Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: October 2004 Maryland Municipal League Fall Conference

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

October 2004 Maryland Municipal League Fall Conference

October MML Fall Conference

November 3^rd, 2004 by Westminster Mayor Kevin Dayhoff (528 words)

Labels: Maryland Municipal League see MML, MD MML Muni League Disclosure, MD Municipal League qv MML, MML, MML Municipal League

By the time you read this, the 2004 Presidential election will be over and hopefully, if there is a merciful higher being, we will have a clear cut winner. Hopefully you voted. Hopefully, it is now safe to watch TV again without getting an instant migraine. Now that it is over, continue the aspirin therapy until the flashbacks of the obnoxious TV coverage of ugly charges and counter charges and counter-counter charges are over. Can you say “Where’s the beef?”

Getting back to local matters, on October 21-23, I had the privilege to join Carroll County leaders such as Suzanne Albert, Laurell Taylor, John Medve, Haven Shoemaker, Jim McCarron, Frank Johnson, Bob Flickinger and Wendy Peters at the Maryland Municipal League’s (MML) Fall Conference. While the MML’s legislative agenda for the upcoming Maryland General Assembly remains a priority, the conference has been greatly expanded in recent years.

This year, over 225 elected officials from 70 municipalities, joined statewide leaders such as Congressman Roscoe Bartlett and Lt. Governor Michael Steele in an agenda that included nine workshops that touched upon issues that are affecting citizens today, including everything from environmental issues, growth and development to the Main Street program. The main issues were growth and planning issues, and that five letter word: ‘water’. The issue just doesn’t seem to go away. Local officials, John Medve and Steve Horn gave excellent presentations on planning issues.

Each year, the MML chooses several priority issues that directly affect the well-being of Maryland’s municipal citizens. The MML then ushers these issues through the legislative process. This year's legislative platform addresses public safety, restoring municipal resources and electric aggregation.

All three issues greatly impact the lives of local citizens, with the biggest priority being the issue of restoring funds that have been lost over the last three years because of problems in the state budget. For the FY 2005 budget, approximately 36% of Maryland’s municipalities instituted or increased cost recoveries or user fees, 45% laid off employees or eliminated cost of living salary increases, 46% delayed construction projects and capital purchases, 48% used money from their savings accounts to pay operating expenses, and 18% increased property taxes.

The most hotly debated issue was municipal electric aggregation. The 1999 electric deregulation legislation specifically did not allow municipalities a reasonable opportunity to pool our citizens’ electric bills in an attempt to minimize the impact of electric deregulation and rising electric bills. The General Assembly has consistently said that it will not even entertain MML legislation to remedy this situation until 2006 at the earliest.

Understanding this, the MML leadership wanted to change the Electric Aggregation Priority to request a Taskforce, instead of remedial legislation. After a floor fight conducted by about 60 mayors, who dusted the cobwebs off the deep arcane corners of Roberts Rules and went on a parliamentary procedure safari trading motion and counter motion for 30 minutes, it was decided to attempt the legislation with a fall back position of a Taskforce. Can you say – more aspirin please?

The conference was time well spent. We learned a lot about cutting edge challenges and creative solutions. It is certainly a never-ending learning curve.

20041103

###########

*****