Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Monday  •  June 22, 2020

Sweetheart Land Deals, Political Lobbyists, School Redistricting, and Board of Education Elections

By Steven Keller

That wasn’t “sweetheart” enough, apparently, because now there is a proposed deal to sell some land in that area to the same person/entity for just $12,000:

 

This deal apparently was proposed at the specific request of County Executive Calvin Ball (noted at the top of this proposed legislation)

Did you know that the person receiving these proposed deals is a lobbyist to Howard County for three separate entities and was also a member of Calvin Ball’s election transition team?

 

Why does The Howard Hughes Corporation (THHC) need 11 Lobbyists to the Howard County Council? Over 1/3 of the 2020 Howard County lobbyists are from THHC.

 

 

One of these THHC lobbyists is a founder of KO Public Affairs (discussed in this Baltimore Sun article) and Center Maryland Is it a coincidence, then, that Center Maryland sponsored an aggressive advertising campaign last Fall to push for Superintendent Martirano’s & BOE member Jen Mallo’s socio-economic based school redistricting plan?

 

Remember what started to happen soon after the school redistricting plan passed in areas that were redistricted for seemingly unnecessary reasons and brought to under-capacity status?

 

At the Feb 10, 2020 Pre-submission meeting for the Dorsey Overlook development: “…the redistricting of the schools allowed for this project to go back to the stacked townhome family rental design that we had originally intended to do on this site.”

 

 

Are these developers, land-use attorneys/lobbyists and partisan political public-affairs groups truly championing expanded affordable housing and socio-economic based redistricting (their version of ‘equity’ in Howard County) out of the goodness of their hearts?

 

Could the 3 P’s of Politics, Power and Profit be the true motivators driving their actions?

And finally…..Board of Education incumbent candidate Jen Mallo is the only candidate this election cycle (or any election cycle in at least the past 10 years) to have reaped significant favors, donations and endorsements from developers & developer-linked people & groups.

Is Jen Mallo making her Board of Education business decisions based on what is best for ALL Howard County students or are her interests significantly swayed by those political & profit-driven players who have her ear?

Want to discuss this topic with other Howard County residents?

fb1

Got a tip on this or any other Howard County-related issue?

Enjoy what you’ve read and want to support this site & organization?

paypal1
Get new posts by email:

GUEST POSTS WELCOME!

Would you like to be a HoCo Watchdog too?  Fantastic!  Guest posts are welcome and will be considered for publication at any time.  Please review the Guest Post guidelines and email your written post and any associated media (pictures, links, YouTube videos etc.) to: hocowatchdogs@protonmail.com