31/12/2023
And now our hospital is almost closed the county commissioners worry about other things that are nowhere near as important as our infrastructure, especially with the hospital and look at us. Now we can’t even take care of ourselves, healthwise our own county. 
NO HOSPITAL BEDS AVAILABLE
Adequate Public Facilities Must Be Reviewed
The three hospitals in Southern Maryland–Charles Regional, Calvert Health, and Medstar St. Mary’s–are operating at Red Alert this morning because there are no critical care beds available. I was made aware of another post that showed these hospitals on Re-Route last night. Simply, these hospitals are overwhelmed with patients needing care and do not have the resources to meet the need. ER wait times are hours long, Urgent Cares are frequently overrun. When people lack a primary care doctor, or can’t get an appointment with their physician, they visit urgent care, the ER, or may not seek care at all.
The Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance (CZO), Chapter 70, describes what is required for a new development to meet Adequate Public Facilities (APF). Residential development must address the following things in order to meet APF: roads, sewerage, water, fire suppression water supply, storm drainage, and schools. The current APF regulations leave out what I consider to be glaring omissions, and a threat to public safety: police, fire/EMS, and hospitals/medical care.
The chart pictured below, taken from Maryland’s Open Data Portal, shows the results. Granted, our hospital is not overrun on a daily basis. However, the rate at which St. Mary’s is growing (one of the fastest in the state) should be sending off alarm bells. In 2022, part of my campaign platform was updating APF as part of the overall Zoning Ordinance update. Did you know the CZO, while amended over the years, has not had a complete front-to-back update for over a decade? The Comprehensive Plan hasn’t either, but will soon be going through the update process.
I met with then Sheriff Tim Cameron in 2022 and asked if the Dept. of Land Use and Growth Management (LUGM) or the Planning Commission requested input from the Sheriff’s Office when considering new development. Sheriff Cameron said he had not received any such requests. How can the Sheriff’s Office be expected to adequately provide services when neighborhoods with hundreds of homes are being built, expanded, or planned? The Sheriff’s Office, and County Government in general, has struggled with filling a large number of vacancies over the last several years. This compounds the problem. Fewer employees expected to provide services to more people.
The Comprehensive Plan will include goals and visions for development throughout the county, as well as suggestions for zoning changes to help achieve these goals. Consideration of whether the suggestions from the 2010 Comp Plan were used and what their successes and failures were should occur as well. Then, the CZO should be updated accordingly. APF is also addressed in other plans, including policies/suggestions in the Lexington Park Transportation Plan; Comprehensive Water and Sewerage Plan; Educational Facilities Master Plan; Fire and Rescue Services Master Plan; Land Preservation and Recreation Plan; Capital Improvements Program.
In my opinion, not only should residential development be considered for APF, but commercial should as well. Commercial development can place demands on our police, fire, EMS, and medical services in addition to roads, water/sewer, and storm drainage.
Section 70.13 of the CZO states the “County Commissioners shall consider revisions to adopted standards, criteria, and procedures for adequate public facilities analyses on at least a biannual basis. As part of this process, the County Commissioners shall hold a public hearing prior to the adoption of additional specific standards, criteria, and procedures for determining the adequacy of public facilities.”
I performed a quick search on the County website to find the last time the Commissioners reviewed APF and held a public forum on this specifically. I could not find anything in the last six years.
Here’s the action: Email the County Commissioners ([email protected]) and request they review the APF regulations and hold a public forum to solicit feedback for updates. Also, request the complete update of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, to include updated Adequate Public Facilities covering police, fire/EMS, and medical care.
