Letter to Editor:  A Failure of Integrity at the Talbot County Council

Talbot citizens’ efforts to overcome fundamental dishonesty involved in the County’s 2020 approval of the Lakeside subdivision were stopped cold last Tuesday night when Council President Chuck Callahan, along with Council members Keasha Haythe and David Stepp, chose to back the developer and disregard the truths revealed in that 3-year effort.  Simply put, The Talbot Integrity Project, leader of the Lakeside initiative, and its supporters failed in their 2-pronged mission to fix Lakeside and to restore propriety to the land use decision process in this County.

WHAT HAPPENED:

After three years of conflict, everyone now knows that the County’s 2020 approval of Lakeside was indeed based on false information that blocked a proper review.  The County Attorney, the County Engineer, the Maryland Department of Environment, and the Town of Trappe all finally acknowledged publicly that contrary to the developer’s representations, Talbot County had NOT approved Lakeside for development back in 2002 or ever.  Not for “immediate development” back then, and not for development in 2-5 years, or 6-10 years…or ever.  Lakeside had always been “UNPROGRAMMED.”

 

And yet Callahan, Stepp, and Haythe voted to affirm the identical Sewer Service Map for Lakeside adopted in 2020.  Backing the developer 100%, last Tuesday night, these three Council Members, in effect, said, “So what that the County was fed a false narrative?  We’re not going to change a thing.”  

HOW IT HAPPENED:

In TIP’s view, this unfolded for two reasons.

A RESIGNATION TO IMPROPRIETY:  While the vast majority of Talbot citizens have always opposed Lakeside, the public became truly incensed when in 2021 it learned that this billion-dollar subdivision being built by a very well-connected developer had been approved by the County only because of bald-faced falsehoods and misrepresentations.  But the developer and his supporters were able to draw out any resolution for over three years, and it was all made to seem much more complicated and obtuse than it ever was.  

In the ’22 election, citizens focused on the chicanery at Lakeside and elected a Council majority seemingly committed to the “Reset” initiative–only to see Ms. Haythe immediately reverse course and side with Callahan and Stepp in protecting Lakeside from legitimate review.  The same three who voted last Tuesday to adopt R338 and reaffirm that same flawed map.  

And within the halls of government had there ever a sense of outrage about the falsehoods at all?  Some hardly raised an eyebrow.  

Planning Commissioners are five citizen volunteers who did not sign up to be warriors in the center of a titanic battle.  Even though they were the very body misled at the outset, inexplicably their unease and distress with Lakeside’s history of falsehood never crystalized, and ultimately the most troubling revelations were treated as “the same-old-same-old,” just business as usual.  

This is the context: A majority of the Council, old and new, had mocked TIP’s contentions and fought to protect the developer from day one; they had, in fact, ignored the Commission in November 2021 when the Commission had rescinded its initial approval after learning information previously withheld.   County staff fought doggedly to assure nothing was changed, in January violating the Open Meetings Act in its advocacy.  The staff, particularly the County Attorney and County Engineer, played strategic roles at every turn and were fully behind Lakeside.  

The refusal to provide the Commission with independent counsel, which it formally requested in July, 2021, had a big impact: the Commission’s legal advisor throughout is a partner in the County Attorney’s law firm.  One Planning Commissioner, Lisa Ghezzi, was not reappointed due to her stand on Lakeside and for raising questions publicly about conflicts of interest.  And in December, the Council majority summarily cashiered Bill Anderson who for ten years had served as Chairman of the Public Works Advisory Board…and who continued to raise questions about Lakeside.  Who could be oblivious to the pressure, however indirect?  

And what about that public outrage?  Well, we all saw it wane before our eyes.  Once Ms. Haythe turned coat and single-handedly killed the “Reset” effort (making false allegations in doing so), resignation seemed to set in.  When months later, in reaction to information in TIP’s lawsuit, MDE suddenly directed the maps be revisited, there was a renewed flurry of interest and engagement (“Fix Lakeside”), but as the resolution drew out month after month, Lakeside fatigue—the developer’s best friend—completely took over.   

AN ILLUSORY OFF-RAMP:  Then came a frictionless way out for the Planning Commission.  An alternative appeared that seemed to provide a compromise, a fantasy half-loaf that appeared at least to DO SOMETHING, without requiring actual confrontation with past falsehoods.  Resolution 338, a toothless though well-intended proposal, had been introduced fifteen months ago but was promptly tabled because even the sponsor recognized that, as drafted, it really did nothing.  

In November, six months after MDE directed the County to reconsider the Trappe maps and while TIP and others were pressing hard to have the Lakeside map corrected properly, R338 was pulled from mothballs with an amendment providing for a review of Lakeside—the first meaningful review ever(!)—but not now.  Instead, at some distant unknown date in the future (probably 5 or 8 or 10 years) a future Planning Commission will ascertain if the project is then “consistent with our Comprehensive Plan.”  

In other words, rather than confronting the issues today, Resolution 338 provided the individuals involved—Planning Commissioners, PWAB Board members, and the Council itself–an excuse to kick the can down the road.  It is a complete illusion: there is no plausible way that in 5 years or more, the Lakeside project can or will be found “inconsistent” with the Talbot Comp Plan, when that very plan was certified consistent in both 2020 and 2024.  (Six reasons detailed here.)  Lakeside is good to go.

WHAT’S LEFT TO DO:

In a Democracy, the people get the government they deserve.  Is it the case that, even down here in little Talbot County, the specter of dishonesty in government has become so commonplace, we citizens so jaded, that we’re okay with development working this way?  It’s only the future of Talbot County we’re talking about.

In the past week, at least a dozen people have told me, “You can’t fight City Hall.”  If, as it seems, that’s true, then the only alternative is to go capture City Hall.  Too late for Lakeside, but perhaps a bipartisan, three-member REFORM slate will arise in the next Council election that will change the political culture of Talbot County for the better. 

Dan Watson
The Talbot Integrity Project, Acting Chairman