The Potomac Highlands Dispatch - the online newspaper

Board of Education closes door on proposed bill that would force neighborhood schools issue to referendum
* Board members, Midland mayor tired of seeing issue be raised every year
* Board President Llewellyn to Marsh: 'It's a bad idea'
* Board member Metz: proposed bill is 'nonense'
* Commissioner McKay apologizes for lack of notification to board members

By The Potomac Highlands Dispatch
CUMBERLAND, Jan. 11 -- Quite frankly, they're tired of hearing about it.

That was the consenus of Allegany County Board of Education members, who took turns Tuesday night addressing proposed legislation that could force schools across the county, closed and consolidated since 1986, to reopen if voters approved a referendum to do so.

The bill has been drafted annually and advocated for by Westernport Tom Marsh - who still has not yet reached closure in the 1986 closing of Bruce High School in Westernport - for at least the past three years. Newly elected Board of Education President Mike Llewellyn said enough's enough.

"I don't understand why the delegation continues to have" the discussion, Llewellyn said. "I don't understand why we've committed any more public resources or time to Mr. Marsh. With all due respect, on this issue, I think he's held the public spotlight probably too many times."

The issue was raised twice in December during pre-legislative meetings with the District 1 legislative delegation to Annapolis in December. Senator George Edwards asked both the Board of Education and the Board of Allegany County Commissioners for their respective positions on the issue.

In a rather surprising move, the newly elected county commissioners - Mike McKay, Creade Brodie Jr. and Bill Valentine - mailed a letter to the delegation, dated Dec. 27, that appeared to show overwhelming support for the legislative proposal.

McKay, the ex-officio member to the Board of Education for the commissioners, attended Tuesday's meeting and offered a public apology for not notifying board members before sending the letter.

"That responsibility rests solely on my shoulders," McKay said.

Llewellyn, though, focused on the bill and what he felt was a fiscally irresponsible proposal that could have long-term implications for Allegany County.

"I think it's the responsibility of public leaders of what issues deserve public attention and what doesn't," Llewellyn said. "I just think it's time to put it to bed. It's a bad idea. I don't believe it needs to be put to a referendum. I think it's time to say 'no.' I kind of wish the delegation would say no."

Midland Mayor Craig Alexander spoke "100 percent opposed" to Marsh's idea. He said it would essentially bankrupt the county and that he could not endorse "such a fiscally ill-advised issue."

"Like Mr. Marsh, I am proud of the high school I graduated from and it's fun to go to reunions to relive good times, but that was yesterday. Today, my high school is Mountain Ridge High School."

Veteran board member Jeff Metz, who was a junior at Valley High School went it closed, quoted the former vice president Hubert Humphrey, who said, "the right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously."

"That's where we are with this one," Metz said.

The concept, Metz said, "should not be given any type of credence by our delegation. We would ask that it not be presented to us again."

With a 5-0 vote, board members approved a letter to be sent to the delegation that reminds lawmakers of the school district's declining student enrollment and the county's shrinking local economy.

"Mr. Marsh's latest requested bill ignores these facts," the letter, signed Tuesday, reads.