Periodically, the Talbot Spy checks in with the Talbot County Council President on their significant legislative actions and discusses other concerns the Council has been addressing.
Last week, we sat down with president Chuck Callahan to understand more about the Council’s decision to allow the Lakeside residential housing development in Trappe to move forward despite concerns that the town’s current wastewater treatment facility may not be able to manage the addition of new homes.
We also talk to President Callahan on the impact of the COVID pandemic on Talbot County and the Council’s desire to review and learn from the health crisis. In addition, Callahan addresses the Council’s support of legislation to return much-needed state revenue grants to the County’s highway repair fund. He also reflects on his role as president of the Council and its commitment to public safety.
This video is approximately 19 minutes in length.
JT Smith says
I can’t share Councilman Callahan’s comfort about consequences of approval of Lakeside development— even putting aside the fact of a shaky legal foundation for the Council’s behavior in disregard of findings of the planning Commission regarding tie in to the Trappe wastewater treatment plant. Callahan’s factual assertion that Easton Village comprises “ 450 homes” is flatly inaccurate, as Easton Village rests on a planning approval for approximately 250 homes. Since Lakeside will be of a scale 10 times, not 5 times that of Easton Village, possibly the Council’s Chair also misunderstands the potential impact of Lakeside.
Gordon Chase says
Mr Callahan seems quite ready to point the finger at the general public for the Lakeside at Trappe project not questioning earlier the lack of proper sewage disposal facilities prior to house construction. Surely as President of the Council he should have been, and indeed now is, fully aware that the existing facilities are not up to the desired standard. Yet Mr Callahan has no problem supporting and voting for the project to go forward, knowing the deficiencies. If, as Mr Callahan claims, the developer can build a suitable sewage facility in 18 months, then why not simply delay the house construction until this facility is completed? Instead Mr Callahan seems quite prepared to let the developer connect additional houses to an overburdened existing facility in Trappe, knowing the likely environmental consequences when it fails to cope with the extra load. No developer would think of building houses without first building the roads to them, so why would we think of building sewer connections from these houses before we have a sewage works that can deal with them? Is this what Mr Callahan refers to as leadership?
Carol Voyles says
Resolution 281 “allows them (the developer and town of Trappe) to move forward, and the County’s out of it.”
But “we must work together.”
We’ll agree that it is “time to move on,” but let’s move in a positive direction. This project has become tiresome, but intentionally connecting up to 120 properties to an underperforming wastewater treatment plant when modular units can solve this problem is not a direction “we” may want to go.
So let’s work together, recalling, of course, that the Planning Commission must be on board, and that Maryland Code puts the County in charge.
Tom Alspach says
It is repeatedly stated that only up to “120” houses will be connected to the existing plant. This is incorrect. R281 adopted by Callahan and others places no limit on how many houses may be connected, and no limit for how long. That is entirely left up to Trappe and the developer, and the developer has no intention of spending millions on a new spray field plant (notwithstanding its “promises” that it will never put in writing) as long as, for a lot less money, it can continue to connect to the existing plant. And the town of Trappe will be happy to accept the connection fees because the fallout (literally) is absorbed by the county residents living downstream on Trappe Creek, and not by residents of the town.
Hugh Smith says
I’m not sure I understand Chair Callahan’s reasoning on his Lakeside vote.
It sure sounds a lot like that old tune “Do a Little Sidestep” from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.