Bipartisan Bucks for Broncos

No sooner had I finished writing the prior piece, than the Capital came out with its announcement that "County wins bid for horse park." Turns out the Maryland Stadium Authority has chosen the former Horizon Farm site over Fair Hill in Cecil County as its top choice to "host" a State Horse Park. Republican Delegate and candidate for County Executive David Boschert declared giddily, "And they're off!" Off their rockers, perhaps. What we have is a combined Republican (Boschert, Councilwoman Vitale, Councilman Dillon) and Democrat (Mayor Moyer) lovefest proposing, from what I can tell, to spend $75-100 million state taxpayer dollars to build a horse-racing stadium.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it fairly recently that Governor Bobby was warning us that Maryland might lose the Preakness if we didn't get slots? Building this stadium is like having been present at the dawn of the automobile and declaring that it's time to have the State foot the bill for bringing a buggy whip manufacturing plant on line.

It's clear why Boschert wants it, it's pork for his district. I'm curious as to why the generally tight-fisted Vitale and Dillon have gotten behind the project though [UPDATE: According to Councilman Dillon, both he and Ms. Vitale support a study of the idea, not necessarily going forward with construction]. As for the Mayor, one would have thought she had her hands full governing Annapolis such that she wouldn't need to concern herself with Gambrills. Unless of course this is part of some radical annexation scheme.

Why, oh why, can't we just leave this property an organic farm, keep $75-100 million in the state coffers, and keep the County off the hook for infrastructure upgrades? Why?