Letter to Editor: Your Personal Guide to the Colossal Lakeside Mess and the Way Out

There are eight (8) items of Lakeside legislation pending before the County Council, and together they are an impenetrable, unintelligible mess.  Do you understand it?  Given the possible permutations of Resolutions and Amendments, given the dense and convoluted language, given that paragraphs are inserted here and there in another bigger document by amending Exhibits attached to something adopted four years ago (!)…do you think all five Council Members understand what’s happening?  (I will not name names.)  How about all the other officials and staffers?  Not by accident was all this drafted as circuitously as possible, rather than directly amending what’s on the books today, as MDE directed.

SO.  THAT.  YOU.  CAN.  NOT.  FOLLOW.  IT.

The fog of confusion serves the Lakeside developer just fine:  citizens, and most officials for that matter, can’t realistically understand the all-important details and possible permutations–and at this point, who really wants to try?  It is not by accident that fatigue, frustration and disgust won out long ago.

Do I hear an Amen out there?

But something will happen, and then a pretend Victory will be declared, whatever the reality.  (For example, who realizes that fine print in R347 (and R353) removes any cap on the total size of Lakeside, previously set at 2,874 houses?!!?)  The Council then will promptly shift into a mode of self-congratulations while the developer, based on the mess in front of us at present, will roll right along without so much as a hiccup.  

On the off chance you, Reader, care about this, a “cheat-sheet” is linked (here), as if you might want to follow along.  I have been up to my keister in every little detail of this Lakeside legislation for three years, but on returning from a 5-day trip, found the need to make up a score-card, like at the ballpark, just to put straight what’s what in my own head.  Happy to share…but it’s not pretty.  (You can also access all of the legislation in full right here.)

And a warning: that “cheat-sheet” doesn’t begin to capture reality, because one sentence (and who wants to read more?) cannot possibly explain each item, or spotlight all of the loopholes—built in and inadvertent-– that arise from this cumbersome, belabored and purposefully misleading attempt to tap-dance around something that appears to be a resolution to “the Lakeside problem.”

R338 AS AMENDED

Many people have gotten behind the very well-intentioned “Resolution 338 As Amended,” because at least it seems to promise that the County Planning Commission, for the first time ever, will review the Lakeside project for consistency with our Comprehensive Plan after the first 400 homes are built, and every 400 or 500 homes thereafter.  Oh, were it only so!

We all wish this would do the trick—even if imperfect, that it would provide Talbot something real.  That view is shared by the PWAB, by Planning Commissioners, by two members of the Council, by other groups, by many civilians, and by TIP as well.  But sadly, “Resolution 338 As Amended” is toothless, an illusion.  For the six reasons detailed here, its adoption is likely to be totally ineffective–and it would be harmless too, except that it will lead citizens and officials alike to believe THAT AT LEAST WE DID SOMETHING…when in fact we did nothing.  If “R338 As Amended” is Lakeside’s only check, the developer Nick Rocks will bound along as unfettered as Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch.  

Still, it is possible R338AA won’t garner a third vote anyway, simply because the developer and his supporters on the Council believe they can act with impunity and need not approve anything that even superficially inconveniences the project, which creates any threat of oversight however theoretical.  And adopted or not, R338AA is only part of the story, because it isn’t even intended to deal with MDE’s directives to fix the all-important Sewer Service Map or deal with phasing—so something has to happen there too…compounding the danger.

THE WAY OUT

Folks, there is a solution to this.   

Circulating quietly among some in the County for the past six weeks, including many officials deeply involved in the decision process, is a document that in 2-½ pages of text provides all the needed changes and supplants everything referred to above.  Referred to as Rxxx, this new Resolution (here) is clear, clean and simple, something anyone can understand; it is internally consistent; it is responsive to every aspect of MDE’s directives; it includes no falsehoods, dodges no truth—and it is more than fair to the developer.  Rxxx resolves the Lakeside issues properly, a single amendment to the Comprehensive Water and Sewer Plan as MDE directed.

Rxxx provides that Rocks can proceed to build those first 400 homes as per MDE’s existing permit, but at that point, the Planning Commission will at last review Lakeside for the very first time to determine whether it is is consistent with the Talbot County Comprehensive Plan—and if not, Lakeside would be required to slowdown, scale back, or be modified until it does conform.  (And subject to a finding of “consistency,” Rocks can build out the full 2874 EDUs as he planned, even though as R281 was actually drafted, 1648 EDUs are not legally slated for development at all.)

Unlike the mess on the table, there are no loopholes in Rxxx, because with just 1200 words of clear text (shorter than this LTE), there is nowhere to hide.

Virtually everyone who’s reviewed Rxxx agrees it accomplishes everything needed and has no holes in it—but everyone is also frozen to inaction “knowing” that, albeit the proper solution, it will not garner a third vote from Ms. Haythe, and certainly not from Messrs. Callahan or Stepp.  Everyone stops right there, and because of that fixed idea, it will not be introduced.  With all due respect, that is the mistake.

It is absolutely true that Rxxx will not be adopted if it is not introduced—by definition.  It’s a perfect Catch 22 that we need not accept, this proposition that it can never get a third vote, so we won’t introduce it, thereby assuring it will not be put to a vote and, voila, it will not get a third vote.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS SCENARIO INSTEAD?  

Rxxx IS introduced.  Upon review, the PWAB endorses it and enthusiastically recommends approval to the PC.  Meanwhile, the public also sees how it solves all problems (still leaving Rocks to complete the homes he’s started per the existing MDE permit), and gets behind it enthusiastically.  At the public hearing, the Planning Commission receives broad citizen comment enthusiastically in favor, and the PWAB’s favorable endorsement.  Knowing already the dangers in R347 and 348, and the hollowness of alternatives, say the PC finds Rxxx consistent with the Comp Plan by a notable majority.  (And let’s say meanwhile R347, R348, and R353 and their amendments (check your cheat-sheet) have been found inconsistent.)  

The new Resolution would then come to public hearing before the Council.  Again, citizens speak fervently in support (all but the developer and the Town of Trappe that he influences so significantly); the Planning Commission urges adoption; and the PWAB speaks out as well.  At that meeting (or the next, the intervening weeks full of calls and emails and LTEs in support), all Council Members must look the citizens of Talbot County in the eye and cast a vote.  Say two have introduced it.  Are you certain, in those circumstances, that no third vote will appear?  Are you certain the three Council Members in question are SO committed to Lakeside that she (or he) cannot perform simple political calculus?

But you CAN be absolutely certain that no third vote will appear if this new Resolution is not introduced.

And HERE IS THE KEY POINT:  Assume that Callahan, Stepp and Haythe in fact reject Rxxx, in spite of everything.  (There are those I spoke to today who say it’s a certainty, and based on all I know, I’d say it’s far more likely than not.)  So where are we?

1.  Talbot County would have established beyond a doubt that it is at a stalemate:  the citizens and key institutions involved with land use approvals of one mind, and three Council Members supporting the developer, of another.
2. The State (which a year ago directed the County to correct the Trappe Area Sewer Service Map “as it deems necessary…including Lakeside,” or else!) will get involved in some manner, perhaps very directly…and MDE is no longer the only Department involved, the Moore Administration having been alerted.
3. Given that the State’s directives are still outstanding, “the Lakeside problem” will have to be resolved–but the decisions, in these circumstances, no longer rest exclusively with three Council Members who are “friends of Rocks” no matter what.
4. When, ultimately, push comes to shove, including engagement by the State, one position (that backed by individuals, various citizens groups, the PWAB, the PC, and 2/5ths of the Council) is expressed in a clean 2-½ -page all-encompassing proposal rooted in facts and the truth as respects Lakeside’s sordid history.  For the developer and his 3 supporters on the Council?  Their Lakeside solution is found somewhere in eight (8) opaque, often demonstrably false bits of legislation the foundation of which is falsehood, misrepresentation, and/or fraud…including illegal permits issued by MDE some years ago.  The integrity of each position WILL be central to whatever unfolds.
5. Accountability will be assured in the next Council election.

Folks, I know this seems complicated and hard.  But once Rxxx is introduced, it’s actually easy and straightforward.  Remember, if this is too difficult, we can just give up and choose the easy alternative.  We can support R338AA. If its adopted, we can all declare Victory, pretend we actually did something, and go home.

TIP’s view?  Nuts to that.

Dan Watson, Acting Chairman
The Talbot Integrity Project