In rapidly developing areas, the local planning department is often the thin blue line between healthy growth and rampant sprawl that destroys a community’s natural resources.
That’s why it’s deeply troubling that Worcester County, Maryland – home to Ocean City and the beautiful but fragile coastal bays west of Assateague Island – recently laid off 11 employees, all in the areas of planning, development review, environmental review and permitting.
Something is clearly going on here, and it is not good news for protecting our forests, streams and bays.
Times are hard, and many governments are being forced to cut their budgets. But what’s disturbing about these layoffs is that they were all focused in one area of government -- keeping development in check -- and were not necessary to balance the budget, according to county officials.
“That gives me heartburn,” Worcester County Commissioner Judy Boggs told Bay Daily. “The budget was balanced, and I was against laying off those people…. Worcester County has a 15 percent unemployment rate. And we are going to lay off people, and add to that?”
Boggs, one of the three in the minority of the 4-3 vote May 26 to lay off the employees, said she does not believe the cuts will hurt the environment.
But Joseph Fehrer Jr., a county resident and past president of the Assateague Coastal Trust, a nonprofit environmental organization, strongly disagreed, saying the cuts will make it easier for developers to have their way.
“By effectively removing these checks and balances, it seems to me there is going to be little impediment to developers,” Fehrer said. “A realignment of county government is something that should be done openly and not done in secret, as this was done.”
The Baltimore Sun suggested in an editorial that the layoffs were “an excuse to change policy in a backdoor manner.” The newspaper added: “With this latest downsizing, the county is sending a …message: Protecting the environment is no longer considered so important here.”
The (Salisbury, Md.) Daily Times reported that the cuts are designed to save the county $532,000. “11 employees from the departments of Development Review and Permitting, Environmental Programs and Comprehensive Planning were given a box and told to clean out their desks, before being escorted from the building. Those three departments will be consolidated into one,” the paper reported.
The vote was taken in a closed door meeting of the county commissioners, according to the Daily Times.
“While staffing cuts require autonomy, decisions regarding consolidation of agencies as crucial to this county as our environmental and planning departments should be a completely open and transparent process by the commissioners,” Assateague Coastkeeper Kathy Phillips said in an article in The (Ocean City) Dispatch.
What do you all make of this? Does anyone out there have any insight into what is going on in Worcester County government?
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