Pittman sends statement by appointing Walker
All during the campaign for Anne Arundel County executive, we can’t really recall a big picture statement on economic development policy by Steuart Pittman.
To anyone listening last week, Pittman made one with the appointment of Jerry Walker as the new CEO of Anne Arundel Economic Development Corp.
Walker’s appointment is important for a couple of reasons. He’s a Republican, even if a Republican that lots of other Anne Arundel party members have trouble embracing. So, by naming him to head a quasi-public agency, the county executive can legitimately make claim to a bipartisan administration.
But Walker was also one of two budget and finance wonks on the County Council during his eight years, and most especially so under the four years Steve Schuh occupied the top floor of the Arundel Center. He and Chris Trumbauer, then a Democratic councilman from Annapolis and now Pittman’s policy and legislative adviser, provided a counterbalance to some of Schuh’s big ideas about financing the government.
Perhaps most importantly in light of his new job, however, was Walker’s 2017 votes to deny taxpayer assistance to David Cordish and Live Casino and Hotel in Hanover.
He blocked one plan to help Cordish fund a major expansion using a tax incentive fund. In a second go-round on a plan to provide taxpayer support for a private business — a very lucrative private business — Walker and Trumbauer were on the losing side of the proposal to give $36 million in property tax relief to the casino company.
In exchange, taxpayers got a conference center that one day could be used for high school graduations.
Schuh and his allies on the council essentially argued that the county and the casino are business partners. The county reaps millions in revenues from the casino every year, and adding a hotel and conference center was pitched as an important investment in keeping competitive. Walker didn’t buy it. And he now brings that philosophy — one that questions the need for taxpayers to subsidize lucrative private businesses — to the role of supporting businesses such as the casino.
We applaud the choice and suggest that while there is plenty of good work done by the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corp., there is room for improvement. The agency was set up by former county executive Robert Neall decades ago to reduce transparency, a way to cut business deals without close public scrutiny.
Pittman’s commitment to transparency should shed just a bit more sunshine on economic development decisions. This agency provides valuable loan programs, location services, and advice to new and expanding businesses — but much of what it decides is hidden from public view because it is a private entity funded by taxpayers.
The influence of a county executive whose business experience is that of a farmer and a new chief executive with a record of opposing taxpayer financing for private enterprise could mean changeover at the offices of economic development.