Developers Cry The Blues

Those poor, poor developers. I’m seriously thinking about starting a collection for them. If you believe developer Tom Ruark, Salisbury and Wicomico County are becoming terrible places to do business. Why then is Mr. Ruark, and his buddies, in such a rush to develop the rest of Wicomico County into nice, neat, dense subdivisions?

Mr. Ruark seems to be in a twist over the recent talk about APFO’s. If the cities of Salisbury, Delmar and Fruitland actually adopted strong APFO’s then we might actually have responsible growth in Wicomico County. Such APFO’s would need to have provisions that prohibited development unless applicable school capacity were below 85% or 90%.

I don’t understand why developers are worried. Salisbury Mayor Barrie Tilghman is never going to allow such a travesty to occur. Schools are a county problem. Roads can be blamed on a lack of state funding. If pushed really hard, the city could adopt the “Gary Comegys” plan - an APFO halting development when schools reach 125% (or more) of capacity.

Developers are also concerned about the possiblility of Salisbury adopting a series of impact fees. For some reason, Mr. Ruark and his pals believe that the average taxpayer should continue to subsidize their businesses by picking up most of the tab for the impact caused by new development.

Please send your non-deductible contribution to:

Save The Developers
PO Box A
Salisbury, MD 21801