Anonymous wrote:What the heck Larry??? Just vote Moore, you're not gonna win in NH or become the nominee.

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Anonymous wrote:No way it will be Calvin Ball. Howard County had a moderate (Republican) County Executive, but voted Democratic and are now outraged with what they got.

He is so unpopular in HoCo because of development and redistricting, I can't see him as a viable Gubernatorial candidate.

He is extremely popular in HoCo- what are you even talking about? And your comments about developers and redistricting are flat out untrue.

There are a lot of people in HoCo pissed about redistricting, but they tend to blame the school board as opposed to Ball. Ball is somewhat responsible for the overcrowding in schools though. Too much unchecked development in HoCo, and developers haven’t been made to contribute enough capital to building new schools. That’s poor planning.

Let's explore that. He's been a CE for such a short time, and not at all during high growth periods here. He actually purchased the property in EC zoned for massive development from the Girl Scouts, so it wouldn't be developed. There's been extremely low building construction in the last 4 years.

All counties grow in population, Howard is no different. What is causing overcrowding has nothing to do with Calvin Ball. The entire western part of this county was developed before he was even in college.
And, again, schools have to be redistricted, and it has nothing to do with unchecked development right now. In fact, in the older sections of Columbia, there's been virtually no new housing. Redistricting is a loaded issue here because it involves income and racial disparity. All the blame going to Ball has absolutely no merit or fact, and yet there's always this trope about developers when it comes up. I saw all the ridiculous suppositions and lies during the last redistricting, it was all racially based. Pretty scary stuff on those FB platforms. We are redistricting again...new high school - you want a new high school, right? And another one, right? Well, then shut up about who will go to them. This is how it works.

But, yes. He will be elected again because, unlike your opinion, he is a very good CE. Get off those toxic FB pages and find out what is actually going on yourself.

NP. There are so many things wrong with your post that I can't even address them. Calvin Ball was on the County Council before he was County Executive, and during that time, he supported the unchecked development in the eastern part of the county without adequate funding and planning for necessary infrastructure, including schools. I voted against him in the primary and will vote against him in the general election.

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Anonymous wrote:I have never understood whats wrong with development

Development is good when it’s carefully managed, but do it wrong and you stress your infrastructure. Right now, the vast majority of HoCo schools are above 100% capacity, and there isn’t nearly enough funds to build the schools to handle it. HS13 is about to open. Yet, we’re still behind and developers are still building.

Planning is hard, but you can’t call that good planning.

Look to the years when these were zoned and what was on the table at the time. For instance, the Milk Plant area, ML, etc., were zoned and planned way before his tenure. Developers are hardly planning new lots now compared to 5 years and before. Check your facts, and, again, your FB group isn't a source of credible facts.

Ball has been a county council chairperson since 2006. The county council has to approve the budget submitted by the county executive, so he’s had to approve anything since 2006. He was also on the zoning board starting in 2009 alternating as chair and vice-chair, so he wasn’t exactly powerless before he became county executive. You don’t usually get to county executive without having a decent amount of influence first.

Ball was in a position to curb some of these developments or do better planning for it, like make developers shoulder more of the infrastructure costs. I don’t see any evidence he made it a priority.

No, it’s not all his fault, but again, he wasn’t powerless. He could have done something or made a stink about it. I just don’t think he saw it coming, so he didn’t take preventative actions. Now we’re playing catch up in a major way.

The school board bears more of the burden for redistricting as they’re the ones to execute it, but the overcrowding makes it harder. I’m sure it would be easier if HoCo had the capital for a couple of extra schools.