Glade Valley, 804 acres, Kelly and Staley Properties, 302 acres and Kemp Lane Assemblage, 161 acres.  Read the letter here.

in support of an Environmental and Natural Resource Reserve in Southern Frederick County – that will protect agricultural land, fragile sole-source aquifer and area wells and prohibit large scale industrial development in that area.

This proposal for an Environmental and Natural Resource Reservewould protect land east of the Monocacy, west of I-70 and North of the Montgomery County line. It would protect the Sugarloaf Mountain, the Monocacy Battlefield, hundreds of acres of farms, prohibit large institutional development, protect areas around the Monocacy River and foster the continuation of agricultural preservation contiguous with that in Montgomery County. Click here for a rough rendition of the proposed area (courtesy of Montgomery Countryside Alliance).

The Board of County Commissioners is poised to move ahead with the proposal by the end of June. Please send them letters expressing your support for the Environmental and Natural Resource Reserve as soon as possible:

Jan H. Gardner: jgardner@FrederickCountyMD.gov
David P. Gray: dgray@FrederickCountyMD.gov
Kai J. Hagen: khagen@FrederickCountyMD.gov
John L. Thompson, Jr.: lthompson@FrederickCountyMD.gov
Blaine R. Young: byoung@FrederickCountyMd.gov

Please send a copy of your letter to friends@friendsoffrederickcounty.org.

The recently ratified Frederick County 20-Year Comprehensive Plan mandates increased protection for environmentally sensitive areas, and those – like this – that are under pressure to change. This proposal is the first initiative to implement the action item NR-A-14 in Chapter 3 – Conserving Our Natural Resources and Green Infrastructure.

Wednesdays, 3pm in the old Carmack Jay’s parking lot, between 3rd and 4th streets on Market St. Cut flowers, berries, vegetables, herbs, fruit, beef, pork, eggs, baked goods, lamb, rabbit, wool, yarn, chocolates, and hand made knits.

All items raised, grown or made within 120 miles of Frederick.

Conventional and organic produce, eggs, baked goods, specialty baked goods
(gluten and dairy-free with some vegan options), plants and fresh cut
flowers, local crafts and so much more!
Bring home dinner and food for the week at one location!
For questions or about vending, contact Beth Johnson at 301-712-4137

VENUE CHANGE for THIS Month!

Carlos Fernandez, owner of Potomac Wind Energy located in Dickerson, MD will be here to discuss the potential for wind energy in Frederick County. Dr. Fernandez has sold and installed over 30 SKYSTREAM small wind energy systems.

Also, after Green Drinks there will be a free film about how we grow and develop our community shown at the MET. The film is the final showing of the Spring film series on sustainability. It is part of the OurCommonWEalth film series. For more information go towww.ourcommonwealth.us.
Brewer’s Alley upstairs “Booking Room” (5 to 7p.m.)
124 North Market Street
Frederick, MD 21701

Every month people who work in the sustainability field meet up at informal sessions known as Green Drinks.

These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity. It can be a force for good in our community.

The spirit of green drinks is that anyone can come, and this makes for interesting interactions. If you are interested in green, ecological, environmental, organic, renewable, and sustainability issues, you are welcome to attend.

RSVP is not required, but it would be helpful to get a head cou

BY DAN FLYNN | MAY 12, 2010

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/05/cleaner-water-goal-of-nutrient-trading/

Frederick Green Drinks is a great success!

At our April gathering, Michelle L. Liefke a local EcoBroker/Ecosociate launchedwww.leafkey.com. Fred Ugast president of U.S. Photovoltaics, Inc., discussed incentives available in Maryland with an emphasis on the changes enacted by the legilsature last week.

Our NEXT event is on: May 19, 2010 (Wednesday) from 5 to 7pm

Dr. Carlos Fernandez, owner of Potomac Wind Energy located in Dickerson, Frederick County, MD will be here to discuss the potential for wind energy in Frederick County. Dr. Fernandez has sold and installed over 30 SKYSTREAM
small wind energy systems.

Also, after Green Drinks there will be a free film about how we grow and develop our community shown at the MET. The film is the final showing of the Spring film series on sustainability. It is part of the OurCommonWEalth film series. For more information go towww.ourcommonwealth.us.
Quynn’s Attic
10 East Patrick Street (side entrance)
Frederick, MD 21701

Every month people who work in the sustainability field meet up at informal sessions known as Green Drinks.

These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity. It can be a force for good in our community.

The spirit of green drinks is that anyone can come, and this makes for interesting interactions. If you are interested in green, ecological, environmental, organic, renewable, and sustainability issues, you are welcome to attend.

RSVP is not required, but it would be helpful to get a head count…

Contact:
Rich Maranto
rich [at] mdgoesgreen.org

I read with interest Rand D. Weinberg’s opinion in The FNP about the recently approved Frederick County Comprehensive Plan. If I am left unconvinced by his argument, it is because of his own actions to organize and contrive a long series of property amendments that show much less concern for the overall public good and the impact on residents than any actions by our current county commissioners in reviewing and drafting our approved plan.

In fact, Weinberg and Blaine Young represent the pointy end of the spear in political efforts to challenge and rewrite county ordinances and zonings to the benefit of their own property and power interests. This is the fox guarding the henhouse, and the cynical use of mock outrage and emotion to elicit sympathy. Outside the comp planning process, these “defenders of property rights” constantly sought individual rezoning of properties to usurp the broad goals of the plans.

In the years leading up to 2006, the cabal of development interests they represent sought to constantly amend county regulations, particularly the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance, by text amendment in order to justify special interests. That practice was ended, but not without their objections and an attempt by Delegate Galen Clagett to support those interests by amending state law. They obfuscate the ends and absorb the time and energy of government to achieve ends for the very few, the opposite of the goals our legislators should seek to accomplish.

If property owners built future dream castles of wealth based on a property zoning, they held no current value, only imagination. That given the future development pressure and the wealth to determine it arrived, they may have found a value that did not exist presently. As my father, a staunch property rights believer, says, “If it was farmland when you bought it, why shouldn’t it stay farmland when you sell it.” A deed is not a lottery ticket, and a zoning designation is not a crystal ball.

Someday I hope that we will look to undeveloped property and farmland as our most valuable resource. The true economic value is underrealized today. Our local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay, and our very sustainability of population and shared long-term economic success, depend upon an adjustment in our recognition of land resources’ full value.

Changing our expectations, our values, our lifestyles, this may seem an unworthy hardship, an unnecessary adjustment, but we cannot proceed at our current pace of developmentand land and population impacts if our future is to accommodate our best common interests. Our crowded roads and stressed schools provide examples of our quality-of-life impacts.

I am not certain if the citizen lessons on our past civic life have been truly ingrained and safeguarded for the future of Frederick County. In the efforts by these “defenders” to strangle our interests in favor of their own, we can see that we have an important election looming in Frederick County, when we can either maintain the positive change we achieved in 2006 when electing our current board, or we can fall back to a planning process directed by favoring individual properties, which Weinberg and Young appear to prefer.

Jack Lynch

writes from Frederick

Originally published in Frederick News Post May 08, 2010

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_lte.htm?storyid=104688