Zoning review needs more public input One big item is...

Zoning review needs more public input

One big item is missing from the Carroll County Commissioners' Jan. 23 decision to review the zoning ordinance: public input ("Zone laws to be eyed," Jan. 24).

Do the commissioners actually expect to get a balanced review from the review committee they have chartered, which is stacked with real estate agents, developers, engineers (the servants of the developers) and wobble-kneed county staff? Of course not.

Is this another one of the commissioners' hidden-agenda proposals which will be run past their inner clique of supporters, then sprung at a closed session or made available for a public hearing in the middle of everyone's workday? It smells like it.

As usual, the issue at hand was raised during a staff meeting, wasn't clearly identified on the commissioners' agenda and appears to be a knee-jerk response to some special interest group.

But in this instance, instead of targeting an amendment to benefit only a favored few as they customarily do, all three commissioners seized the opportunity to review the entire zoning code to validate their ill-conceived initiative to rezone hundreds of acres in the Liberty Watershed -- without balanced public input.

After 10 years of allowing commercial uses to supersede industrial uses on land zoned for industry, the commissioners have now set their staff puppets off to discuss amending the code to disallow a fraction of the 50 non-industrial uses now permitted on that land. After 10 years of fiddling with a proposed employment campus zone, the three commissioners have charged their staff with the task of further watering down the decade-old proposals -- without benefit of public input, without a trace of a game plan to attract the right business to the right areas.

Out of one side of their mouths the commissioners bemoan the zoning law which allows athletic clubs, big box retailers and strip shopping centers to locate in the cherished IR zone, while out of the other side of their mouths they call the very same enterprises economic development.

The fact is that they just don't have an economic development plan and the department they have entrusted that issue to is in such chaos that it lacks credibility throughout the community.

Good government has at least two attributes: public input and reasoned leadership. Too bad Carroll County's government lacks both those traits, among many others.

Neil M. Ridgely

Finksburg

Deregulation fosters innovation, choice

The writer of the recent letter "Deregulation enriches the few, hurts consumers" (Jan. 27) seems to have a very selective memory when he writes about the airline industry and California's current power woes. The truth is that lower prices are only one of the many potential benefits of a deregulated industry. Another main benefit is the development of new products and services.

For instance, Federal Express' main product, the overnight package, exists because of deregulation of the U.S. mail delivery system. The U.S. Postal Service had evaluated the costs and benefits of an overnight mail product years ago, but incorrectly determined that there would not be enough demand to make it profitable.

Deregulation has also brought us the cell phone and the fax machine. Whether you appreciate those products or not, they have created whole new industries and provided thousands of jobs.

In the power industry, deregulation is being driven by the same need for new products and the disparity in rates across the nation. In New York, customers once paid more than two-and-one-half times what customers in Kentucky paid for electricity. Obviously, if rates are leveled across the nation, some customers will pay more and some will pay less.

Government regulation of some portions of the energy industry no longer serves a purpose. The only thing the government could protect its citizens from in California was having a new power plant built in the last 10 years.

Thus California has a supply problem and not a deregulation problem. With deregulation, you become a customer who is free to choose -- and not what your local utility refers to as a rate-payer.

Chris Lyons

Eldersburg

Respect isn't won by demanding it

I am deeply satisfied and, quite frankly, in this city's debt for bringing a championship to the place I now call my home.

Having lived in four different major sports towns, I am finally part of what has eluded me for the past 25 years. Congratulations to all and thanks for letting me share in the fun.

I do, however, have one issue with a phenomenon that pervaded this otherwise-perfect football season -- a little thing called respect.

It's a word so valuable to the English language that it repulses me to witness it being brought to the brink of emptiness by the continued misuse and abuse of its meaning by the Baltimore Ravens team, fans and, of course, the media. People who run around needing, yearning for, demanding or claiming they are not getting their fair share of respect, simply do not understand what the word is about.