Let's embrace this change now as the current proposal before the voters is designed to afford future alterations when and if we, as the governed, see change may be needed.
We do not need state delegates or senators from other jurisdictions manipulating or compromising our needs as part of the politics as usual when it comes to local matters.
Vote for charter home rule.
Mark Lannon
Hagerstown
Home rule: Good for lawyers
To the editor:
When Adam and Eve frolic naked in the Garden of Eden, there was only one local law - don't eat the fruit of that tree. They broke the law.
The Ten Commandments could be considered local laws because they apply to each one of us, and yet many of us break these laws.
When I attended a meeting at the Halfway Firehouse on Jan. 10,, Jeanne Singer, the chairwoman of the charter board, explained that the primary reason to vote for the charter was to make it easier to pass more local laws.
What the Friends of Charter Home Rule don't tell you in the ads that appear in the newspaper is that making it easier to pass more local laws does not mean that the county will be governed better. I believe it does mean that you have a better chance of breaking the county laws and getting fined or thrown in jail.
Politicians, whether they are commissioners or councilmembers, are lawmakers - they just don't think that they are earning their paychecks unless they are passing more laws.
Lawyers also like to see more laws passed because this will create more business for them. It is not a coincidence that many lawyers support charter home rule. I should add that Jeanne Singer is a lawyer and probably a good one, but a lawyer nonetheless.
If charter home rule passes, we will have many more local laws which will tell us how we must live. Don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
I don't want to make it easier to pass local laws. In fact, I would like to make it harder to pass local laws. Remember the livability code and the $6 million tax rebate at the same time the commissioners were increasing the county's total debt by borrowing $25 million?
The official position of The League of Women Voters is that they support "an open government that is representative, accountable and responsive."
That is what we have now and have had since 1827 and I do not know why The League of Women Voters wants to change our current commissioner form of government.
I urge you to consider what effect charter home rule will have on your life. Please vote against the charter if you want to have fewer laws, if you want the least expensive form of county government and if you have no great desire to see the lawyers become busier and wealthier.
Daniel Moeller
Rohrersville
