George Wenschhof
Last
night, The City of Frederick zoning board of appeals issued their ruling in
favor of the appeal of the subdivision by the Frederick Board of County Commissioners
(BoCC) of land to enable them to sell the Citizens Care and Rehabilitation
Center and Montevue Assisted Care facilities.
The
unanimous vote will require the BoCC to either appeal the decision in court
or resubmit the subdivision to the planning department in the city.
The zoning
board of appeals found the city planning commission had erred in approving the
subdivision because the application was incomplete and they had not considered
the reason behind the subdivision and the impact it would have on the
community.
This action
will certainly delay the privatization of the facilities and sale to Aurora
Health Management by the county; they had hoped to happen by the end of this
year.
In
addition to this set back, the county is still facing litigation pertaining to
the sale, which led the Maryland Board of Public Works to delay approval of the
sale, as long as there are unresolved legal actions. This decision confirmed by the Board of
Public Works despite theatrics by Blaine Young to proffer them a check for
$200,000.
The action
by the city zoning board of appeals highlights the continued reckless and ill
conceived moves by Frederick County board president Blaine Young to privatize
government services.
Particularly
unsettling, in this case, is the contract purchaser has been managing the Montevue
and Citizens facilities following ratification of the contract of sale. In some ways it reminds one of the “fox
guarding the henhouse” fables.
Collection
of bad debt has been an issue with the facilities and there has been talk debt
is being written off by Aurora that may adversely impact the county financially
and would, if true, benefit the contract purchaser at the time they took
ownership.
It appears
the county in its rush to sell the facilities, failed to act reasonably and agreed
to terms that were less than satisfactory.
Stay tuned.
---
Please donate today to Frederick Politics by clicking on a Donation Button in the right hand margin of page - Thank You!
No comments:
Post a Comment