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From the Desk of
County Commissioner Kirby Delauter
(12/9/2013) In response to a recent letter written in the FNP by John Ford on Dec. 7, I simply had to respond to his nonsensical view if residential growth. He states this BoCC has decreased fees on developers and crafted DRRA's "that limit their responsibility for infrastructure improvements". That is simply not true.
This board enacted mitigation fees that are paid at recordation which is long before the impacts of development are in place. These fees are on top of the impact fees that were already being paid by developers. The DRRA is a mechanism that ensures improvements will be built, quite the contrary to Mr. Ford's misleading statement that it limits what a developer will provide. A DRRA is an agreement
that spells out exactly what the developer and the County are responsible for in the binding agreement.
This BoCC has brokered hundreds of millions of dollars of fees and improvements, along with land for future school sites in these agreements to ensure that new development pays its way. Previous boards changed the rules mid stream on developers and farmers, causing bankruptcies and countless lawsuits. Funny how Mr. Ford doesn't talk about the tax money wasted on the
multiple lawsuits the previous board was engaged in against businesses. Funny how he doesn't mention the wasted taxpayer funds from the Judicial Review when every municipality sued the Gardner / Gray board over land use issues. Needless lawsuits caused solely by the irrational acts, ignorance and arrogance of the Jan Gardner / David Gray Board. The stark difference between the Gardner / Gray
board, and the Young, Delauter, Smith , Shreve board is that the Gardner / Gray board was tied up in over $100 Million dollars worth of lawsuits, the Young, Delauter, Smith, Shreve board brokered $100 Million dollar infrastructure agreements to ensure development paid its way. Tell me now John Ford in which of these scenarios did the taxpayer fare better?
These DRRA's can be compared to your home mortgage. Your mortgage is a 15, 20 or 30 year agreement with your lender, it has stability and terms that you both agree too. Who would want a mortgage that changes every four years when the bank board changes? Your mortgage is a stable agreement, so is a DRRA. That is fair, and that is what this board is all about, fairness to
businesses and fairness to the taxpayer.
Mr. Ford's claims that more funding is necessary to support the new infrastructure just shows his complete lack of understanding in who funds the new infrastructure. I'll be anxious to see what John Ford says when the money comes rolling into the County coffers over the next decade and some liberal elected body chooses to fund everything but basic core government, and they
add countless new government employees with full Cadillac benefit packages. That is where the problem lies John Ford, in excessive, wasteful government spending. I said it during our last campaign, Frederick County has never had revenue problems, they had (key word = had) a spending problem.
I'll close by stating that John Ford is like most liberals, he jumps in pointing out supposed problems, but offers no solutions.
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