Legalize Marijuana Bill Faces Uphill Battle In Md.

BERLIN — A bill introduced in the General Assembly this week would add Maryland to the growing list of states legalizing marijuana, but the measure will not likely see the light of day.

Four Baltimore City delegates this week introduced House Bill 1453, which, if approved, would legalize marijuana in Maryland under certain specific conditions. The legislation would remove criminal penalties for private possession and home-growing of limited amounts of marijuana for adults 21 and older and direct the state comptroller to license marijuana retail stores, wholesale facilities and testing facilities.

The bill includes a significant excise tax of $50 per ounce on wholesale sales, the proceeds of which would offset the cost of implementing the act and also fund treatment programs to prevent alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse. The legislation would also direct the Department of Agriculture to regulate the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, but would allow individual jurisdictions to regulate businesses that offer pot for sale. Under the proposed bill, it would still be against the law to smoke week in public, and to drive under the influence of marijuana.

While Maryland has been flirting with medical marijuana legislation, House Bill 1453 is the first outright attempt at legalizing the narcotic. Last year, Washington and Colorado passed legislation making marijuana legal for adults over 21 and establishing regulations for businesses to cultivate and sell weed to adults.

Similar legislation has already been introduced this year in Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with Pennsylvania, Nevada and Vermont expected to follow suit. While Maryland joins the list with the legislation introduced this week, local lawmakers in Annapolis don’t see the bill gaining much support this year.

“That’s not going to get any traction,” said Delegate Mike McDermott (R-38). “That bill will almost certainly die in committee this year.”

Because the bill has not yet been cross-filed, Senator Jim Mathias (D-38) said this week he has not been presented with the legislation and has not formed an opinion on it one way or the other. Mathias said he supports medical marijuana, but is not sure about embracing complete legalization.

“I’ve supported the medical marijuana efforts because I believe there is a valid need under certain conditions,” he said. “I haven’t had the opportunity to read over and form any opinion on the legalization bill because it’s only been filed in the House.”

McDermott, a career law enforcement officer, said there could be steps taken to loosen the laws on marijuana short of legalizing it.

“Right now in Maryland, simple possession results in a citation,” he said. “Over the next couple of years, it could be made a fineable offense as an alternative to complete legalization.”

While some states have already legalized pot and it appears more will soon follow, McDermott said the issue is complicated because the drug is still illegal under federal laws.

“If we relax the laws, it’s going to be a government operation,” he said. “The state government would be in the business of manufacturing drugs. It’s still illegal federally, so I don’t know how to get around that.”

Meanwhile, marijuana advocacy groups praised Delegate Curt Anderson and his co-sponsors’ legislation and called for Maryland to ease the prohibition on pot.

“Most Americans now recognize that marijuana prohibition has been just as spectacular a failure as alcohol prohibition,” said Deputy Director of Government Relations for the Marijuana Policy Project Dan Riffle. “It is time for a new, more sensible approach to marijuana in Maryland and that is what this bill proposes.”

Riffle asserted the problems caused by alcohol abuse in Maryland and across the country far outweigh similar problems caused by marijuana use.

“Our public policies should be based on the facts, and it is a fact that marijuana is safer than alcohol,” he said. “Adults should not be made criminals simply for choosing to use the less harmful product. Our law enforcement efforts should be focused on preventing and investigating serious crimes and not on arresting and prosecuting responsible adult marijuana users.”

The Marijuana Policy Project also pointed out to the potential economic gains in terms of tax revenue and jobs creation by the bid to legalize pot in Maryland. Riffle said the enormous amount of money derived from marijuana sales currently goes to criminal elements and legalizing weed could shift the revenue to state coffers.

“Marijuana sales are currently taking place in an underground market where they benefit criminals and drug cartels,” he said. “Under the law proposed by Delegate Anderson, marijuana sales would take place in tightly regulated businesses that are creating jobs and paying taxes that will benefit Maryland citizens. We hope legislators will agree that it is time to once again make prohibition a thing of the past.”

Ocean City News In Brief

OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Mayor and Council considered several issues large and small on their agenda last week. The following is a quick snapshot of some of the issues discussed and approvals granted.

Resident Agent
Amendment Approved

The Mayor and Council last week approved on second reading an amendment to the town’s code that would allow a resident agent for an Ocean City rental property to live within 30 miles of the resort.

The town’s original ordinance required resident agents listed for rental properties to live within city limits in order to quickly respond to noise complaints and violations so common for rental properties, particularly during the summer season. However, after hearing concerns from real estate rental companies and resident agents, who often live close by in West Ocean City or Berlin, for example, the Council took under consideration a proposal to allow resident agents to reside within 30 miles of Ocean City.

Last month, after hearing concerns from City Solicitor Guy Ayres about potential problems with the proximity of the Maryland-Delaware line and a potential conflict with out-of-state resident agents, the ordinance was amended again to include language stating “in the state of Maryland and within 30 miles of Ocean City.”

The council unanimously approved the amended ordinance with the new language last Tuesday.

Taxi Medallion
Transfer Approved

In another routine agenda item, the Mayor and Council approved a transfer of 15 taxi medallions from one resort taxi company to another.

The Mayor and Council approved the bulk transfer of 15 taxi cab medallions from City Cab of Ocean City and owner Wayne White to Taxi Taxi LLC and owner George Basle. In January, White sold the 15 Ocean City taxi medallions to Basle for the bulk sum of $37,500. The fiscal impact for the town came to $9,375, or 25 percent of the transfer fee.

The Mayor and Council did not exercise its right of first refusal and unanimously approved the sale of 15 taxi medallions from one cab company to another.

Councilman Named To
Md. Climate Committee

The Mayor and Council learned last week that Councilman Dennis Dare had been appointed to serve on a Maryland Municipal League (MML) committee to study climate change and future construction in the flood plain.

Responding to state and federal mandates to study climate control and limit future development in designated flood-prone areas, the MML recently formed a committee to look into the possible impacts on its member municipalities. Dare told the council last Tuesday he had been invited to join the committee and had already participated in some of its early meetings.

“I got the phone call last week and agreed to join them,” Dare said. “They wanted someone with engineering experience and city management experience and I guess I fit the bill. I went to a meeting last Friday and it was a very impressive group. We’re going to meet once a month and I’ll report back to the Council with updates.”

Council President Lloyd Martin said he was pleased the town of Ocean City was represented.

“It’s great to know we have somebody from Ocean City on that committee that will look after our interests,” he said.

Dare said the committee’s findings are important to the resort because of the potential impact on future development.

“The report won’t only affect state construction in flood zones, but also projects that the state helps fund,” he said. “That includes the convention center, for example.”

Sunset Room Repairs
To Cost Nearly $70K

The Mayor and Council on Tuesday approved a low bid for repairs to the town-owned Sunset Room adjacent to the Roland E. Powell Convention Center on 42nd Street, which suffered extensive damage during Hurricane Sandy last fall.

The Sunset Room, a multi-use facility owned by the town, is used for a variety of purposes including weddings, proms and other catering events, for example. It sits on a site just north of the Convention Center along the bay used by private sector restaurants and bars in the past. The Sunset Room suffered extensive damage during Hurricane Sandy late last October and the city put out bids to repair the damaged facility.

The Mayor and Council approved the low bid from Gillis-Gilkerson to repair and restore the damaged facility in the amount of $69,214. The repairs will include vinyl floor replacement, carpentry, railing repairs, window replacements and plumbing, electrical and fire protection system repairs. The project will be funded initially from the Convention Center Capital Reserve Account and an insurance claim has been filed to recover the loss.

Salisbury OKs New Travel Rules, Lower False Alarm Violation Fees

SALISBURY – Business items regarding council rules and regulations and false alarm fees returned to the Salisbury City Council this week after being postponed previously for more discussion.

When the City Council met in legislative session earlier this month, approvals to amend the Salisbury City Council Regulations and Rules of Order travel policy as well as amend false alarm fees associated with emergency services response were postponed after certain council members asked to have the items removed from the agenda for further discussion. Following last week’s work session the items returned to the council this week for final action.

The resolution amending the Council Regulations and Rules of Order regarding travel policy was first discussed in January. Council President Terry Cohen explained the amendment is to ensure that no member of council shall use no more than one-fifth of the appropriated total of the council’s travel and training budget to make sure that all council members have an equitable opportunity to make use of those funds, and that the travel is not to be done without the prior approval of the council.

Cohen pointed out that a few years ago when the city began to go through hard times the administration and individual departments made cuts and sacrifices to save funds. The council did the same and limited elected officials to $1,000 each for travel and training.

“We would love for there to be more, but just like everyone at home with their pocket book they have to set priorities and say where the most value is where they should be spending the money,” she said.

Councilman Tim Spies added the council has come to an agreement where this is some give and take when it comes to the money being split among the five council members, for those who wish to attend meetings or training sessions when others are not.

‘The idea is to have the council be collaborative with the use of those funds,” Cohen said.

The council voted 4-0, with Councilwoman Laura Mitchell absent, to approve the resolution amending the City Council Regulations and Rules of Order.

The next item to return to council was an ordinance that will amend false alarm fees resulting in emergency service response and designated certain reoccurring false alarms within the same calendar year at the same property location as municipal infractions. The issue has been postponed while the council awaited a new and significantly less fee structure to be formed.

In the past, City Administrator John Pick has explained the city police and fire departments experience a severe drain on their resources making repeated responses to the same properties in response to false alarms.

For many years, the city has had an ordinance that included a graduated fee schedule for fire and police false alarms. The purpose of the fee schedule is to encourage property owners to maintain and use their alarm systems to reduce the incidence of false alarms.

The city had determined the former fee schedule exceeds the actual cost for either the police or fire departments to respond to false alarms and in order to ensure enforcement of the fee schedule the fees should not exceed the cost to respond.

The former ordinance stated if the fire and/or police departments respond to more than two false alarms at the same location within a calendar year response fees will be charged to the property owner.

Each billable false alarm response was a $25 administrative processing fee in addition to the false alarm response fee. Failure to pay fees within 90 days of notification of the violation will result in a lien against the real property until the fees are satisfied.

For any violation occurring after the fourth false alarm response by the same responding department within the same calendar year, the property owner will then be guilty of a municipal infraction and subject to a fine of $500 to $1,000 for each offense.

The new fee structure allows for the first and second false alarm in a calendar year at no charge. The third and any subsequent false alarm on a calendar year will have a $25 administrative fee, a $246 charge for police response, and a $272 charge for fire response

“This is a significant, and I mean a seriously significant decrease in the charge for false alarms,” Spies said.

The council voted 4-0 to approve the ordinance to amend false alarm fees in second reading and a subsequent ordinance to set the false alarm fee structure in first reading.

Berlin Approves Stormwater Design Work

BERLIN — The first steps toward stormwater infrastructure improvements in Berlin were taken this week when the Town Council approved just over $200,000 be given to EA Engineering for providing impervious surface data for properties in town as well as for design work on the first four stormwater projects.

The lion’s share of that cost, roughly $197,000, is being given to EA Engineering for design work on priority projects. While discussion on establishing a stormwater utility was still underway, the council designated several street improvement projects spread out over the next few years.

The first year’s work will be split into four sections or “tasks.” Task 1 will be Graham, Grice and Nelson avenues at a cost of $53,000. Task 2 is West Street near Abbey Lane for $49,000 and Task 3 will be Williams Street near the electrical plant for $47,000. The final task, which the town is giving top billing, is Hudson Branch at Flower and Showell streets for $48,000.

“One of the things that we emphasized to EA is that the Flower Street Project is going to be a priority,” said Town Administrator Tony Carson, “and the reason is because CDBG [Community Development Block Grants] funding is going to become available. Their cycle will be in the next couple of months. So our emphasis is trying to get it to the point where we can apply for CDBG money for Flower Street.”

It should be noted that EA will only be doing the design work for the projects and that construction will come separately. Mayor Gee Williams asked about a timeline for when actual construction on the street improvements might begin.

“Basically we’re talking about not this building season but next building season?” he asked.

Water Resource Director Jane Kreiter confirmed that the town will have to skip a season and should most likely expect shovels in the ground around June 2014. Permitting, explained Kreiter, is a lengthy process with stormwater cases.

“As we’ve discussed before, the permitting is quite an inglorious endeavor,” she said.

That delay isn’t necessarily a bad thing, according to Williams.

“So that gives us more than adequate time to properly maximize our grants and also gives us a year, basically, to get all of that lined up,” he said.

Besides the four street improvement projects, the engineering firm will also receive $5,990 from the town to provide data on impervious surfaces in the area. The information will then be used to determine the fees for non-residential properties paying into the stormwater utility, since those costs are based on ERUs.

Unlike with the projects, which were directly contracted with EA, the impervious data collection was bid out. EA won the process with their bid of $5,990 which was dramatically lower than the $28,200 bid by Davis, Bowen and Friedel and the $39,000 bid by the Atlantic Group.

Councilman Dean Burrell remarked after hearing the bids that he was confused by the discrepancy between EA and its competitors.

“That’s a big number,” he said.

Carson agreed but confirmed that the figure produced by EA fell in line with what the town was expecting.

“I think the $6,000 number is more in line with what it should have cost,” he said.

It was strange that the numbers were so different, admitted Carson, but he told the council that he couldn’t “speak to why the other two are so high.”

However, the town already has a strong enough grasp on approximate data that it should be able to confirm all of EA’s findings, so that there shouldn’t be any discrepancies, said Carson. Property owners who feel their impervious surfaces were misevaluated will also have the option to appeal the estimates to the town.

OC Councilman Recovering From Health Scare

OCEAN CITY – Councilman Joe Mitrecic is back to business while he is recovering from a heart attack at home and plans to be back in council chambers Monday.

Mitrecic was released from the hospital on Wednesday evening after suffering from a heart attack last weekend. The Dispatch spoke with him on Thursday afternoon as he sat in his office at home working on some paper work.

“I don’t plan on being gone too long,” he said. “I actually feel better now than I did last week.”

On Sunday, Mitrecic woke up feeling fine and went on with his day as planned. He headed over to Crown Sports Center to coach his daughter’s last two lacrosse games of the season and came home to work on some business while he watched the Daytona 500. He then got showered and headed to his mother’s house in north Ocean City.

“I turned onto 142nd Street and started to have some unexplained chest pains,” he said. “I got to my mother’s and thought maybe it was indigestion and then quickly realized that it wasn’t.”

Mitrecic’s wife, Sheryl, drove him to the nearest fire station, and emergency staff on duty quickly realized that Mitrecic was not in good shape. They had him sit in an ambulance while they ran an Electrocardiogram (EKG) test and next thing Mitrecic knew they were on their way to Peninsula Regional Medical Center (PRMC) in Salisbury.

The Ocean City emergency personnel had been in communication with the PRMC Catheterization Lab and a team was waiting for him at the door when he arrived.

“I was in the cath lab within 10 minutes of having a heart catheter put in,” he said. “If I had not made the decision to go up there [Montego Bay Fire Station] when I did and they [Ocean City emergency personnel] had not given me the care they did, I would be dead. No doubt in my mind about that.”

Mitrecic’s results showed a 100 percent blocked right side carotid artery. He had a cardiac catheterization and stint put in.

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“I had been feeling kind of run down and tired for a month or so now and I thought that it was maybe stress from work or life,” Mitrecic said. “I just thought I wasn’t sleeping well but come to find out it was the beginning of what happened.”

Mitrecic is recovering at home waiting for clearance to go back to work in his family construction business. Although he has not been cleared to drive, he plans to be at Monday’s council legislative meeting.

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