Strange Bedfellows

County Administrative Officer Fred Homan, not County Executive Jim Smith, will meet with members of the county’s House delegation Friday to answer questions about the county’s projected $144 million budget deficit.

The delegation asked Smith to meet with them last month regarding the budget at the request of Republican Del. Pat McDonough, who represents the 7th District including Cockeysville, Middle River and part of Perry Hall.

The political ramifications of such a request must also be noted since McDonough is mulling a run for county executive in 2010, and Smith is  considering a run for state senate in McDonough’s district. (more…)

Fred Homan’s influence on county budget and policy is widely discussed among county employees and elected officials, who frequently refer to county operations as “The World of Fred.”

But is the former budget director and current county administrative officer so important that his absence could require the council to stop meeting?

The council was halfway through its 18-minute meeting Monday night and had just finished voting on the five bills on its agenda when Councilman Bryan McIntire asked the question. (more…)

It’s not uncommon for Mike Field, an assistant county attorney, to appear before the County Council to testify on bills that correct technical errors in county law.

His Nov. 25 appearance was a little different because the error he sought to correct was an oversight in a bill he wrote earlier this year.

“I’ve come back for a mulligan,” Field, an assistant county attorney, told the council during its Nov. 25 work session. “Is that the right word, a mulligan? I’m not a golfer.” (more…)

County Council meetings in Baltimore County can sometimes become heated. Reasonable people will disagree. Sometimes strongly disagree.

They never get physical.

Depending on whom you talk to, things might have gotten physical between Don Mohler, a spokesman for County Executive Jim Smith, and Leslie Pittler, a county Revenue Authority board member, after the council’s Nov. 17 meeting. (more…)

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If the Baltimore County Revenue Authority transfers the Gunpowder Falls Golf Course, it won’t be because they got a better deal on a related amusement tax reduction.

Les Pittler, an attorney and member of of the authority’s board, said he had an informal conversation with Fred Homan, the county administrative officer, about agreeing to increase the period in which the county would not collect amusement taxes from the authority from three years to four.

“That really isn’t on the table,” Pittler told the board at it’s Sept. 25 meeting.

“It’s never off the table until the deal is done,” countered Hannan Sibel, the board’s chairman.

“It’s off the table,” Pittler said. “I’m not sure why, but my guess is Fred considered the proposal that was sent to him as ‘the proposal’ and he has told me he is in agreement with that and that’s what it will be.”

Pittler added that the county “is not adding any funds to the agreement.”

Last month, the county and the authority agreed, in principle at least, to a three-year moratorium on the collection of amusement taxes from the authority plus eight more years of payments at half the current rate, or about $2.6 million.

The authority bought the Kingsville course in 2004 for about $2.1 million in cash. Since then, the quasi-governmental agency spent $1 million or so on improvements. Not everyone on the authority’s board thought the amusement tax agreement was the best deal.

“We’re willing to cooperate with the county if that park is important and necessary. We’re going to work hard to work it out with them,” Sibel said last month. “I don’t think we can afford to give it away.”

Then, Sibel and other board members hoped the initial deal was a jumping off point for more negotiations. Last week, they learned Homan is not budging from the deal as proposed.

Pittler told Sibel and the rest of the board last week that he believed the county’s offer was final.

“I told (Homan) as far as I was concerned, as one person, that I would be in favor of moving forward” with the agreement, Pittler said.