Letter: Bartenfelder Speaks Out About County Property Sale

To Baltimore County Government:

I have been following the actions of the Baltimore County Government and the sale of county owned property with great interest and concern.  

In all of my years on the County Council and in the House of Delegates, I have never seen such actions as these, perpetrated against county residents in such a cavalier and reckless manner. 

Across Baltimore County, residents are upset and angry at the government for one very important reason—they have been kept out of the line of communication and have not been allowed any public input in decisions that affect them directly.  

Land owned by county residents, county taxpayers, should not be arbitrarily pulled out from under the people who have been living in that community and using those facilities for years without allowing them to be part of the process. 

There is no better example of this willful public exclusion than with the sale of The North Point Government Center building and 27.8 acre park.  The people of Dundalk have been left out of the process entirely.  If the county wants to regain the public trust, then they need to go back to the way county business was handled in past administrations, with transparency, trust and inclusion of the people these decisions impact before the decisions are made.  

If you want people to trust you, you have to give them a reason to.  The people of Baltimore County deserve no less.

Joe Bartenfelder