Announcement

**Lisa** · 03-28-2022, 06:18 AM

Hello all,

AA County Rec & Parks is determined to give Homeport Farm Park to the rowers. It's being touted as "different from the (failed) Quiet Waters proposal" that got shouted down in last year in the FY22 budget hearings. The only difference I can see is that the rowers are no longer claiming to represent the paddlers ie kayakers.

Homeport Farm Park is the only usable public water access point on the South River. The kayakers worked hard to get this small public open to the general public. Now Rec & Parks wants to hand it over to the rowers.

County Executive PIttman is scheduled to give a water access press conference this Saturday April 2 2022. I don't know what he is going to say. PLEASE email the elected officials and administration staff below ASAP and tell them not to give Homeport Farm Park to the rowers. Remember to include your first and last names and snail mail address so they know you are a real person. Email address blocks below of the email addresses in the starter post for convenience.

Thanks, Lisa

Administration email address block for cut and paste convenience:

expitt99@aacounty.org fy23-budget-comments@aacounty.org exmoul00@aacounty.org extrum99@aacounty.org rpleys00@aacounty.org

County Council email address block for cut and paste convenience:

lisa.rodvien@aacounty.org slacey@aacounty.org allison.pickard@aacounty.org nathan.volke@aacounty.org andrew.pruski@aacounty.org amanda.fiedler@aacounty.org Jessica.Haire@aacounty.org

MD Legislature email address block for cut and paste convenience:

sarah.elfreth@senate.state.md.us shaneka.henson@house.state.md.us dana.jones@house.state.md.us

**Lisa** · 03-28-2022, 03:45 PM

What you can ALSO do: Call County Executive Steuart Pittman, other elected officials and administration staff ASAP and tell them stop Rec & Parks from giving Homeport to the rowers. Then ask a friend to do the same.

A phone call to County Executive Pittman's office might get his attention (410) 222-1260 (Vincent Moulden Community Engagement Officer). Lots of phone calls to County Executive Pittman's office will get his attention. Also call D6 Councilwoman Lisa Rodvien (410) 222-1401 (Council switchboard, ask for her legislative assistant). Also call Maryland Legislative District 30 State Senator Sarah Elfreth (410) 841-3578 The rowers, BTW, have been lobbying all three. You can't call all of the county people involved in this mess but you can email them as grouped for convenience in the post above.

And if you live in Anne Arundel County but not in District 6, please look up your County Councilmember: https://www.aacounty.org/departments...ber/index.html and call the Council switchboard 410-222-1401 and ask for him or her! You'll probably end up talking with the Councilmember's legislative assistant, at least at first. But calling is so rare these days that it makes a big impression.

A two million dollar single purpose athletic facility for one elite sport that monopolizes a public water access point is not public water access!

Lisa

**Lisa** · 03-31-2022, 01:16 PM

Hello all, not so great news about Homeport Farm Park. AA County Rec & Parks is still trying to give Homeport to the rowers.

From County Executive Steuart Pittman's office:

"Some ask us to make it the future home of a rowing facility, and others ask for it to remain a public kayak launch. We are keeping track of all of this input and making the County Executive aware of it."

Please email and tell the county and other elected officials to keep Homeport Farm Park open as a public park and kayak launch and not give it to the rowers for their private playground! Homeport if the only usable public water access point on the South River. If you emailed before please email again to the expanded email list.

Here again are email addresses for opposition to giving Homeport Farm Park to the rowers. Homeport Farm Park is in County Council District 6 and Maryland Legislative District 30A. The Maryland Department of the Environment email addresses are new. These are the MDE staff who will review permit applications for Homeport.

I grouped the addresses by government body for cut and paste convenience. A roster of individual names and email addresses is in the post above. The new MDE names are at the end of this email.

If you send 4 emails (1 for each government body) your email is less likely to get stuck in a spam filter. Also, people pay more attention to an email that goes to them and the people they work with, rather than a 50 person mass email.

I've been told that the rowers are doing a vigorous email campaign to get the county to give them Homeport,. The rowers are organized, I have to give them that.

Administration email address block for cut and paste convenience:
expitt99@aacounty.org fy23-budget-comments@aacounty.org exmoul00@aacounty.org extrum99@aacounty.org rpleys00@aacounty.org

County Council email address block for cut and paste convenience:
lisa.rodvien@aacounty.org slacey@aacounty.org allison.pickard@aacounty.org nathan.volke@aacounty.org andrew.pruski@aacounty.org amanda.fiedler@aacounty.org Jessica.Haire@aacounty.org

MD Legislature District 30A email address block for cut and paste convenience:
sarah.elfreth@senate.state.md.us shaneka.henson@house.state.md.us dana.jones@house.state.md.us

Maryland Department of the Environment email address block for cut and paste convenience:

HNelson@maryland.gov Tammy.Roberson@maryland.gov andrew.pizzala1@maryland.gov

===============================
Maryland Department of the Environment:

Heather Nelson, Program Manager, Wetlands and Waterways Program, Maryland Department of the Environment: HNelson@maryland.gov
Tammy Roberson, Division Chief, Tidal Wetlands Division, Wetlands and Waterways Program, Maryland Department of the Environment: Tammy.Roberson@maryland.gov
Andrew Pizzala, Program Reviewer, Wetlands and Waterways Program, Maryland Department of the Environment: andrew.pizzala1@maryland.gov

**dsaavedra** · 03-31-2022, 03:48 PM

Thanks for organizing these email lists, Lisa. I just wrote an email and sent to all 4 groups.

**Mark** · 03-31-2022, 05:39 PM

https://www.annapoliscreative.com/op...-the-disabled/

The above article by Donna Cole is a comprehensive assessment of what's at stake for the kayak/paddleboard community if the rowing facility at Homeport Farm Park comes to fruition.

From a fishing perspective, Church Creek and the South River offer excellent access to white perch and stripers in season. Further, it is the only Anne Arundel County launch site where I have caught a redfish. Snakeheads are also present in the creek, the back portion of which is thick with aquatic vegetation.

Secondly, avoiding the speedy USNA crew teams in the wide Severn River requires more than a little effort and hyper awareness by kayak anglers. Those rowers are on a training mission and in a hurry! I cannot imagine dodging crew teams and their motorized trailing vessels in the smaller confines of Church Creek and where the creek enters the South River.

Homeport Farm Park is not a large-acre park. It works exceedingly well as soft landing cartop boat launch site situated within a quiet residential community. It would be a shame to see its natural shorelines which offer great fishing structure embellished with manmade construction to accommodate the storage and launching of long crew boats.

Finally, I find it ironic that the very large by comparison (300+ waterfront acres) at Beverly Triton on the Mayo Peninsula was deemed too pristine and ecologically fragile by the Pittman administration to develop into a full-fledged recreational park. Yet, the much smaller Homeport Farm Park can sustain the construction of a boathouse and pier.

No one will ever confuse politics and logic.

**Lisa** · 04-02-2022, 10:21 AM

Thanks all.

If you want to make your email work a little harder, please upload your opposition email as online testimony to the County Council:

https://www.aacounty.org/services-an...-participation

"Submit online" then "Click here to submit testimony on general matters during Invitation to Audience."

Then fill out the form and submit. This gets your opposition email on the official public record where everyone, including the press, can see it.

The Council meets again on Monday, April 4, 2022.

**Lisa** · 04-03-2022, 11:37 AM

If you get an email back from the county saying there are no plans for a rowing facility in Homeport Farm Park, please watch the 2/18/22 Rec & Parks presentation to the county Planning Advisory Board (PAB). You only have to watch about 30 seconds, not the whole 3 hours. See link below.

We learned that Rec & Parks is asking for FY23 design and construction money for the rowers in Homeport by watching Rec & Parks' 2/18/22 draft budget presentation to the county Planning Advisory Board (PAB). These PAB presentations are the first look at the County Executive's potential budget. Rec & Parks is sneaking the rowing money through the P567500 Boat Ramp Development account.

Transcription of Rec & Parks oral presentation about P567500 Boat Ramp Development:

"The Solley Cove project is in performance. We have begun a study of building a boathouse elsewhere in the
county to serve the paddlers and rowers. We're seeking design money to move forward with the design of the
boathouse in fiscal 23 and anticipate placing this out to bid at the end of 23. We are also requesting the
construction money in 23 as well.”

It's about 30 second of oral presentation at the 2:29:31 mark of this video https://aacounty.zoom.us/rec/play/z8..._zm_rhtaid=983
Please watch and listen to the video for yourselves.

The accompanying written documentation for P567500 Boat Ramp Development did not mention a boathouse or rowing facility.

Asking for design AND construction money in FY23 AND getting that money approved before the mandatory 30% design community meeting (usually the first public notice of a project) means Rec & Parks could start construction without having to back to the Council for construction funding in FY24. The 30% design meeting would probably happen at the end of 2022 or beginning of 2023. By the time anyone knew what was going on, we couldn't fight it at the budget level by opposing construction funding. That ship would have sailed.

Announcement

Homeport going to the rowers - please EMAIL ASAP

Homeport going to the rowers - please EMAIL ASAP

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