Two things were apparent at the candidates forum in Ocean Pines last week: one, just about everyone has something to say and, two, what they are saying is that we all know what we want, but what we don’t know is how to pay for it.
Virtually anyone who has driven on Route 589 would agree that the traffic congestion on those two lanes has reached the level of intolerable and is galloping toward flat-out unsafe.
Still, it’s a matter of money, or the lack of it, that prevents anything from happening, just as financial issues are standing in the way of a new elementary school at Showell and are hampering county efforts to boost the economy.
The fact is that state government is not just taking every penny it can get, it’s keeping it rather than returning some of that revenue from whence it came, which in Worcester County’s case, is a fair amount.
While it’s too simplistic to say the expense of state government and its programs has soaked up all its revenues, since residents benefit from a number of these programs, it is true that the bulk of the state’s expenditures go toward services and projects for the bulk of Maryland’s population. And that isn’t us.
Candidates for county office can say what they want about arguing our case to state officials, but it’s not as if they would do so backed by enough voters to give state politicians pause for thought.
As County Commissioner Virgil Shockley observed at the forum, dealing with state sometimes entails making such a nuisance of yourself that officials at that level grow weary of hearing it and give you something just to keep you quiet.
In the meantime, all residents can expect of their county commissioners is that they be good stewards of the money they do have, while giving them a little bit of a break when it concerns projects that only can be done with money they don’t have.
Virtually anyone who has driven on Route 589 would agree that the traffic congestion on those two lanes has reached the level of intolerable and is galloping toward flat-out unsafe.
Still, it’s a matter of money, or the lack of it, that prevents anything from happening, just as financial issues are standing in the way of a new elementary school at Showell and are hampering county efforts to boost the economy.
The fact is that state government is not just taking every penny it can get, it’s keeping it rather than returning some of that revenue from whence it came, which in Worcester County’s case, is a fair amount.
While it’s too simplistic to say the expense of state government and its programs has soaked up all its revenues, since residents benefit from a number of these programs, it is true that the bulk of the state’s expenditures go toward services and projects for the bulk of Maryland’s population. And that isn’t us.
Candidates for county office can say what they want about arguing our case to state officials, but it’s not as if they would do so backed by enough voters to give state politicians pause for thought.
As County Commissioner Virgil Shockley observed at the forum, dealing with state sometimes entails making such a nuisance of yourself that officials at that level grow weary of hearing it and give you something just to keep you quiet.
In the meantime, all residents can expect of their county commissioners is that they be good stewards of the money they do have, while giving them a little bit of a break when it concerns projects that only can be done with money they don’t have.