Commissioner Rothschild: Letter to Other Counties is 'Patently Wrong'

Carroll County Commissioners Doug Howard and Richard Rothschild fired back at the newly formed group Citizens United for Carroll County (CUCC), calling a letter the group sent to other counties about them ineffective and inaccurate.

CUCC sent the letter to 20 other Maryland counties suggesting that what it called the Carroll County commissioners' extreme political views were the driving force behind the commissioners' objections to PlanMaryland. PlanMaryland is the state's sustainable growth plan.

The state released an initial draft of PlanMaryland in the spring and presented it to the Maryland Association of Counties (MACO) in early summer. Carroll County's commissioners have taken issue with the plan, saying it was rushed and diminishes decision-making power at the local level, among other criticisms.

The letter sent by CUCC asks other Maryland counties to "consider stating publicly your desire not to have your concerns with PlanMaryland equated with Carroll County's, so as to not risk being held accountable for supporting extreme positions, which you do not condone."

Howard said that he is not aware of any significant meetings CUCC has had or even how many people are actually part of the group.

"This organization is a tiny core group of people that don't agree with where this board is going," Howard said. "One of them in particular is a disgruntled former employee. They don't represent any mainstream at all; it's not a significant number of people."

CUCC wrote in the letter that "Carroll County's objections to PlanMaryland have nothing to do with clarification of language or other rational considerations. Carroll’s request instead emanates from extreme viewpoints, which your county would likely be embarrassed to be associated with."

Rothschild said the letter "doesn’t refute a single position that we’ve taken.

"It’s a common pattern of what I would call ad hominem attacks because they cannot single out specific policy or factual decision points to show we are wrong."

Rothschild cited a portion of the letter that reads, "The Planning and Zoning Commission has been instructed [by the commissioners] to include these 14 politically charged, totally irrelevant strategic goals in Carroll's plan."

"I’m going to prove to you that they’re lying," Rothschild said as he pulled up a digital copy of the master plan goals on his computer.

The 14 strategic goals listed in the master plan are as follows:

• Preserve the fabric of our communities
• Preserve our agricultural landscape and agribusiness 
• Protect county from urbanesque housing development patterns
• Commercial and industrial tax base and more jobs
• Facilitate small business growth
• Encourage true environmental stewardship
• Promote "Celebrating America"
• Preservation of low-density traditional towns
• Promote responsible cell tower placement
• Transportation
• Preserve the county's historic, cultural, scenic and architectural heritage
• Provide affordable community educational opportunities, libraries and resources
• Promote cooperative planning relationships with our municipalities
• Ensure respect for unalienable individual rights by encouraging community involvement in planning in an open two-way communication process. Provide a balanced perspective on planning goals vs. real-world effects.

"I assert that they [CUCC] are intellectually bankrupt. There’s nothing here that is politically charged and it proves that these people are liars," Rothschild said.

Howard suggested that sending the letters was not a sincere effort to get something accomplished.

"If you were truly citizens united for Carroll County and you were really concerned about the path that we were on, wouldn’t your correspondence, your presentation, be made to the elected officials of Carroll County?" Howard said. "I mean to send out these letters to other jurisdictions is nothing more than a publicity stunt."

Both commissioners asserted that the board welcomes constructive feedback but that CUCC is politically motivated.

"They’re not saying, ‘This is something you supported, here’s where it’s wrong' or even, ‘Here’s something you supported and here’s an alternative,’ they’re just suggesting that if we question things, somehow we’re this crazy group of people out on their own when the facts are exactly the opposite," Howard said. "A majority of other counties also have concerns about PlanMaryland."