Platform Outline-Buzz Beeler

Economic viability- The east side of Baltimore County experiences a high unemployment rate, high commercial building vacancies, and the highest percentage of rental properties vs. home ownership in the County.

• I propose to create a blue ribbon panel that will examine the most beneficial development of the former Bethlehem Steel property now owned by Baltimore County in Edgemere.  The property is ideally situated with access to the interstate, zoned manufacturing, which will allow industry to develop it with very little impact on any residential communities.  Focus should be placed on job creation that pays livable wages and benefits. This property has sat idle for over 20 years, it’s time to make it viable for sustainable job creation and tax benefits for the County.

North Point Boulevard, Merritt Boulevard and Holabird Avenue are the principal gateways into the one time economic hub of the east side of Baltimore County. These roadways are littered with vacant buildings, junkyards, and a proliferation of ugly unkempt properties with tasteless signs that give every indication of “We don’t Care”.

• I propose to landscape the highways, regulate the signage, remove the junkyards, and seek tenants for the vacant buildings or have them demolished. Review the zoning of existing properties   to determine the most beneficial mix for economic viability. We need to project an image that we care and make the area attractive for investment and prosperity.

Baltimore County has the second highest unemployment rate in the state of Maryland with 7.8% (as of 1/15/2010). The 7^th councilmatic district of the county has been hit much harder than the rest of the county.

• I propose to open a jobs center for county residents that will work with unemployed residents to access their skills, identify areas of improvement and work with the community college to offer resume building classes, update skills, and redirect skills in new opportunities. Local employers will be encouraged to lend their expertise and seek those individuals that meet their needs.

• I propose to give Baltimore County residents preference in hiring for all Baltimore County jobs where the applicants meet all the eligibility requirements for the position.

Quality of Life – Graffiti, rats, trash and crime and juvenile gangs are all problems that besiege the east side of Baltimore County.

Baltimore County presently relies on a toothless, unaccountable Code Enforcement Agency to respond to residential complaints of property neglect, trash, rats and other such problems. Many community members have given up after repeated complaints with perceived unresponsiveness or inability to quickly remedy the problems. The resulting frustration with government has led to many outbursts at community meetings and anguish with our citizens. Unresponsive, unconcerned property owners and landlords both commercial and residential that continue to skirt the poorly written laws with little enforceability and a quick means of resolution.

• I propose to write a comprehensive set of laws that address the central issues surrounding vacant and or neglected commercial and residential properties, including rats, trash, appearance, decay and public safety.

• I also propose to create a separate county agency responsible for quick enforcement of these laws with accountable to the community. Enforcement officials will be highly professional, visible in the community working the hours and days necessary to get the job done. It will not be daylight, Monday through Friday job. Enforcement officials will be required to attend community meetings with results of their activities.

Crime - The seventh district is plagued with juvenile crime, juvenile gangs and an unresponsive and lethargic juvenile justice administration. Case in point:  I walked into the booking area of the North Point Precinct when I noticed a juvenile suspect being finger printed for Grand Theft Auto.  The juvenile suspect verbally demanded the officer speed up the process because he had to be home for dinner. Need I say any more?  The system is broke and needs to be fixed by holding juveniles strictly accountable for their criminal conduct.  This means an overhaul of the juvenile justice system.  I believe it is important for juvenile offenders to be detained and evaluated, until such time a hearing can be held to determine the potential threat of releasing that juvenile back into the community.  We must stop this revolving door that currently exist in the juvenile justice system.

• If elected I will introduce legislation to make it a law that anyone doing business with Baltimore County utilizes the E-Verify system in the hiring of immigrant workers. Additionally, criminal background checks will be run in the hiring of any worker doing contractual work for the county.  The security of our communities is more important than companies hiring cheap labor.   The current system recently put into place is a “Non binding resolution,” and not law.
• Another step will be to give the Baltimore County Police Department the authority under Senate Bill 287-g to deal with illegal immigration.   This Senate bill means that after training from the Immigration Service, local police departments will have the power to deal with immigration issues.
• I will work to have the police department return to community policing.  This will put the officers back into the communities and form a trusted relationship with the citizens of that community.  Community policing allows for an element of problem solving at the police officer level.  This problem solving will include the police officer’s ability to deal with code enforcement problems.  Effectively, this added tool of addressing code violations at police patrol level, would help in reducing crime and the constant blight that is present in our neighborhoods.  This will also aid our efforts to reduce gang activity in our communities.Had this policy been in place, the persistent problem in the Berkshire community would not have reached a point requiring an immediate police response.  The officers assigned to that community would have known about the ongoing problem of the drug dealing, disturbances, and the operation of a possible dog-fighting ring being run by these suspects.
• I will form a team of police and code enforcement officers to work full time in the 7th District. Often times these types of problems overlap and this will allow for a quick response to deal with these issues.
• I will work to have non-violent community service sentenced offenders work to clean our streets of the trash that has added to the rat-infestation problem.

Ultimately, throughout my 39 years of police work, I have learned the best approach to law enforcement is education first followed by strong enforcement.

We must take care of our citizens to the best of our abilities.

Taxes – The current and past administrations with the cooperation of the County Council have presented irresponsible budgets that have relied on over-inflated property assessments, income tax revenues that depended on a low unemployment rate and a generous return on tax payer investments.  In the past 10 years the county has increased the budget considerably more than the consumer price index (30.6 percent budget increase from 2003 to 2007, the inflation or CPI for the same period was 12.5 percent. ). The current and past administrations have also purposely underestimated the tax revenues coming into the county thereby allowing the excess revenues to be spent without going through the budget process.  This has allowed a huge “slush” fund to be used for councilmatic and County executive pork projects such as the York way project in the Seventh District.

Baltimore County finds itself in a much better position financially due to the purposeful underestimated income. Historically this has caused an “over taxed” populace primarily in the area of property and income taxes.

• I propose to re- create the Baltimore County Office of Finance which existed previous to the Ruppersberger regime. The independent Finance Office shall render unbiased decisions in regards to projecting County expenses and revenues and making final decisions independent to the County’s Budget Office. Currently the Budget Office performs both functions, which is not in the best interests of an efficient and honest government. The underestimates of revenues and irresponsible slush fund and resulting pork would disappear.
• I propose to submit a “real budget” based on all revenue sources with a realistic projection of growth that would take into consideration all appropriate categories and utilize the most current federal, state and Wall Street projections for the economy.
• I propose a thrifty budget that would reduce property taxes and attempt to reduce the state piggyback tax on income. The people have to live within their means so should government.

Education – The education budget consumes approximately half the county budget (1.3 billion education vs. 2.7 billion total co. budget). The Governor appoints the School Board, the Superintendent of Schools is appointed by the School Board. They have a separate budget that is beyond the control of county elected officials. The Superintendent and School Board have no accountability to the elected officials or voters of the county but account for half the county’s budget. The progress of our children’s education is at the mercy of those who have no accountability to the voters.

• I propose that the Baltimore County School Board be appointed by the County Executive with approval of the council. The appointments would bring more accountability and budget control back to our elected officials. The continued unresponsiveness of the School Board to parents and elected officials would stop. The school system would be forced to be more transparent. Projects such as the recent AIM program, a program to track student progress that was overwhelmingly not supported by teachers and parents would be less likely to move forward without parental and teacher input when there is accountability to the people.

County Council Pensions – The current level of County Council pension compensation is way out of line with compensation received in the private sector. No County employee receives such a generous pension for a part time job. Council members should seek office out of a commitment to serve, not to enrich themselves.

• I propose to scrap the current council pension system for one that reflects similar compensation received by part time county employees.

Comprehensive Zoning Map Process (CZMP) – The current process of addressing zoning changes in Baltimore County every 4 years promotes a misunderstanding of the zoning process, allows the council person in the district impacted to weld enormous power to approve or disapprove the process, leads to developers giving campaign contributions and other favors to council persons and leaves the tax payers with a sense of  “the developer has the final say”.

One only has to look at the current state of development in Baltimore County with its huge volume of vacant commercial buildings, masses of apartment projects that border on slums, miles and miles of strip shopping centers, traffic congestion, school overcrowding and demands on public services to realize the process only serves to enrich the developers and campaign coffers of the council.

• I propose to conduct zoning changes as a part of normal business in the council. The vote of the entire council would be taken and not the councilperson’s district impacted having final say. The council would conduct business on the same night bi-monthly with all proposals to be published on the web at a minimum of 30 days before the hearing. County agencies would be required to submit impact statements of the proposal to include traffic, public safety, schools and social services. A real cost to government would be required before the final vote could be taken. The taxpayers have a right to know what development and zoning changes are going to cost them. Council members would be required to reveal if they have received contributions from the developer proposing a zoning change. The taxpayers have a right to know if their councilperson is voting on the merits of a zoning change or the merits of rewarding their contributors.