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.

One river, eight words

Bernie Fowler, the former Calvert County commissioner and Maryland state senator, told his father as a young man that he had no desire to go into politics or to sell whiskey for a living.  He did the former, didn’t do the latter. He also didn’t say he ever wanted to go into public relations, but you had to marvel at his ability as a pitchman Sunday when he attracted 250 people in mid-90 degree weather to St. Leonard to pay tribute to a … river. 

Trifecta of recognition

Yesterday was a red-letter day for the work of planning in Maryland.

Picking up an award for Governor O’Malley

Md Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall with APA award for Governor O'Malley

By Richard Eberhart Hall

I was honored yesterday to accept a national planning award on behalf of Governor Martin O’Malley at the national conference of the American Planning Association, the largest professional planning organization in the country, representing 40,000 members. The APA selected Governor O’Malley for its 2012 National Planning Leadership Award for his advocacy of green policy and smart-growth planning.

On the Frontline of the Septics Battle

Photo credit: Tom Pelton/WYPR 88.1 FM

Rich Josephson, Director of Planning Services for the Maryland Department of Planning, took a ride in the country with Tom Pelton of WYPR 88.1 FM’s “The Environment in Focus.”