Governor O’Malley Signs Sustainable Communities Financing Bill Into Law

2013 tax increment financing law enhances authority for local government funding for community revitalization and economic development

Press Release: Thursday, May 16, 2013; 10:30 a.m.

BALTIMORE, MD – Governor Martin O’Malley today signed into law a bill passed by the Maryland General Assembly that expands municipalities’ and counties’ authority to finance costs for infrastructure improvements located in or supporting a Sustainable Community through tax increment financing (TIF).

ICYMI: We all benefit from transit, and we should all pay for it (Baltimore Sun Editorial, 03/27/2013)

In case you missed it, we wanted to share this Baltimore Sun editorial, Higher gas tax needed to support transit, on the importance of supporting an efficient transit system.

 

KEY POINT– To suggest that spending on public transit is inherently wasteful is not only unfair but inaccurate. Maryland traffic congestion is already ranked among the worst in the nation. How much worse would it be if not for transit? A full bus may take 60 cars off the road, a full rail car 200.

Our view: Gas tax opponents are wrong to claim that spending more on public transit shortchanges motorists (or anyone else living in Maryland) March 27, 2013, BaltimoreSun.com

Baltimore City grew by 1,100 residents in the last year

Maryland State Data Center has posted the U.S. Census Bureau‘s 2012 Population Estimates for Maryland’s Jurisdictions, the annual release of estimates for the 23 counties and Baltimore City.

The Baltimore Sun reported on the increase in population for Baltimore City in “Baltimore’s population up, following decades of loss” (March 14, 2013).

MD Planning Secretary Hall’s Letter to Sun Editor Clarifies the Facts About Septic Law

Maryland Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall

Published in the Baltimore Sun‘s Readers Respond, March 11, 2013, titled “Clean water requires everyone’s help“

I am writing in response to Sen. E.J. Pipkin‘s letter to the editor in which he called me the state’s land planning czar (“O’Malley is waging war on rural Maryland,” Feb. 26). The senator may think such name-calling and his “war on rural Maryland” slogan is strategic for him. However, it is bad for rural, suburban, and urban Maryland. This type of rhetoric damages the “One Maryland” approach that has helped bind all of the state’s communities together for many years. As a matter of fact, the state provides more assistance per capita in rural counties than it does in the more suburban and urban counties in Central Maryland.

“Reclaim the Chesapeake Bay” Public Awareness Campaign

All of us who live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are linked to the Bay by many pathways. Whether we live right on the water or miles from the Chesapeake, our actions have a profound effect on the Bay.