Worcester County commissioners react to education safety concerns, offshore-wind

WORCESTER COUNTY, Md. – Tuesday’s Worcester County Commissioner meeting saw issues of offshore wind, local zoning, and education safety tackled.

WoCo Commissioners President Chip Bertino calling for accountability from law enforcement and the school system.

This after he said both the school board and police accused each other of providing misleading statistics and abdicating responsibility.

“We got a lesson in semantics, in math, but I do hope that we find a resolution because regardless of what you call it, a violation takes place behind every one of those statistics that were identified last week,” Bertino said adding “You can it a crime statistic, you can call it a referral. The bottom line is that we have kids in our schools and teachers who are being intimidated.”

Also on the agenda was a bid to change county zoning to allow new multi-family units but commissioners say the developer did not have enough evidence about why those affordable units- couldn’t happen with existing code, which allows for mixed-use; where commercial space is on the ground floor with housing above.

“County-wide, you know, we’re all in favor of creating affordable housing, but that, you know, without having the documentation of how this is going to create affordable housing, but yet changing, changing zoning code throughout the whole county, it’s very, very difficult with the reasoning being brought before us,” said Commissioner Eric Fiori.

But one issue had the whole meeting in agreement an opposition letter penned to lawmakers in Annapolis who are looking to give offshore wind developers a new deal with more state dollars to bring them back after they walked away from a deal earlier this year citing a lack of profits.

“There’s a lot more problems than just the visibility, you’re the location in which they want to services is to a small residential street, which is currently one of our two seafood buyers, which are in a special zoning designation,” Fiori said.