Key Maryland lawmakers said yesterday that they will try to amend the state constitution to curtail the governor's ability to sell off state-owned properties -- especially land bought with the intention of preserving it.
The proposal is a direct response to recent efforts by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration to market large tracts of parkland to developers, including a failed bid to sell 836 acres of St. Mary's County woodland to a construction company owner.
"We don't want Ehrlich dealing away our heritage to close our budget gap or satisfy some developer," said Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery), a sponsor of the amendment.
Discussion of a constitutional change, which will be debated when the General Assembly convenes in January, carries weight in part because of Frosh's stature as a Senate committee chairman. The effort comes as new details are emerging that show the broad scope of Ehrlich's plan to sell state land.
Ehrlich (R) is considering creation of a centralized real estate office to handle all state land transactions. His agency heads have submitted inventories of every parcel of land under their control. And this summer, Ehrlich's administration hired a real estate consulting firm owned by football great Roger Staubach to prepare a central database that, among other things, would help officials identify state properties that could be sold to developers.
The $500,000 project, which is still underway, was promoted as a tool for the state to become more efficient and could help the state raise as much as $15 million, said General Services Secretary Boyd K. Rutherford.
Ehrlich considers this "a basic exercise in good government," press secretary Henry Fawell said yesterday. "When the governor came into office, he asked a very simple question: 'What property does the state own?' Remarkably, nobody could answer that question."
Selling off state land, Fawell said, can raise money, eliminate maintenance costs and add land to the tax rolls.
Some lawmakers, though, are concerned that such efforts are motivated less by a quest for government efficiency than by an interest in rewarding political friends. Staubach, for instance, headlined a $4,000-a-person fundraiser for Ehrlich at the Davidsonville home of developer Geaton DeCesaris in October while his contract was underway.
Rutherford said he did not know about the fundraiser but wasn't immediately concerned because the Staubach contract does not permit the firm to reveal its findings to anyone other than state officials.
"I don't dispute the fact that the developer community is very interested in what they are doing," Rutherford said. "I don't doubt that they are interested. But I don't think having Staubach . . . at a fundraiser is a problem."
Further inflaming concerns about possible political motives behind the land sale initiative has been the central role of Ehrlich's fundraising chief, Richard E. Hug.
Hug oversaw research into the idea of selling surplus state property while serving on Ehrlich's transition team for the Department of General Services. He then brought the idea to the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. To the board, he aggressively advocated the sale of a university-owned, 840-acre environmental study center in Cambridge to a developer who hoped to build a golf course and condominiums.
Asked yesterday whether politics ever factored into his decision to promote the sale of state land, Hug said, "Absolutely not."
