The Sun’s tripleheader
The Sun editorial today manages to take on three of their favorite topics: defending John Leopold, supporting higher fees, and criticizing the tax cap.
I am not exactly sure what the Sun’s editorial board is trying to accomplish here. The fact of the matter is that Leopold chose to go maverick on the issue of impact fees and decided not to try and work with the County Council on this issue. Furthermore, the Sun’s arguments on the need for higher impact fees leave much to be desired:
And yet everyone agrees that the present fee is woefully outdated; there’s a difference of opinion on how best to cover the costs of roads, schools and other infrastructure associated with new developments.
I certainly do not see a consensus for the need to hike these impact fees. As I have noted yesterday, the Administration needs to show that there is a demonstrable need for the fees that cannot be met by restructuring existing dollars before such an impact fee can ever be considered.
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Which leads me to the Sun’s other point:
For a county government that labors under a property tax cap, Anne Arundel needs additional revenue to meet its infrastructure needs.
We are fortunate that we have a tax cap in this county. I am sure that liberals such as John Leopold would find a way to hike our taxes if such a fee were not in place. But once again, I have seen no need for additional revenue. We as a county do need to find new ways to address issues regarding our infrastructure, however I still have not seen where Leopold has made much of an effort to work within the existing budget framework first.
Anne Arundel County has enough problems under John Leopold’s leadership. The Sun’s cheerleading for higher taxes and fees on Maryland’s working and middle class families does not help one bit.
