Signs supporting landfill pop up
By ELIZABETH LEIS Staff Writer
The Capital, January 4, 2005

Like QVC at 3 a.m., roadside signs in west county are using an in-your-face pitch to entice residents. An unidentified person or group scattered hundreds of brightly colored signs in Piney Orchard, Crofton and Davidsonville last month, urging passersby to contact the county executive to make their hopes of a west county high school a reality.

"IF YOU WANT IT _ A New Gambrills High School! _ You CAN have it. Call Janet Owens to make it happen. 410-222-1821. CountyExecutiveOwens@AnneArundelcounty.com."

A similar sign has "a multi-purpose 200-acre park & sports fields!" in place of the school line.

The signs refer to Silver Spring-based Halle Cos.' offer to build a high school, public pool and 500-acre park in exchange for the community dropping its opposition to a proposed rubble landfill in the Forks of the Patuxent community of Odenton.

The company also agreed to pay a community panel $3 for every ton dumped at the landfill, up to $750,000 per year in a memo of understanding signed in September by the heads of the Greater Crofton Council and Greater Odenton Improvement Association.

Greater Crofton Council President Torrey Jacobsen Jr. said he doesn't know who created or put up the signs, but estimated that 600 of them had popped up.

"The supporters of the (memorandum of understanding) did it. There are a lot of them," he said.

Jody Couser, a spokesman for the county executive, said the office has received seven phone calls, but neither she nor Ms. Owens had seen the signs.

County land-use spokesman Pam Jordan said whoever put up these signs didn't seek permission, and could face a fine of up to $500.

The signs aren't the first created referring to the landfill. Last year, signs around Woodwardville that said "www.stopodentonlandfill.com" began appearing. Most have since disappeared, although one remains at Conway and Patuxent roads.

"We're going to put up more," said Forks of the Patuxent board member Robert Meyer. "For some reason, they came down."

Mr. Meyer estimated around 20 new signs, created in the spirit of the rhyming Burma-Shave slogans that appeared along roads in the 1950s, would begin appearing this month.