Story Category: Regional News »

You can't miss the signs. They're everywhere we look, with his sorta-smiling face, larger than life, looking down upon his minions.

He's currently King of the County, and he wants us to elevate him to Prince of the State. He wants to write State laws for us to obey, yet he doesn't want to obey the ones he's already enacted at the County level.

St. Mary's County has a very simple ordinance governing temporary political campaign signs; they can't be posted in the public right-of-way; they can't be illuminated; they can't be more than 32 square feet in size (the size of a sheet of plywood); and no signs in the County can extend above the roof of the building they're attached to.

If you've driven down Rt.235, you already know that this doesn't seem to apply to the King of the County. Most of McKay's signs are doubled up with others to create 64 square foot signs. His campaign headquarters has a 100 square foot sign structure on the roof. He has an illuminated pole sign at the headquarters that well exceeds 32 square feet, and he is now towing a very large highway-type warning sign around the County that is not just illuminated, but flashes his campaign message with mega-watt clarity.

He's above the law. The rules that govern the rest of us just don't apply when the guy that's supposed to enforce the Ordinance works for the King.

On Sept. 13, most of McKay's headquarters signs were officially designated as violations of the Zoning Ordinance by an inspector for the St. Mary's County Department of Land Use and Growth Management (LUGM).

County Commissioner President McKay was notified of these violations. Apparently, the silly inspector didn't realize that you just can't tell the King of the County that He's violated a law that He helped enact.

Through his lawyers, McKay convinced the Director of LUGM to simply change his interpretation of the Ordinance. In effect, this was an "appeal."

Us minions would have had to file an appeal with the Zoning Board of Appeals (BOA), and would have had to testify at a public hearing before the board to request a reversal of LUGM's original report of violations. But that's a formality reserved for the little people. With a little creative re-interpretation of the Ordinance, it was found that the inspector (a long-time veteran in his field) was wrong, and Commissioner President McKay was not in violation after all.

The 32 square foot "limit" is NOW being interpreted as meaning that the sign structure can be as large as the candidate wants, as long as the signs posted on it are no more than 32 square feet. Make sense? Of course not! It doesn't take a college degree to see this either.

Why in the world would we want to allow these guys to build enormous monolithic billboard-size structures plastered with an unlimited number of 32 square foot signs? The Ordinance, its intent, and the process for appeals, were politically circumvented by Commissioner President McKay.

So whenever you see his sorta-smiling face beaming down on you from his very large double-signs, or find yourself blinded by the lights of his trailer-mounted highway warning-type sign, know that you're looking at a true sign of political circumvention.