Public Works

In my travels through downtown Ellicott City yesterday I came across this “repair” job on a utility pole in front of Mumbles and Squeaks toy store.

Apparently the pole, owned by BGE, was damaged and needed to be replaced. The BGE crews came out and installed a new pole and put their lines on it. The other lines on the old pole belong to Verizon. According to Ed, one of the owners of the toy shop, Verizon can’t get a crew out to move their lines until sometime after the holiday weekend.

I think it would be wise to avoid parking along this part of Main Street until that occurs.

How Did This Happen Follow Up

I spoke with Kim Flowers today. Kim is the Deputy Director of Planning & Zoning for Howard County. She put together the Land Plan video I wrote about in a previous post. I asked Kim point blank how Bridget Mugane, the president of the Howard County Citizens Association, came to be featured in this video.

“We thought it would be great to have someone who could speak for majority of the citizens of Howard County” in the video.

I pointed out to Kim that I don’t believe that Ms. Mugane speaks for the majority of the citizens of Howard County. Kim tacitly acknowledged that point.

She admitted that, in retrospect, it would probably have been better to have other citizen views represented as well. She also said stated that she did not believe Bridget was anti development.

Really!

I asked Kim if she thought a majority of citizens were “threatened” by development and she said she did not believe that to be so. I pointed out to her that this is exactly what Bridget states in her video.

“She does? I’ll have to go back and check that.

Good idea.

Kim went on to explain that Bridget has “input on everything we are doing” in her department

No doubt.

I still wondered how it came to be that she was given such a prominent place in the video. Who exactly made that call?

“I can’t recall. I’d have to go back to my notes and check.”

I asked her to call me back after she did that and she said she would.

Stay tuned.

Meet Merkle

Columbia is set to welcome it’s newest corporate headquarters’ when Merkle moves into its new campus in Columbia Gateway later this month. As reported by Hanah Cho in today’s Sun, Merkle will employ about 900 people in Howard County.

Whenever a company of this size relocates it’s headquarters to our county it is a very good thing.

Welcome.

How Did This Happen?

I was looking through the Planning & Zoning Department information on the Howard County website when I ran across this nifty little video on Land Planning. The nine and half minute video is hosted by Kimberly Flowers, the Deputy Director of Planning & Zoning.

About five minutes into the video, Bridget Mugane appears. During her piece, which lasts almost a minute, she proceeds to state that she believes “a majority probably feel threatened by development.”

How did this happen?

For those of you who don’t know Bridget, she is the president of the Howard County Citizens Association, a decidedly anti development group. How come she is given such a prominent posture (more than 10% of the video) in a government sponsored piece on land planning?

This appears to be an outright endorsement of the Howard County Citizens Association agenda by the Howard County government.

Another Rainy Day Rant

Honestly, it really isn’t the foul weather that has me a little cranky today. Truth be told, the weather really doesn’t bother me all that much. Having spent the last four weekends or so putting plant material into the ground, I am happy to have Mama Nature do the watering.

It’s the rainy day driving thing that gets me started. And apparently it is not just me either. Donna, our office administrator, lives in Linthicum. When our office was located in Hanover she would only come to Columbia occasionally. Now she comes to Columbia five days a week. Her question today was, “Don’t people in Columbia use turn signals?”

The answer is not many of them.

That isn’t what compelled me to do a second rainy day post though. It was bad design of the entrance and exit to the small retail center where both Starbucks and Fuddruckers are located on Dobbin Road. Due to the previously posted shutdown of Snowden River Parkway this morning my altered morning traffic pattern bought me by the Starbucks on Dobbin rather than the Orinoco Coffee House on McGaw Road.

Getting in and out of that little shopping center will test any Choose Civility patron. It is essentially an alternating one way street. This morning, as I turned in off of Dobbin Center Way, two other cars were simultaneously approaching the exit on both the right and left side. Thankfully everyone was paying attention and courtesy ruled the day as each took their turn going through the exit/entrance. It’s not that it isn’t wide enough for two cars, it’s that it’s just wide enough for two cars. There is very little margin for error.

I couldn’t help but wonder how that layout got past Sketch Plan Approval.

Slippery When Wet

Yesterday I witnessed two accidents that I am certain were somehow linked to the wet weather. The first was on Dobbin Road near the Starbucks around 1:00 PM. Two mini vans, headed in the same direction, had run into each other. The second one was on Route 29 at the underpass with Route 32. There was car off in a ditch on the southbound side of the road. It was around 2:30 PM.

This morning, driving down Snowden River Parkway, I was forced to detour on to Route 175 (Rouse Parkway) because a tractor trailer had overturned beneath the Route 175 overpass. The police had blocked off all of the westbound lanes so that they could get a crane in there to lift the truck back up. There were several near misses as drivers tried to figure out what they were going to do now that the road was blocked.

Sheesh! The auto body shops must love this weather.

Goodbye to Geary

I’ve recently been told that Karen Geary, the general manager of The Mall, has resigned. You may recall that Karen had the unfortunate experience with the poinsettia tree last Christmas. I wonder if that had anything to do with her decision.

Not many people also know that Karen was an active volunteer in the community too. She is currently serving on the Board of Trustees of the Columbia Foundation. I can attest that this is a very active board. I gracefully resigned as a trustee before my own term expired because I couldn’t handle the additional workload. The point is, Karen has earned some community cred that would indicate that she is not the monster that some, including this old dog, made her into.

In all probability the decision to remove the poinsettia tree this year was made during some budgetary meeting in Chicago. The company had also made a commitment to that Santastic thing so I’m guessing that it got priority when the budgeting got tight. Budeting always get tight in budgetary meetings. The poinsettia tree is beautiful but very expensive.

All of this of course came about before Greg Hamm came to town as the new general manager of Columbia for General Growth Properties. Greg got to look like the white knight riding in on his horse and restoring the poinsettia tree while Karen wore the black armor for banishing it to the Symphony of Lights in the parking lot at Merriweather. The corporate game can be a full contact sport sometimes.

So Karen Geary, this old dog wishes you health, happiness and wealth in your next endeavor. This rounds on me.

In This Months Business Monthly

Sometimes the inspiration for my column in The Business Monthly comes from the local blog scene. This month, as I was working on the third draft of a column about GGP’s long awaited presentation of the Columbia Town Center Draft Master Plan (that’s really quite a mouthful isn’t it) I happened upon the Hayduke blog post about the same meeting. After reading his comments and revisiting my own notes, I found the focal point for my column.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of this months issue, you can read the column here.