It looks like something could finally be happening at the property on the south side of Route 50 at Seahawk Road, as it was sold this month for $3 million.
What’s next is unclear this week as nobody wants to comment publicly on what the sale means. The centerpiece of the commercial property is the old Harley Davidson building, a 24,675-square-foot structure that listing documents report is in good condition despite being inactive for many years.
This is a unique piece of property geographically because it does not include the old McDonald’s and the other stand-alone buildings that neighbor the old Harley building, but it does include some other land to the east of it.
It seems bipartisan nonsense is back ruling the day in Annapolis. I guess it was inevitable.
This is the point where I hope Gov. Larry Hogan learned from the mistakes of the last Republican governor, Bob Ehrlich. When Ehrlich was governor, he didn’t do a good job of picking his battles with the Democratic-controlled legislators. Relations turned so sour in the final two years of his term that he was basically inconsequential because anything he wanted Democratic leadership quashed.
With partisan nastiness and immature bickering ruling the last week in Annapolis, Hogan, who served in Ehrlich’s cabinet, needs to show some maturity and reason to keep legislators productive and ensure some of his key issues have a chance of getting passed. Going at it alone and alienating Democratic leadership will never work. He pledged a bi-partisan approach to governing this liberal state in his address to legislators a couple weeks ago.
If relations continue down the current path of insults and questioning each other’s integrity and ethics, history will repeat and Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch will relegate Hogan to irrelevant. That happened to Ehrlich and one of the main reasons he was a one-term governor.
The main difference between Hogan and Ehrlich is the current governor is popular and recent polls show his approval rating is higher than any of his most recent predecessors during their tenure. I hope the level-headed and realistic Hogan who spoke in his state of the state speech prevails here, rather than immature one on the radio Thursday.
“It’s like they’re on spring break,” Hogan said on the C4 Show on WBAL-AM Radio. “They come here for a few weeks. They start breaking up the furniture and throwing beer bottles off the balcony…. Luckily, in a few weeks, they’re going to go home, and we to go back to running the state and making progress, like we have for the past year.”
He later said he was joking in that context, but it’s the wrong attitude to take if getting anything accomplished is the goal.
I like the basic approach to government and small town mentality expressed this week by City Manager Doug Miller in Ocean City. He boiled it down to the nuts and bolts with a simplistic reasoning and I was impressed by his understanding of the various elements at play in a seasonal place as unique as Ocean City.
“First off, from a professional standpoint, Ocean City is one of the most unique municipalities in the country and that, for me, made it very appealing to try and become the next city manager here. But, with any jurisdiction, you are going to have two constituencies: the residents or citizens and the people who own businesses there and make their money there,” Miller said. “Of course, those two constituencies are here, but we also have a third and a fourth group in the non-resident property owners and the people who show up on July 4th and swell us to the second largest city in Maryland. Knowing that you have four constituencies and that sometimes, their interests do conflict, it’s going to be one of those balancing acts that I’m looking forward to.”
Miller seems like a great fit for Ocean City at this time, but recent history shows the months and years ahead will confirm if that’s the case.
The cost of cigarettes could again be heading up, but it would have to survive a veto from the governor to make it into law most likely.
House Bill 71 seeks to increase the tax on cigarettes from $2 to $3 per pack. In Maryland currently, the cost of a pack of cigarettes, depending on brand, can cost as much as $8. Along with some wholesale tax increases, it’s estimated the hike could raise $95 million in the next fiscal year. The new money would be spent on bolstering tobacco use prevention and cessation programs. A similar bill is currently on the Senate side.
There’s no indication the legislature is willing to approve this hike yet, as similar bills never made it out of their respective committees last year. Additionally, the governor has made it clear he is not interested in any tax or fee increases.