Howard County residents witnessed a preview of 2022 play out in the Columbia Association’s Board of Director elections, when Howard Hughes Corporation and Merriweather Post Pavilion (MPP) funded a dark-money group called “The Rouse Project” to hijack an HOA election.
Developers are gearing up for a vicious election cycle to replace and/or keep candidates who will do their bidding. They are also shaping the narrative on housing using flawed assumptions on housing to push for complete deregulation of zoning and land-use laws.
Three decade after Former County Executive Liz Bobo was defeated by a developer funded candidate, Councilmembers Liz Walsh and Deb Jung, who have worked tirelessly to increase accountability and growth management, are facing similar establishment and developer efforts.
Will we pick leaders who will advance the cause of their special interest backers (against our own interest) and a corrupt establishment or will we pick those who will work to help the residents by improving accountability?
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If you are a person of color running for office in Howard County or were “unsuccessful”in your run, beware. The Rouse Project, a dark-money group, with a stated objective of “increasing diversity”, will employ cheap ad-hominem attacks using your “unsuccessful” run to distract from its steering committee’s lack of transparency on past and future dealings.
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“I have recently received about what I understand to be an effort underway to obtain control of a majority of members of the Columbia Association (CA) Board of Directors (aka, the Columbia Council) in order to accomplish significantly increased development in the area of Symphony Woods. That effort has entitled itself “The Rouse Project.” If this concerns you , as it does me, I suggest that those of you who live in Columbia, get in touch with your Village’s Columbia Association representative and ask him/her if they know what’s going on.”
- Former Howard County Executive Liz Bobo
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This is part 3 of a three-part series on The Rouse Project.
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This is part 1 of a three-part series on The Rouse Project.
Whenever a group of people fitting the profile of the steering committee talks about diversity, hold on to your wallets, because that all they are after. This project is all about gaining control of the Columbia Association for the sole purpose of siphoning taxpayer dollars for private gain.
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Here is the 2020 legislative score tracker, which summarizes the impact of 52 pieces of legislation based on their substantive impact on accountability, affordable housing, the budget, and school quality.
The voting pattern has not changed from 2019. Councilmembers Jones, Rigby, and Yungmann have voted in lock-step with the County Executive to hurt the budget, school quality, affordable housing, and accountability.
The developer coalition has not changed. Councilmembers Jones, Rigby, and Yungmann and County Executive Calvin Ball continue to do developers’ bidding.
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Three things Councilpersons Opel Jones and Christiana Rigby can do right now to effect real change instead of establishing a sham task force:
Join with Councilpersons Liz Walsh and Deb Jung to cancel the Detention Center’s contract with ICE;
Work with the aforementioned Councilpersons to end Zoning Board virtual hearings that disadvantage older adults;
Represent their constituents’ interests and not the County Executive’s interests. The County Council is a co-equal branch of the county government and it should function as such.
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In 2019, the County Council had a chance to vote on at least three pieces of legislation to effectively mitigate flooding. Two of the bills should have passed, but failed 3-2. One of them should have failed, but passed 3-2.
In all three, the majority votes were Councilpersons Jones (D2), Rigby (D3), and Yungmann (D5). The fourth vote is approval by County Executive Calvin Ball.
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While this open letter is to County Executive Calvin Ball, it also applies to Councilpersons Jones and Rigby who proclaimed their commitment to the vulnerable in the immigrant community as candidates for County Council.
In 2018 then candidate Opel Jones said, “the County Council should pass a measure prohibiting Howard County from entering into 287(g) agreement or other agreements for that matter, with ICE…Howard County should not be burdened with federal mandates.”
In 2018 then candidate Christiana Rigby said, “our community ls less safe when we spend county resources on federal issues and trust is eroded in our police.”
In 2018 then candidate Calvin Ball said, “the civil liberties we’ve taken for granted like due process, a presumption of innocence, and equal protection vanish under the cloak of blanket race-based discrimination and profiling.”
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This is part four (2013) of a multi-part case study into developer influence of Howard County’s political parties. For each year, every bill is scrutinized to determine whether it has material impact on zoning and land use laws and to what degree, it at all, does the legislation favor developers.
Among the 94 pieces of legislation analyzed, 38 were rated at least ‘favorable’ to developers. Three were rated ‘unfavorable’. Nearly 79% of the bill - 30 of those 38 - bills were passed on a bipartisan basis.
In 2013, the County Executive was Ken Ulman (D). There were four Democrat (Courtney Watson (1-D), Calvin Ball (2-D), Jen Terrasa (3-D), and Mary Kay Sigaty (4-D)) and one Republican (Greg Fox (5-R)).
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Earlier this month, Councilmembers Opel Jones and Christiana Mercer-Rigby introduced legislation to raise recordation fees. The county executive also introduced legislation to raise transfer taxes.
Meanwhile, the county administration choses not to raise nearly 250 DPZ, DPW and DILP fees, among others, for the 20th year in a row, because it would impact the development community during the economic crisis. Not to mention the Moderate Income Housing Fee-in-Lieu, which is not market based increased by a mere 0.02 cents.
So the economic crisis warrants deferring fee increases on the development community, while the taxpayer is fair game. This is unfair and against accountability.
Email the county council and tell them to vote against the transfer tax and recordation fee increases.
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This is part three (2012) of a multi-part case study into developer influence of Howard County’s political parties. For each year, every bill is scrutinized to determine whether it has material impact on zoning and land use laws and to what degree, it at all, does the legislation favor developers.
Among the 89 pieces of legislation analyzed, 44 were rated at least ‘favorable’ to developers. Only one was rated ‘unfavorable’. Nearly 89% of the bill - 39 of those 44 - bills were passed on a bipartisan basis.
In 2012, the County Executive was Ken Ulman (D). There were four Democrat (Courtney Watson (1-D), Calvin Ball (2-D), Jen Terrasa (3-D), and Mary Kay Sigaty (4-D)) and one Republican (Greg Fox (5-R)).
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This is part two (2011) of a multi-part case study into developer influence of Howard County’s political parties. For each year, every bill is scrutinized to determine whether it has material impact on zoning and land use laws and to what degree, it at all, does the legislation favor developers.
Among the 98 pieces of legislation analyzed, 45 were rated at least ‘favorable’ to developers. Only two were rated ‘unfavorable’. Nearly 96% of the bill - 43 of those 45 - bills were passed on a bipartisan basis.
In 2011, the County Executive was Ken Ulman (D). There were four Democrat (Courtney Watson (1-D), Calvin Ball (2-D), Jen Terrasa (3-D), and Mary Kay Sigaty (4-D)) and one Republican (Greg Fox (5-R)).
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The case study begins with the 2010 legislation actions and will look at every single year until 2018. For each year, every bill is scrutinized to determine whether it has material impact on zoning and land use laws and to what degree, it at all, does the legislation favor developers.
Among the 102 pieces of legislation analyzed, 46 were rated at least ‘favorable’ to developers. Only one was rated ‘unfavorable’. Nearly 87% of the bill - 40 of those 46 - bills were passed on a bipartisan basis.
In 2010, the County Executive was Ken Ulman (D). There were four Democrat (Courtney Watson (1-D), Calvin Ball (2-D), Jen Terrasa (3-D), and Mary Kay Sigaty (4-D)) and one Republican (Greg Fox (5-R)).
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This year’s legislative tracker kicks off by scoring six out of the 10 council bills. The 2020 legislative score summary continues to illustrate two voting blocks.
One block (Councilmembers Jones, Rigby, and Yungmann with County Executive Ball) continues to vote adversely against the budget and school quality, while another block (Councilmembers Jung and Walsh) continues to uphold them.
The tracker continues to demonstrate that Howard County’s political establishment is beholden to developer interests on a bipartisan basis.
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As the two chambers of Congress develop competing proposals on Corona virus financial bailout, it is important that the bailout focuses on people/individuals and not corporations. Howard County’s local Indivisible group, IndivisibleHoCoMD sent out the following to our members of Congress.
Call your representative (find the here) and tell them to focus on individual instead of corporate slush funds.
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On Wednesday, February 26th, 2020, the SAAC voted on a Majority Report. The report seeks to advance the prevailing narrative that residential development pays for itself through direct and implied language that undermine growth mitigation laws. A draft version had at least 14 sentences targeting growth mitigation.
A Minority Report was rejected by the Committee Chair and Vice-Chair, because it counters the prevailing narrative on development.
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The year-end summary of actions taken by the County Council and County Executive is finally here. In 2019, a total of 66 bills and 145 resolutions were introduced. The County Council took action on most of them and a few were tabled.
The legislative score tracker’s focus is on pieces of legislation and resolutions that impact school quality, budget, accountability, and affordable housing. For too long, local politicians have found it advantageous to use the lack of information as a shield to avoid scrutiny over positions taken on pieces of legislation that hurt the public.
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The County Executive’s campaign finance report shows the breathtaking level to which developers contribute to local political campaigns. Since the General Elections in November 2018, the County Executive has amassed over $550,000 in campaign contributions due to 300 or so individual contributions of $250 or more from special interests - mostly developers. The legislative tracker report at the end of 2019 shows his actions have adversely impacted the budget, accountability, affordable housing, and school quality.
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The school facilities surcharge fee legislation was signed into law on November 6th, 2019 after it was approved unanimously by the county council. But it was not before significant chunks of the initially proposed $6.80 per square foot was chipped at by various carve-outs. After the dust settled, we are now able to determine the impact of the final version as signed by the county executive.
There is major progress, but we can’t be complacent. Some people characterize this as a major win for the taxpayer. But, what has taken place is tantamount to a bank that accidentally or intentionally depleted a customer’s checking account to zero, having been caught, has replenished only a fraction of the account after a vicious back and forth appeal, despite the glaring evidence.
Here are a few highlights of the legislation.
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