Strange Bedfellows

Employees of the county Revenue Authority and their families will be treated tonight to a holiday party at the Reisterstown Sportsplex and it sounds like it will be quite the evening.

The facility is a combination ice rink, indoor soccer and lacrosse facility which the authority built in partnership with the county. The authority manages the rink along with a handful of public golf courses.

“We used to have something (at the Towson office) during the day, but a lot of people couldn’t make it and that just didn’t make any sense,” said authority Chief Executive Lynnie Cook, adding that this year’s event is small “but we expect it to grow” in the future.

Attendees will be treated to ice skating, food, turkey bowling (yes, bowling on the ice rink with a frozen bird) and other goodies. (more…)

“I have my clock radio set to WBAL. If there’s anything I don’t want to wake up to in the morning, it’s your voice. How would you like to wake up to your voice?”

~ Les Pittler, Baltimore County Revenue Authority board member, referring to yours truly speaking on the radio.

The Baltimore County Revenue Authority publicly supported a Senate bill that would require a public hearing before the quasi-governmental agency can close, sell or transfer facilities. But, that support doesn’t mean there weren’t concerns.

Don Hutchinson, a current board member and former state senator and county executive, wondered aloud during the board’s March 26 meeting if hearings “cause complications with communicating with the county.” (more…)

It’s in the spirit of the holidays that I can report that Don Mohler and Les Pittler have made up.

You may remember there was some contention after Pittler, a county Revenue Authority board member and longtime council observer, alleged that Mohler, a spokesman for County Executive Jim Smith, pushed him from behind after a Nov. 17 council meeting. (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…)

What happens to the theater at Towson Circle III when it closes for good?

It’s true, ground hasn’t even been broken on the Heritage-Cordish project that includes a county-subsidized and county-operated parking garage, but members of the Baltimore County Revenue Authority board are thinking of the future.

Under the agreement with the authority, Heritage can convert the space so long as it meets zoning requirements and generates at least 70 percent of the parking the theater would have, George Hale told the board in response to a question asked by Hannan Sibel.

The agreement prevents Heritage or a future owner from converting the theater into operations that would be less profitable for the garage, such as a self-storage business.

“As a practical matter, what we all know is that the theater ultimately will close,”Donald Hutchinson said during the board’s Sept. 25 meeting.

Hale and others agreed.

“A lot of them don’t make it as long as they think they are going to make it,” Sibel said.

“On the other hand, they are a pretty good anchor for an investment property,” Hutchinson said.

Heritage was in discussions with up to three theater operators. That number is now down to one. The term of the lease could be 10 to 20 years, Hale told the board.

“And the length of our relationship with Heritage is?” Hutchinson asked.

“Kind of perpetual,” Hale replied.

“It’s like a marriage, only we can’t get a divorce,” Pittler added.

View Larger Map

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.

A war is coming over the proposed conversion of the Gunpowder Falls Golf course into a 200-acre park in Kingsville.

That’s Revenue Authority Board Member and former County Executive Don Hutchinson’s prediction about community reaction.

“There will be a war over it,” Hutchinson told his colleagues on the board at their Aug. 28 meeting. “And the people, the wrench throwers that haven’t started to throw wrenches yet, won’t be seen for several months. And you just have to understand that.”

Hutchinson monologued about the issue for nearly six minutes.

“I speak of this from two perspectives” he said. “I lived there right next door to the golf course for several years. I don’t any more but I lived there, in Kingsville, so I know the community. I lived on Cedar Lane, right around the corner.”

“And, as a guy who’s been through those wars, representing that district in the legislature, that was my district for 10 years, and then having been county executive for eight I can just tell you, there will be a war over this and it will be like Roland Park and the Baltimore Country Club.”

Hutchinson wasn’t alone.

Hanan Sibel, chairman of the authority board, pointed out the lack of a road network around the property.

“I can’t imagine for the life me these people will be very happy with ball games being over at night, that these people will be happy with all the traffic driving through their neighborhoods,” Sibel said.

“They won’t,” added Les Pittler, another board member.

Hutchinson said, “Mt. Vista Road, Raphel Road and Bradshaw Road will all be affected, in my opinion.”

Still, Hutchinson said, those considerations should not stop the authority from transferring the property to the county if it makes sense.

“Again, our conversation has to be what makes sense for the revenue authority and, one, our partnership with the county; two, what makes sense for us from a revenue perspective,” he said. “We have to, in spite of what I said at the outset, we have to disengage ourselves from the political conversation because that’s for the politicals. It’s not for us.”

It seems that neither the county executive nor the council is willing to repeat the past when it comes to one appointment on the Baltimore County Revenue Authority Board.

Five years ago, the council and County Executive Jim Smith squared off on the appointment of one member of the authority board - Towson attorney Leslie Pittler.

The council saw Pittler as their appointment to the board. Smith wanted Baltimore Orioles majority owner and attorney Peter Angelos.

The five-member board is, by County Charter, appointed by the county executive with the approval of the council. Each member serves a five-year term.

Nearly a dozen years ago, the council and then-County Executive Dutch Ruppersberger agreed to make one of the slots a council appointment. Smith initially refused to acknowledge that arrangement.

A brief standoff ensued in which the council kept Pittler on the board past the end of his term by refusing to confirm his replacement. Smith eventually relented and agreed to send Pittler’s name to the council.

Pittler’s term ends June 30. But the council and Smith are playing so nice on this one that each side is waiting for the other to do something. Pittler’s name, or a replacement, has not been forwarded to the council. If his name were sent up soon, the council could vote on it at its July 7 meeting.

If they don’t take it up then, Pittler, who has never missed a board meeting, will continue to serve until a replacement is confirmed.

“From our perspective, it’s a council appointment,” said Don Mohler, Smith’s spokesman. “I’m assuming (the council) wants Les so it will be Les.”

Council chairman Kevin Kamenetz offered a slightly different take.

“My understanding of the arrangement is it’s still a county executive appointment but one that would be made in consultation with the council,” Kamenetz said.

Kamenetz declined to say whether or not the council would ask for Pittler, saying that he had not had discussed the matter with anyone from Jim Smith’s office. But he hinted that Pittler would not likely face a lot of opposition on the council.

“If the executive chose to send the name of Mr. Pittler to the council, I suspect the other council members would not object,” he said.

Pittler was pretty clear about his desire to remain on the job for a third term.

“I’m interested in being reappointed,” Pittler said.