Municipalities plan 2007 legislative strategy

BY JAMES RADA JR.
Thurmont News Editor

THURMONT, Md. – Representatives from all of Frederick County’s municipalities and most of the county’s state delegation met Nov. 30 to discuss what the municipalities would like see happen in the Maryland General Assembly in the 2007 session.

While there was little turnover in Frederick County’s state delegation from November’s election, more than 20 percent of the General Assembly will be new faces, according to Stewart Cumbo, first vice president of the Maryland Municipal League. That means a lot of new relationships will need to be formed to get the municipalities’ agenda passed.

That agenda for 2007 includes three items:
• Increased state aid for municipal police protection.
• Local government authority to purchase streetlights.
• Municipal opt-out electrical aggregation.

“With 1.2 million new residents expected in the next 25 years, it’s important that cities and towns are prepared to protect citizens,” Cumbo said.

Currently, municipalities get $1,800 in state aid for each sworn officer, but that amount hasn’t increased since 1999.

“Every year since 1992, police aid grants have funded a smaller and smaller portion of the public safety expenditures,” said John Miller, burgess of Middletown.

In fiscal year 1990, municipal police aid grants paid 10 percent of municipal police expenditures. By fiscal year 2005, the percentage had fallen to 6.9 percent.

MML would like to see the formula revised to increase the grant amount. This would benefit Thurmont, which has its own police force.

Streetlights on wooden poles are owned by utility companies in Maryland. If municipalities could own them, the municipalities could minimize costs by upgrading the lighting systems. The municipalities could also speed up response times for outages. Thurmont already owns its streetlights.

Municipalities would also like to be able to combine to use economies of scale to purchase electricity at cheaper rates than they currently pay. The General Assembly has strongly resisted this idea and would not let a similar bill be voted on last year.

“It doesn’t do any good to look at me when the committee chair won’t let the bill out,” said Delegate Rick Weldon. He believes the bill will die again this year because it won’t get out of committee.

Because Thurmont owns its own electric utilities, it is able to negotiate a better price by joining with three other municipalities. As a result, electric rates in Thurmont have risen nowhere near the level they have in other locations.

“If Thurmont can do it, everybody else should be able to aggregate and save the state money,” said Thurmont Mayor Martin Burns.