Is Wicomico County Planning on Stealing Farmers’ Land?
Monday’s Daily Times featured a letter to the editor from a Darlene Hammond of Salisbury. I don’t know Ms. Hammond, nor do I totally endorse her argument. What I do endorse, and so should you, is the idea behind.
It appears that a group in Wicomico County, led by Councilman Bill McCain and those good folks from WET - the Wicomico Environmental Trust - want to steal land from county farmers. No, they aren’t as blatant as some groups; they aren’t planning on taking it outright. Instead, these folks want to “down-zone” agricultural land and make it near impossible for farmers to sell their land for anything other than agricultural use.
I’ve never been considered a friend of developers. However, I don’t want the government telling me who I can sell my house to. Is it fair for Bill McCain, Mike Pretl, John Grout and a few others to tell farmers who they can sell their property to?
It’s one thing for the government to refuse to subsidize development by demanding that developers pony up for the infrastructure needs that are caused by their development. In fact, they should. It’s something altogether different for a bunch of NIMBY’s to claim that the government has to “preserve the agricultural character of Wicomico County”. It’s real easy when it’s not their land!
When Bill McCain starts buying up big tracts of farm land, THEN he can put it all in a conservation easement. Until then he needs to remember that he ran as a Democrat, not a Communist.
This yuppie version of land reform is no more valid here than the more proletarian versions in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela.
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