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WEATHER HAPPENINGS RELIGION BUSINESS & REAL ESTATE
people, places & things
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2008
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MATT BUTTON | AEGIS STAFF
The "Keep us rural" signs have become more visible in recent years. Though the signs may appear to be the work of a single organized group, they're not; the meanings may range from advocating smart growth to discouraging commercial development of agricultural land to protesting a specific project.
'Keep Us Rural' evolving
BY LINDSEY ROBBINS
lrobbins@theaegis.com
Since the days of the controversial 2005 Comprehensive Rezoning — which ended up being vetoed — and the 2006 Harford County General Election, an increasing number of signs urging "Keep Us Rural" have been visible, especially in the county's northern tier. The signs have popped up lately along Grafton Shop Road, near the 50-acre site
where a 500-student Lutheran school is proposed. Though the "Keep Us Rural" signs appear to be the work of a single organized group, they're not; the statement's meanings may range from advocating smart growth to discouraging commercial development of agricultural land to protesting the school itself, or another particular project. "Keep Us Rural" holds a huge
emotional impact for people, said Judy Blomquist, past president of Friends of Harford, one of the original users of the slogan. Friends of Harford is an organization advocating respect for the environment and the needs of Harford citizens by protecting natural resources, improving neighborhoods and preserving open space, as well as protecting the county's rural character through constant citizen
input, according to its web site. Blomquist said Friends of Harford launched a "Keep Us Rural" sign campaign during the comprehensive rezoning process to push for conservative land use policies throughout the county and not just in Northern Harford. "Friends of Harford realizes that development is going to occur; we just think it ought to be done under smart
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ETC…
Cell phones are making telephone books just about worthless
Even before I was old enough to know how to read it, it was a big part of my life. Nearly 40 years later, I still use it on a regular basis. Though I've never really gotten excited about it the way Steve Martin's character did in the movie "The Jerk," I do check when it comes out to make sure my listing is up to date and correct. It's the phone book, which was thick enough in my pre-reading days to serve as a booster seat when I was too big for a high chair, but not quite tall enough for sitting at the dinner table. And I've been pleased to see in the years since my children came along, this tradition continues. I've even seen people who dedicate last year's volume to making sure a new generation of kids can more easily reach what's on their dinner plates. Unfortunately, it's a tradition that might not be around that much longer. Sure, every autumn the new phone book arrives, then there are the spin-off phone books, some put out by the phone company, some by other businesses. But they're nowhere near as complete as they once were. Back in the olden days, when music was on vinyl records, there were only three TV channels that came in clearly (plus a few more that were fuzzy), and amplitude modulation radio was king, almost everyone was in the phone book. Almost every home had one phone — a problem in families with more than one teenager or an especially chatty teenybopper — and just about everyone who had a phone was in the phone book. Strange as it seems to me (and I'm sure anyone my age or older) having every phone number there is published in a single book (with the exception of the few people who had unlisted numbers) is something a lot of folks 30 or younger have only heard about. It's become such an oddity that when you hear police dispatchers on the scanner talk about calling someone at home or in an office, they actually use the term "land line." The reason: cellular phones, so named because each phone tower broadcasts and receives in a roughly circular area known as a cell. Owning a cell phone is something I managed to avoid longer than just about everyone I know, even my parents. And I probably would have avoided it even longer, except my daughter, Alex, who officially becomes a teenager in a few months, was rewarded for good behavior with a cell phone for Christmas. It was a relative bargain to add her phone and another to my wife, Anne's, plan, so we ended up with three cell phones. And there's no way I'd give one to my 7-yearold son, Nick. The world doesn't need another kid calling around to check if your refrigerator is running. So back to the phone book. After I was old enough to be able to read the phone book, and not have to sit on it to reach the table, my initial thought was that it had every phone number on earth in it. The fine print, the tissue-thin pages and the thickness of it made it seem to me like there was enough space to print everything ever written. It came as something as a surprise to me just how local the phone book is. And imagine my shock the first time I saw a New York City phone book. It turned out the phone book didn't have every phone number on earth in it, but, as I noted before, it was pretty darn complete when it came to local numbers. Paradoxically, the proliferation of cell phones — not to mention lines for computers, home faxes and the like — has left the phone book in the dust. Try looking up someone's cell phone number. Yeah, right. There are so many phone numbers that Maryland, which was all in one area code until after I was out of college, now has, well, a lot more than one. Plus, what does an area code mean when you buy a cell phone while you're living in one city and keep the number when you move a couple hundred miles away? Area codes are really just part of the phone number, and even if you had a local phone book with local area code cell phone numbers in it, some of those numbers may well belong to someone living in another state. So what's the future of the good old phone book? If you play the stock market, I'd suggest you sell all your phone company stock and invest in booster seats.
JIM KENNEDY
jkennedy@theaegis.com
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2008
www.theaegis.com
MATT BUTTON | AEGIS STAFF
Friends of Harford started the "Keep us Rural" campaign during the comprehensive rezoning process to push for conservative land use policies throughout Harford County.
The evolution of 'Keep Us Rural'
RURAL, from AA1
growth," board member Morita Bruce said. "We also want to make sure that the development envelope is where people really want to live." Bruce, a Fallston resident, got into the citizen movement after hearing of plans for Harford Lutheran, the same school pursuing zoning for Grafton Shop, to move onto a piece of property near Whitaker Mill Road. Those protesting the school's Joppa site quickly put up "Keep Us Rural" signs, declaring the narrow Whitaker Mill Road to be incapable of handling the traffic a school could generate. Slightly fewer than 100 people attended the zoning meetings on the property, giving hours of citizen testimony. The county zoning hearing examiner, Robert Kahoe, ruled November 2006 against granting the school a special exception to build an institution on agriculturally zoned land, agreeing the road was unsuited for the school and the surrounding community's needs. Kahoe was also concerned with the water usage
in the area. Since then, Mike Borns and other residents of Grafton Shop Road have taken up the fight against the school, and the same "Keep Us Rural" signs advertise the battle. Borns, a 15-year resident, said when he went to make signs to show his community's protest, the "Keep Us Rural" slogan was already around from the Joppa case. Saying that the 13 Grafton Shop Road signs are part of a grassroots movement, Borns pointed out Harford County has its growth areas such as
‘We're just trying to defend the nature and character of the area.’
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along Rock Spring Road. He argued the community isn't quite suburbia, saying any serious development north of Route 23 in the Rock Spring Road corridor is crazy. "There's cornfields out until you reach Route 24," he said. "There's plenty of other spots in Harford County; this is just the cheapest." Bob Frost, another resident,
emphasized the community is not against all development in the area, just commercial. He, like many of the residents, views the school as a business. "We've had our run-ins with that sort of thing before," said Frost, who's lived in the area since 1965. "If they decided to put up an industrial park, it would actually be less bad off." Frost is referring to a "mom and pop" style assisted living institution that used be in the area that received a lot of flack when it tried to convert into a larger establishment. There was also a resident with an equipment shop in his basement, which was also required to shut down. "I don't think anyone BOB FROST objects to p u t t i n g houses on that property," Frost said. Saying that his community isn't "a bunch of nuts," Frost explained the county zoning laws exist to curtail ungoverned growth. "My opinion would be the same whether or not they tried somewhere else. I don't want those in the community," Frost said. "We're just trying to defend the nature and character of the area." He added that with the vegetative screening the school proposes for the site, some residents won't be able to see the sun after 3 p.m. "It will be like the Great Wall of China," he said. Neither Borns nor Frost was aware of Friends of Harford's tie to the "Keep Us Rural" slogan until a recent letter to the editor was published in The Aegis, which implied Friends' involvement in the movement against the school. "We're of mood, but not in the fight," Blomquist said, adding that the Grafton Shop
MATT BUTTON | AEGIS STAFF
Residents along Grafton Shop Road in Forest Hill have taken up the "Keep us Rural" battle cry to protest the construction of a 500-student Lutheran school on a 50-acre site at the corner of Grafton Shop Road and Rt. 23.
residents have yet to approach Friends for advice on how the zoning system works. Borns said he will be considering discussing the issue with Friends. Frost said he has tried to contact County Councilman Chad Shrodes, the Republican representing Northern Harford District D. Shrodes has said he is unable to discuss the matter with Frost because of language in the county charter prohibiting citizens from influencing council members on zoning decisions that might come before them. This pertains to decisions the council handles in its role as the Harford County Board of Zoning Appeals, which is nominally a separate body from the county council, but is comprised, person for person, of council members. The councilman said there is a good possibility Harford Lutheran could request a zoning appeal and the case would end up before the zoning appeals board, and he then would be required to focus only on the documents involved in
the case. Shrodes, who used "Keep Us Rural" in his 2006 election campaign, said the people's concerns might be better resolved through revising the zoning code, which is being reviewed by the zoning code rewrite work group. "Maybe what we need to do is look at the other uses agriculturally zoned land is currently allowed and determine what should belong there," Shrodes said, referring to people's aversion toward commercial properties in the area. Shrodes added he has done things to support his vision of "Keep Us Rural," including introducing legislation to allow two chances each year for properties to apply for agriculture preservation easements, expanding the buffer area between the county landfill and Deer Creek by 1,000 feet for future expansions and establishing an agriculture viability task force. He said many of these disputes between residents and developers occur because
when people move in and see the surrounding cornfields, they may expect housing later on but don't realize institutional uses are also allowed through special exceptions, such as allowing schools on agricultural land. "I guess what most people like about Harford County is the rural area. More people are concerned because they keep seeing developments popping up on farmland. It seems haphazard, and there's a lack of communication as to what's going on," Bruce said. "Individuals are making decisions and glomming onto something they're concerned about. So many individual groups are suddenly getting involved." Blomquist said it could be the intimidating push of development that is leading to more people borrowing the slogan from Friends of Harford and, in turn, each other. "We just hope to keep what we've got," Frost said.