residents, and staff to develop a ten year business plan with measurable short term and long term goals...

The idea includes regular financial reports along with regular reports on the status of the short term and long term goals.

Every single time we bring this up it gets a response from the board.... because board members all want to "save the community" and rarely look at historical fiascos... dooming themselves to repeat them....


Oh and STSSN... I've been in this community for 11 years.... I've been working for this community for 11 years.... there are a lot of people in those meetings you are attending who are directly responsible for the current status of the neighborhood.... and I am wondering if they are leading you down the same path they took looking for different results....

 

[stsssn]

One better Idea is better management.... get the board president out of the office and let the manager do her job...

The idea includes having the management work with the board, committees, residents, and staff to develop a ten year business plan with measurable short term and long term goals...

The idea includes regular financial reports along with regular reports on the status of the short term and long term goals.

Every single time we bring this up it gets a response from the board.... because board members all want to "save the community" and rarely look at historical fiascos... dooming themselves to repeat them....


Oh and STSSN... I've been in this community for 11 years.... I've been working for this community for 11 years.... there are a lot of people in those meetings you are attending who are directly responsible for the current status of the neighborhood.... and I am wondering if they are leading you down the same path they took looking for different results....

No one is leading me anywhere, including you. Again this is not about me or POACRE. This is about the community. In my opinion everyone that has been here for longer than a year is responsible for the current status, including me. I am late to the game, but I am here now and asking others to join me or their neighbors they trust. Educate yourselves on the issue.

If you have better ideas I am all for listening. The members of the community I have talked with so far were only interested in a municipality or a county government option. They do not want status quo with promises. They want action and I am with them. You can choose to participate in this discussion or not. It is going to happen!

The only people that care what happened in the past are the ones still living in it. It is time to move on.

The POACRE BOD have nothing to do with this conversation. They can choose to be a part of it like every other resident or not. It does not matter if you are a property owner or member in good standing. All that is required is to be a registered voter in Calvert County.

We the people control this transformation. We do not have to ask permission or seek acceptance, we only have to exercise our rights.

 

[stsssn]

Ok then who pays for all the improvements that everyone will want, the expanded police force that will be required, do our property taxes go up?, there is no extra state money right now. If you do this what becomes of the fees we pay ow? They go away, that means no money for roads or the amenities unless people want to pony up more money for them. That has to come out of the taxes and the 17% money you expect. The county has to buy off on all this, because it takes money out of their pockets. These are all questions that must be answered or addressed, so that the voters here can be truly informed. There are just way to many questions yet to be answered.

I agree there are to many questions. We are in step 1. Informing the community of the options. Step 2 will be assembling the details or concerns that are expressed while we educate. This is when we will have analysis done by experts which will inform us of the options and their costs. Step 3 will require votes of things like amenities, Police and Municipal government organization. This will take time and every member of the community should scrutinize the effort.

This can be done and has been as late as 1996 in Chevy Chase.

 

[NorthBeachPerso]

A couple of things:

I don't know if stssn meant this or I misinterpreted but all the voters of Calvert County would not vote on the creation of a municipality, just those living within and registered to vote in the proposed municipality boundaries.

TAXES:
If a municipality is formed your overall property taxes would probably go up. That would depend on the level of services that would be provided. The property taxes paid to Calvert County would go down as a municipality has a differential applied to County taxes which lowers those. That is to take into account the services provided by the municipality which are no longer a County function (plowing and road maintenance for example, plus a bunch of others). And of course, property taxes are deductible.
The HOA fees would likely go away unless you have developments within the municpality that has them. Examples from the Beaches would be Burnt Oaks in North Beach and Richfield Station in Chesapeake Beach. Those HOA fees cover things like community property within the development, outdoor lighting on HOA property, parking lot maintenance, etc.
GRANTS:
To get a hard and fast number on those is difficult. North Beach in the last couple years has received Bond Bill funding (special state Legislature grants that are passed out. The state may be having difficulty this year but the Bond Bill money is still there) for the new Town Hall ($250K) and the redecking of the Boardwalk ($250K).
In addition, the Town has received grants from other agencies for a traffic and parking study, replacement of some problematic sewer lines, beach replenishment, study and redesign of the offshore breakwaters (one has sunk to below mean high tide), assessment of flooding and marsh degradation at the north end of Town, for costs associated with the Friday Farmer's market and some other smaller ones.
The Towns also receive State funding for Police and highways, although O'Malley cut that by 90% last year. Chesapeake Beach took about a $300K hit with that cut while North Beach's hit was about $100K.
A municipality also has an easier time getting reimbursed from FEMA and MEMA for natural disasters.
TAX BASE:
The State likes tourism for the various sales taxes, gas taxes, hotel taxes etc. involved. But don't think for a minute that tourism pays it's way in either Town. I know that's heresy so let me explain: Chesapeake Beach nets about $400K/year from the Water Park, a hotel tax from the Resort and Spa and about $500K-$750K/year from the amusement tax on the "slot" machines at the various locations. That's where the tourism money is coming from. If the Town didn't have those the take from tourism would be way smaller, a very, very small portion of the sales tax, the business license fees and the already in place property tax.
North Beach nets about $50K/year from beach and pier fees from non-residents. Again, it doesn't matter what business is in a building all that's received is a very small piece of sales tax and the business license fee plus the already there property tax.
The reality in most small MD municipalities is that a commercial base is at best a break even proposition for that municipality.
ZONING:
A municipality has it's own Zoning Code (in CB and NB the Planning Commissions are volunteer) so it's divorced from the County zoning. It can either be stricter, conform to or (subject to the overall State code) less restrictive the the County's. Until recently the height limit in North Beach for residences was less than in Chesapeake beach, although they just changed their's after that house collapsed last year. CB's commercial height limit is way higher than NB's.
BONDING:
As a municipality you would have bonding authority to incur long-term debt for things like road construction, stormwater management, basically any infrastructure. If I'm not mistaken you really don't have that ability currently as an HOA, hence the issues you have getting roadwork done.
MISC:
In a municipality if a property owner doesn't pay property taxes for two years the property goes to tax sale in May. If I'm not mistaken you guys have a large number of folks who are years behind in HOA fees and to collect those you have to have a lawyer file a civil suit in District Court.

 

[stsssn]

A couple of things:

I don't know if stssn meant this or I misinterpreted but all the voters of Calvert County would not vote on the creation of a municipality, just those living within and registered to vote in the proposed municipality boundaries.

WOW, Thanks for the input.

You are completely correct that the vote only applies to those living in the proposed area.

 

[hotcoffee]

If you have better ideas I am all for listening. .

One better Idea is better management.... get the board president out of the office and let the manager do her job...

The idea includes having the management work with the board, committees, residents, and staff to develop a ten year business plan with measurable short term and long term goals...

The idea includes regular financial reports along with regular reports on the status of the short term and long term goals

The only people that care what happened in the past are the ones still living in it. It is time to move on. .

• Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
• Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.
• Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
• Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.

We the people control this transformation. We do not have to ask permission or seek acceptance, we only have to exercise our rights.

"Current organization theories explain organizational form essentially through selection. That is, instead of focusing on the dynamics of emergence, the field as a whole adopts as its epistemology consequentialism, which emphasizes the relative performances, and hence death rates, of different forms in different environments. The hope of the field is that the performance relationship between form and environment is sufficiently invariant that equilibrium fixed points will be reached, independent of dynamic path. This shared epistemological stance hardly implies that theoretical consensus has been reached. Strong debates flourish over which selection environment is the most powerful; over what is the proper unit of selection; and over what role strategic choice plays in macro selection. All these debates reveal that "performance," the criterion for selection, is far more difficult to define, much less measure, than may at first appear. Such operational difficulties aside, the field's epistemological convergence on consequentialism has had the virtue of permitting debates to be tight and well focused."
John F. Padgett

In other words.... all these people you have been talking to... are they ready for a vote hoping that information will precede the vote?.... or are they so sure the performance will be enhanced that they are ready to move forward?

Remember, sir, this has been tried and failed because the scope was much too large and the WIIFM factor too inconsequential.

 

[hotcoffee]

For your reading pleasure:

Information

On Taxes

Advantages & Disadvantages

Handbook

You will find that June and I have discussed this publicly on numerous occassions.... the only problem I have with the municipality is the "governing politicians" to tax us off of our own land.

 

[stsssn]

For your reading pleasure:

Information

On Taxes

Advantages & Disadvantages

Handbook

You will find that June and I have discussed this publicly on numerous occassions.... the only problem I have with the municipality is the "governing politicians" to tax us off of our own land.

Your last link is about annexation and not incorporation. But good stuff.

 

[ladyhawk]

The POACRE BOD have nothing to do with this conversation. They can choose to be a part of it like every other resident or not. It does not matter if you are a property owner or member in good standing. All that is required is to be a registered voter in Calvert County.
.

If the POACRE BOD have nothing to do with this conversation then why are you going to Monday nights meeting for "permission to advertise community discussions"? Do you need permission so POACRE will be obligated to pay for the costs associated with it? Even if it is held in our clubhouse there is an electric bill... I assume you are doing this as a courtesy and if so, you need only inform them of your intent so they aren't out in left field when members have questions..... A member doesn't have to ask permission. They are not our parents....

In all the research that others have done, I don't ever remember being told or shown the negative aspects that are involved or anything that may become a problem.. and how you can force the Lusby Town center into a municipality if they don't want to be a part of it. What can you offer them that they don't already have?

I'm sick of the syrup and want to hear BOTH sides.
I already know some of us will pay for services we don't care to have or don't use, which we already do. If the county ends up with road maintenance, Catalina will then become a secondary road and be in worse condition during bad weather. Currently it is often in better condition because it is the main road with our crew and not a secondary with the county....

One question I do have is how it will affect the Delinquencies we experience every year. Will we continue to be forced to pay for them (our taxes going up) or will they finally be forced to pay their own way? I just can't see how anything will change from where we are now without it costing more than what we already pay.. except for the tax deductions....

June

 

[winters]

When I moved here from Virginia, I wanted to buy a house in the Ranch club. My wife told me it looked horrible and there seemed to be a lot of trash in there.


















































I'm glad I married well.

 

[ladyhawk]

One better Idea is better management.... get the board president out of the office and let the manager do her job...

I think the better way to put this would be for the board to STOP and allow the General Manager to do the job she was hired to do.

We did not have all these problems when I was president and because I was so worried about our finances, we froze any and all spending while the General Manager kept an eye on the little stuff. We ended up with a surplus at the end of the year only to sit back and watch it disappear. I don't know how long we have been doing this and I don't feel this practice is in the best interest of the association...

June