After listening to 169 witnesses in 12 hours of budget hearings, enduring 26 hours of work sessions plus yesterday's two-hour voting session, the Howard County Council approved county executive Ken Ulman's fiscal 2009 spending plan 4-1, with a minimum of changes.
"It's a real relief to be at this point," council member Mary Kay Sigaty said after the voting ended on 27 bills and resolutions, plus innumerable amendments. Greg Fox, a Fulton Republican, was the "no" vote, saying that the plan to buy a floor of a proposed Meridian Square office building in Oakland Mills made him oppose the budget.
"I support 90 percent of the projects," he said.
"I'm really proud of the budget," said Jen Terrasa, a North Laurel-Savage Democrat who supported Ulman's ideas.
In the end, Fox and council chairman Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat, were unable to attract a third vote to cut money for recycling bins, reduce the increase in the trash fee, cut spending on the Robinson Nature Center, codify enrollment limits for the Healthy Howard health access plan, or to block the Oakland Mills purchase.
"I'm very pleased. We thought our budget passed intact because every amendment that passed is one we worked with the council on," Ulman said after the session.
Watson added that she was happy with what she got. Ulman dropped plans to sell a 26-acre county-owned lot behind the District Court building in Ellicott City, and an unpopular attempt to allow a developer to extend a sewer line through a small, wooded lot in a residential neighborhood in Ellicott City. In addition, the council agreed with her suggestion to cut the council's own budget by $50,000 and give the money to the school board for systemic renovations, and to limit increased parking meter fines to $25 on Main Street in Ellicott City to help tourism. The fine for violating handicapped parking will go from $150 to $360, however, to compensate.
Watson voted with Fox on a long list of amendments that lost by 3-2 margins, but she said later that didn't bother her.
"I'm not uncomfortable with my position because I feel they represent the citizens in my district," she said.
She and Fox said they are worried about the potential for revenue shortfalls in the struggling national economy, and they sought spending cuts to help compensate.
Although Fox voted against the final budget bill, he said "I do feel that change was effected" through Sigaty's negotiations with Ulman over the Meridian Square purchase. In addition, he said, "civility still prevailed here."
