A new item popped up recently on the Council’s list of pending legislation: Bill 1412 “To Revise Cottage Industry Truck Weight Limits on Certain Roadways.”

Most people in the County have no idea what “Cottage Industry” really means—but it’s not what most would think. So a few days ago I began to write a piece, not with the purpose of knocking the new legislation per se or raising a big alarm, but hoping to clarify what this term “Cottage Industry” means in our zoning code. People should understand it, because it can have a big impact in certain situations and it could easily become a portal to abuse in the future.

But I had to trash that first draft and start over for two reasons: (a) everything I wrote initially sounded alarmist, as if I was trying to send a message in code, and (b) as I reviewed Chapter 190 regarding “Cottage Industry,” I was struck by just how carefully that section has been crafted, with quite reasonable constrains and limitations, at least in its current form.

Notwithstanding the name, Cottage Industry use does not identify your Aunt Wilma’s quilting operation or Uncle Mike’s home-based bookkeeping business. (Those are “Home Occupations.”) The Cottage Industry use is actually intended to accommodate the small, independent owner/operator of a serious business—almost always a contracting business–who works our of his own home.

These are the community’s independent landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and even some boat repair guys. (Septic haulers are also included…though the proprietor would still have to live on site.) Accommodation this kind of use is not just appropriate but essential in a place like Talbot County, where lots of small contractors and small businesses have always been home-based.

Yet as the code expressly states, a Cottage Industry use “has the potential for greater impacts on nearby properties compared to a Home Occupation.” For example, big trucks.

Bill 1412 simply says that if a business is a “Cottage Industry” and faces onto a “State arterial or collector roadway” (you know what that is, right?), it can generate up to 10 visits per day to the property from trucks of any size—any size. (Otherwise, the limitation is 16,000 lbs. GVW, and fewer trips.)

The truck issue aside, if you go to Section 33.5(B) of Chapter 190 you can peruse a long list of limitations and constraints on properties where Cottage Industry uses are permitted. To me the restrictions seem reasonable and comprehensive. No doubt there can be property specific conflicts, but still….

In any event, over the long haul citizens should know what “Cottage Industry” really means, and keep an eye on regulatory changes that could slip by and adversely affect the broader community (since those uses are permitted in many zones throughout the County). In fact, I think it would be wise to change the name of that use in our zoning code to something like “Home Based Contractor Business Operation,” just so no one gets misled. After all, “cottages” have those white picket fences, and roses.

Dan Watson is the former chair of Bipartisan Coalition For New Council Leadership and has lived in Talbot County for the last twenty-five years. 

For a County our size, Talbot has a huge number of “do-good” organizations of every description, and they garner extraordinary support. People engage. People give. Talbot rocks. The Talbot Spy and the Star Democrat are replete with articles of men in high heels running races, ballrooms full of Christmas trees, paddlers in cardboard boats. Sometimes it feels the paper would have nothing else to print but for accounts of our community organizations and their successes.

Everyone has their own list that pops to mind—Talbot Hospice, Casa, Pickering Creek, Empty Bowls, 4H Club, Boy Scouts, For All Seasons, and on and on. Garden clubs. Social services. The YMCA. Shore Rivers. The Volunteer Firemen. The Maritime Museum. Talbot Goes Purple. It’s hard to stop.

It seems much more intense than other communities. Why is that? I think it’s due to the happy confluence of two different sources of generosity, two layers of empathy.

At the base, like any solid American community, Talbot’s lifelong residents generously support the “normal” array of Norman Rockwell community organizations. These are especially the youth groups like boy scouts and little leagues and high school sports teams. Also church groups, and the fireworks, and so many others. Collective efforts often result in the “big checks” we see in the paper—the 3’x5’ cardboard ones, with smiling donors and happy recipients. This is the sound foundation of community non-profit involvement, and if that was as far as it went Talbot would still be proud.

But when it comes to “doing good,” Talbot thinks very big, and reaches very wide…far beyond normal for a place of only 16,500 households. What other community our size sports a first class art museum, an always-busy regional art center, a world-class maritime museum? Who runs anything like the Waterfowl Festival for 48 years and counting? What County our size spawns a homegrown mentor program that’s not just growing, but thriving? And hosts a Conservation Center housing a regional land conservancy, a regional waterkeeper program, and other environmental efforts. Multiple choral groups. And all growing and prospering simultaneously!

It does not take a rocket scientist to explain this added level of vibrancy. We have many retirees living here. It’s an older population, and many have moved in from elsewhere, having been attracted by the County’s unique character (ironically, the plethora of great community organizations being one of those attractions).

According to the Census Reporter, the median age in Talbot County is 49.7 years, compared to 37.8 years nationwide! Twenty-seven percent of Talbot County is over 65, compared to 15% nationally. So relatively speaking, Talbot Countians are older (a lot!).

Someone from Mars might say this is trouble—all those elderly folks living on social security checks burdening the local government with needed services. Well, obviously the opposite is true. The extraordinary, over-the-top quantity and quality of Talbot’s community organizations is largely because of the disproportionate number of older folks, and that these “come-heres” affirmatively picked this particular place above all others.

The unique charms of Talbot County are what attract retirees—especially the “young active retirees” not heading to assisted living–from DC and Philadelphia and other prosperous centers. These are very often very successful people, wealthy people, who can literally move wherever in the world they wish—and they wish to move here. Been doing it for decades. In fact, many native-born seem not to recognize that a good portion of the “come-heres” have been neighbors now for a couple of decades, sometimes more.

(Some argue that retirees come here just because of the low property tax rate, but I don’t believe that for a minute. Nice? Sure…but if Dorchester’s were 50% lower still, do you think folks would start moving from DC to Crapo and Vienna? Low taxes do not explain the special attraction of Talbot County.)

So the resources and interests of this retiree “come-here” contingent is another layer piled on top of the generosity of the locally rooted community. Many of the big checks (the other kind) are written by these folks, to the collective benefit of everyone in Talbot, rich and poor, wherever born.

And by no means is it just the money. In his recent book, The Second Mountain, David Brooks writes about the change of focus many experience at a certain time of life—no longer so self-centered on career and personal success, but much more “other directed.” That “certain time of life” often corresponds to retirement, and “the move.” So, often retirees arriving on Talbot’s shores deliver twofold benefits: not just passive donors with the wherewithal and interest to contribute, but also people ready to roll up sleeves and volunteer, go to work on something good and useful to the community. With enthusiasm.

Is it any wonder that Talbot’s community organizations are so varied and successful? Native born and come-heres, working together, have quite a good thing going, and we’re all richer for it.

Dan Watson is the former chair of Bipartisan Coalition For New Council Leadership and has lived in Talbot County for the last twenty-five years. 

As reported earlier, on February 20 the Talbot County Council violated Section 212(f) of the County Charter–“No business may be transacted…except in public session”–when President Corey Pack sent four letters to the legislature expressing the Council’s opposition to certain bills. Mr. Pack, the Council, and the County Attorney have been asked to acknowledge that the handling this matter was flat out wrong—that proper process was ignored. They refuse to do so. Meanwhile the import of the four letters has become moot.

So why am I continuing to press this as a big deal? Because it’s important that the Talbot County Council know that citizens are paying attention, and that folks in Talbot do expect Council Members and the staff to operate by the rules all the time, not just when its convenient.

Neither Mr. Pack nor the County Attorney would reply to any questions posed in a February 25th letter on this matter, even though the answers were right at hand. (For example, who introduced the proposal, and what were the votes of the five Council Members.) Instead, I was told my only option was to get the answers on my own by submitting a formal, time consuming, and expensive request under the Maryland Public Information Act (“PIA”).

Last week, as a result of the formal PIA process—and at a charge of $616.43–the County did provide access to certain documents, only a few of which were of any interest.

What the County refused to release, however, was the handful of documents that obviously matter: nine emails plus eight texts messages, all sent in the 24 hours leading up to Mr. Pack’s issuing the letters in question.

(The County Attorney claims these items can be withheld legally for two reasons, neither of which holds up as I will discuss in Part 2 of this column.)

These seventeen texts and emails were all between and among Council Members, and in some cases the County Attorney and County Manager. Somewhere in there a vote was taken, as Mr. Pack, at 10:19 PM on February 19th, wrote (in a document that was disclosed) “a majority of the Council is in favor of sending a letter in opposition….”

The texts and emails of February 18th and 19th no doubt show how and when and where (and perhaps why) the Council acted in disregard of the Charter—transacting the public’s business in private, outside of any “public session.” From the few documents obtained via the PIA, we do know that the vote was 3-2, and that Mr. Lesher opposed. (He also wrote to an inquiring citizen: “the council majority has not granted me the authority to break the confidence of any discussion of this…”)

So who were the three Council Members in favor of this “in the dark” action? Many assume it was the trio that ran together in the last election as the “Common Sense Talbot” ticket—Messrs.’. Pack, Callahan and Divilio. Yet that is not completely clear, as Ms. Price seemed to advocate forcefully for other similar letters that followed. Also, were the two Council Members who voted against issuing the letters opposed to the content, or did they recognize and reject the illegal procedure being employed to keep the public in the dark? Is this not the very reason the Talbot County Charter provides that “No business may be transacted…except in public session”?

The way the Council President, the County Attorney, and the Council have reacted to this—a stonewalling exercise, rather than simply acknowledging error—opens a number of interesting facets to this story. Again, stay tuned.

Dan Watson is the former chair of Bipartisan Coalition For New Council Leadership and has lived in Talbot County for the last twenty-five years. 

Here goes a snapshot of Talbot County, Maryland, and we’re all in it somewhere—so look up and smile!

In the very first “Focus on Talbot” piece a month ago, I expressed the hope that these observations on our community will weave together, not just to describe where we are and what’s going on today, but to spotlight the unique (but squanderable) attributes of Talbot County that can deliver a bright and prosperous future for us and our kids—both financially and as a really great place to live. It need not be “either/or.” It really can be “both/and.”

The point of today’s column is to set up a framework for discourse to follow, a useful way of looking at Talbot County, past, present and future.

Talbot County is made up of (1) a “Rural Environment”, (2) a “Built Environment,” and (3) “the Water.” Roughly 25 miles long and 25 wide, Talbot’s shape is actually a bit weird due to our peninsulas; the implications of that will be a column in itself. Talbot’s topography seems flat, but not quite…and that has implications. And, to our detriment, the “edges” between these different segments of our County are often pretty fuzzy—yet another point of discussion.

Note that there is no “natural environment;” one hears the term occasionally, but I’m pretty sure there is not a single acre of land (or probably water bottom) in all of Talbot County that in the 350 years since settlement has not at one time or another been cut, graded, cleared, planted, dredged or otherwise modified by the hand of man. One can argue the notion that we ourselves are products of nature, and so indeed all that we’ve wrought is “natural”…but I’ll leave that argument to others.

Talbot’s “Built Environment” centers on our 5 incorporated towns: Easton, St. Michaels, Oxford, Trappe, and…can you name the fifth? Our handiwork makes up the towns, but goes far beyond as well: residences, shopping centers, parking lots and service roads, utility boxes and power lines, historic churches and cultural centers, subdivisions, fast food shops, abandoned motels, brand new schools, historic villages, and all that signage.

The “Rural Environment” in Talbot is also man-made—lovely farm fields sculpted and leveled and drained over the decades (centuries, really)—not for our aesthetic benefit, but driven by the rational considerations of the agriculture business. Roughly 100,000 acres are being farmed, almost 60% of our land area, and another 40,000 acres is in forestland (over 20% of land area, all per MD Dept of Planning, 2010). The tree lines you see are often hiding the natural drainage streams that feed our creeks and rivers. And there are plenty of ancillary structures in our rural landscape, most integral to the farm scene (e.g., industrial storage silos), some less clearly so, like a field of solar panels. And most all of this tied together by a web of narrow country roadways, maintained by the County.

“The Water” comprises 44% of Talbot County! One might assume at least that part of our County has never changed. Wrong. The scenic view from the shoreline, that great sunset, is as pretty as ever. And the configuration of our waterways has remained the same over the centuries (though old maps reveal subtle alterations even there). But the water quality and the flora and fauna of the rivers have eroded dramatically since settlement, since the boom of oystering in the 1880’s, since the age of market hunting for waterfowl, since the invention of the power dredge and the trotline and the hydraulic clam dredge, since the introduction of (still-imperfect!) wastewater treatment systems in the 1920s, and the more recent realization that stormwater flows from both urban zones and ag fields adversely impact local waters. It’s super complicated, affecting most directly the watermen trying hard to sustain a traditional way of life, but in fact impacting every citizen of Talbot.

So there it is: The Rural Environment. The Built Environment. The Water. A framework for a longer, deeper discussion and understanding of this special place. Stay tuned.

Note: The fifth incorporated town–population 94 in Talbot–is Queen Anne, Metropolis of the Tuckahoe! Curiously, part of Queen Anne sits within the County to our north.

Dan Watson is the former chair of Bipartisan Coalition For New Council Leadership and has lived in Talbot County for the last twenty-five years.