Calvin Ball

Ball selected to fill Howard council vacancy
Metro Digest
Originally published April 19, 2006

Calvin Ball, a 30-year-old Columbia resident, was chosen from among four candidates last night for appointment to the five-member Howard County Council. He will be sworn in tomorrow night.

Ball, a candidate for the seat in 2002 and again this year, was chosen unanimously by the county Democratic State Central Committee to fill a vacancy created March 31 by the resignation of east Columbia Democrat David A. Rakes, who said he gave up the seat for health reasons. Ball recently served as community development officer for Oakland Mills village.
His selection is expected to give council Democrats a 3-2 voting majority, which could lead to passage of a smoking ban in Howard's bars and restaurants. A bill to that effect is pending before the council.

"I've got a lot of work to do," Ball said, after his selection.

Lights Out In Maryland

I share with you, dear reader, a perspective (that I happen to share) from the Wall Street Journal.

Lights Out in MarylandApril 15, 2006; Page A6

No homeowner would be overjoyed to hear that his electric bill is going up by 72% on July 1. In an election year, that just might make him mad enough to blame the politicians seeking his vote.
So it goes in Baltimore and surrounding areas in central Maryland, where 1.2 million homeowners were informed recently that they would have to shell out an average of $743 more a year for electricity, and where the Governor and every member of the state legislature are up for re-election in November.

But if lawmakers are worried, they have only themselves to blame. In 1999 the assembly imposed price controls as part of legislation deregulating the state's electrical power industry. Hoping to avoid taking political responsibility for that decision, the legislators froze residential rates at 1993 levels minus 6.5%. Seven years later that political bill is now coming due.
The legislature's ire has focused on Constellation Energy Group, parent of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., the state's largest electric utility. In an effort to blackmail the utility into agreeing to below-market rates, it tried to block a planned merger between Constellation and Florida Power & Light that has nothing to do with the rate increase. Not only was this probably unconstitutional — the U.S. Constitution protects interstate commerce — it was arguably illegal under state law. The assembly wanted to bypass the Public Service Commission, the regulatory body created nearly a century ago with the specific aim of insulating public utilities from politics. The commission is currently evaluating the proposed merger.

But the politicking didn't stop there. Legislation passed both houses requiring the merger to be studied by Attorney General Joseph Curran Jr. Mr. Curran happens to be the father-in-law of Martin O'Malley, the Democratic Mayor of Baltimore running for governor against Republican incumbent Robert Ehrlich. The legislation called for Mr. Curran's office to report back in January — a convenient two months after the election.

The effort fell apart last week when the Governor vetoed the legislation as well as a second bill stripping him of the power to appoint members to the Public Service Commission. The Governor then worked out a deal with the House to reintroduce price caps (with moderate increases) until 2009. But the Senate wouldn't go along so neither the compromise bill nor an override of the vetoes passed before the legislative session expired on Monday. Governor Ehrlich is now trying to work out a deal for lower rates with Constellation, while also considering calling the legislature back to Annapolis. But why bother? The longer the legislature stays out of session the safer everyone is.

Constellation is the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in Baltimore. It employs hundreds of people at an energy trading floor downtown — jobs that could easily be moved to a friendlier state. After this experience, it's not hard to understand why Constellation might want to do just that.

This episode is just one more example of how Maryland is developing a reputation for being a bad place to do business. Within the past year, the legislature has increased the minimum wage and foisted a new health-care tax onto Wal-Mart. During his four years in office, Governor Ehrlich has had to beat back $7.5 billion in tax hikes in a state with a budget of about $29 billion. The message being sent to job creators is clear: Lights out.

2007 Operating Budget

The Operating Budget is in. This only represents General Operating Funds. If you want a more detailed explanation of the additional $445.8M in spending and revenues you will have to wait for future postings. Suffice it to say that it is not suffeciently detailed in the budget documents, you would have to go to the County Financial Statements to drill down.

The proposed budget includes $67.9M in new spending fueled by $50M in increased revenues from Property and Income taxes. I have to say that I am disappointed in the $9.4M tax cut proposal – I think Mr. Robey could have done a lot more for tax payers considering the increases in property tax assessments.

Couple of notes here.
County Administration is getting $5.6M more than they requested
Board of Elections is getting $300K more than they requested
States Attorney is getting $400K more than they requested
DPZ is geting $160K more than they requested
County Executive is getting $115K more than they requested

I will be interested to learn what happened between the department budget request period and the proposed budget. That $6.5M could have been used a number of other ways such as:

Fully fund the Board of Education's request
Deeper Tax Cuts
Fully fund Public Safety

Headings
2006 Approved: County Council Approved Budget
2007 Robey Request: What the County Executive is asking for
$ Increase: Increase or (decrease) from 2006 approved over 2007 request
% Change: Percentage difference between 2006 approved over 2007 request
% Requested: Percentage difference between department requests and CE Request
Bold: CE requests larger than Department Request