Chartley Homeowners Association Inc

At our recent Board meeting, your Board of Directors discussed in depth the Governor’s Redistricting Plan that is expected to take effect in 2014 and decided that it was in the best interest of our community to register our opposition to the proposed plan. We took this action because we strongly feel that the new proposed District 10, that will include Reisterstown as well as Chartley, has been changed from a compact unit in Baltimore County to a dispersed, largely C shaped district touching Howard and Carroll Counties and crossing much of central Baltimore County. The new, dispersed District, divides communities of shared interests into multiple districts solely for political reasons and without regard to serving communities best and appears not to comply with the guidelines set forth by the Court of Appeals of Maryland during the 2002 Redistricting court decision. In addition, we feel that the loss of our current representatives, who have become familiar with the concerns of the Reisterstown area and who have been working to help address those concerns, will have a very negative impact on those organizations with whom they have been working to resolve the area’s concerns. It is felt that those organizations will virtually have to go back to square one and start over again from the beginning. Consequently, it became obvious to the Board that the proposed plan was developed solely for political reasons to give one sub-division a greater voice while disadvantaging others.

Attached is the letter we sent to Governor Martin O’Malley expressing our opposition to his proposed Redistricting Plan. It is anticipated that the proposed plan will be challenged in court. If that becomes the case, our letter, along with a similar letter issued by the Reisterstown, Owings Mills, Glyndon Coordinating Council (ROG), as well as any other letters from citizens, or other organizations, will be reviewed and considered by the courts during such deliberation. We would like to encourage you to send a letter to the Governor, with copies to all the representatives shown at the bottom of the attached letter, to let them know your opposition to the proposed plan.

The link below shows a map of the Governor’s proposed Redistricting Plan. This is a zoomable map that will allow you to zoom in on the Reisterstown/Chartley areas as well as allow you to see the new “C” shaped District 10 which is the section shown in red at the center of the map:

http://www.donengel.com/map/incumbents.html

We will keep you posted as the situation develops.

Thanks,

Dave Powers

As you may know, a committee comprised of current and former Baltimore County and state legislators as well as a former school board member and concerned citizens has been holding public meetings to gather information and make a recommendation about how the Baltimore County School Board should be composed in the future. Currently, the school board is appointed by the Governor.

Several members of your Board of Directors have participated in at least one of these meetings and have expressed our thoughts to the committee investigating this issue. We have now been asked to provide YOUR thoughts to the committee. We will be discussing this issue at our Board of Directors Meeting this Tuesday evening (Aug. 9th) beginning at 7:00 PM at Long and Foster on Main Street and would like to invite you to either attend this meeting, or to send your thoughts or opinions to us via email prior to the meeting. We will then consolidate all such thoughts and opinions and submit them to the committee on your behalf. You may send your views to me at the following email address:

For your convenience, you can find more information on this issue in articles in the Reisterstown Patch and Baltimore Sun at the following web addresses:

Additional information may also be found by entering the words Baltimore County School Board in the Search Box that will appear at the top of both of the Patch and Sun websites.

Chartley Homeowners Association Inc
P.O. Box 408 Reisterstown, MD 21136
Email Us at chartley@marylandtowns.com
Copyright 2008, Chartley Homeowners Association, Inc.