Both sides in the heated debate over the size of a grocery store in Turf Valley can agree on one thing these days: The battle looks to be on hold until another, more far-reaching question gets answered.
And coming to a resolution on that issue - what constitutes a legal signature on a referendum petition in Howard County - is generating a discussion among public officials that has expanded to include consideration of voter rights.
"The biggest problem associated with all of this is that it is not just a Howard County issue, it is a statewide issue," said Del. Guy Guzzone, a Democrat who presided over a meeting with members of the county's State House delegation Wednesday. "We just happen to be the ones who it fell in our hands because of the current referendum."
The discussion centers on the recent decision by the county election board to invalidate many of the signatures that were collected in hopes of putting the Turf Valley matter on referendum.
"What the decision by the Howard County Board of Elections did was take the Turf Valley issue and put it completely on the back burner," said Marc Norman, a Turf Valley resident who is the primary opponent of the plan to expand the planned grocery store. "The issue at hand is, do citizens have fundamental voting rights in the state?"
Sang Oh, an attorney representing the project's developers, said the grocery store issue should not get lost in the broader discussion. And he says that Norman and his supporters erred in their signature-gathering effort and "are asking the delegation to save them from themselves; that's what is really going on."
Norman began the petition effort after the County Council's November approval of new zoning regulations that allow the developers of the 30-year-old golf community in Ellicott City to triple the maximum allowable size of a planned grocery store, to 55,000 square feet. The developers have said the original size limit, which was approved in 1993, no longer allows for a viable grocery store.
Norman has criticized the project as an example of piecemeal approval made without considering the broader infrastructure needs or the potential negative consequences for shopping centers in the area.
A Turf Valley resident for eight years, Norman met the 60-day deadline for collecting at least half of the 5,000 signatures required. About 22 percent of the signatures were rejected by the election board, but Norman still had just more than 2,600 that were validated. He continued to gather signatures and turned in more than 9,300.
