While candidates participating, we ask the same questions and we're given the same amount of time to respond. This video was filmed by QAC TV and the questions were selected by Editor Angela Price with Reader Input. My name is Hannah Combs reporting for the Bay Times and Record Observer. Today with us is Jim Moran, who is the incumbent county commissioner at large and he is running again as Republican candidate for the at large position. So welcome, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Well I wanted to ask you maybe in two minutes you could tell us a little bit about yourself and why you like to continue serving as county commissioner. Well I've been a resident of the county for 15 years. My wife is a nurse, my all my children have grown out of school but I was first appointed to this position five years ago when delegate parents got moved up into his existing position. And then I was one my election four years ago at the at large position and I want to continue in that position for four more years. I think that we have an excellent core of candidates, the Republican side that are running, that have proven what we can do for this county with our triple A bond rating and moving some of the projects that have been installed for many many years moving them forward. So the counties in great shape right now be it taxes, be it services and restoring all those and we're looking to do even bigger and better things in the next four years. Okay, you've been in this position now for the five years as you said. What are some of the biggest issues that you see still facing the county or maybe there are new issues that are facing the county now? And that's a good question because there are and I can't say it enough. I've been saying it for the last three and a half years. The biggest issue this county is going to be facing in the future is traffic and it's not our traffic. It's the beach traffic. You know, I hear a lot of times people say to me, you know, be a development or whatever the case would be we have too much traffic, too much traffic. We don't have a traffic problem from November through April. We have a traffic problem in the summertime. There's a Delaware bypass being built that will dump into 301 and today we just had a meeting of the commissioners and the economic development commission came in to talk about the impacts of that traffic on the county. And what people need to start worrying about is not so much tomorrow, not so much next year with the traffic, but five and ten years from now where that traffic is going to be. And we have been trying for the last three years with the state to give them solutions or options to help us with our traffic problem. So the citizens of Queen Anne's County can move around on a Sunday afternoon. And you know, we think that this last option that we showed them with closing down exits and monitoring the other exits. Again, it's not for so much next year or the year after, it's for four and five years down the road. And we're trying to, you know, what we're working on now with the state and, you know, when we get a better feel for what the state thinks we should do, that's when we'll bring that to the citizens of Queen Anne's County for them to review and comment on. Okay. We're going to move on to some questions. We'd like you to answer in a minute. Okay. The comprehensive plan is coming up for review during this next term. What is your vision for that plan? How do you see that shaping? I think it's a, you know, well, first off the plan we have now. I think it's a fine plan. I think it just needs to be tweaked. What we didn't have, what we don't, what we didn't have when we did the comp plan 10 years ago. And again, I didn't work on it. What we didn't have 10 years ago, what we have to deal with now is the tier system. And the county is opted out of the tier system. So what that means is it's the same as the septic bill. Growth has to be where it can be serviced by septic. And also we have the issue of continual flooding. And we're talking about on a sunny day of flood, you know, not so much a storm. So the rising tides is something we're going to take into account with flood maps. So those are two major components. They're going to have to be looked at with our existing comp plan to see how we can work those in there. The county's been approached by the school system for funding above maintenance of effort. That's not a new request. What would a better strategy be maybe to address their request? Well, let's see if we can get through that in a minute. Okay, because that's, that is a very good question. And it's, it's, it's a very core question for Queenie and County. And I will say in the last five years, I funded this school board in my votes, $6 million over maintenance of effort. And I understand that, you know, I've ever all the costs rise. But what I did propose this year in the budget cycle and I still propose it today is let's bring an outside agency in and allow that outside agency to basically doing audit on the county commissioners, excuse me on the school board. And what their budget cycle is and where their money is being spent and see because if it is a true need and the audit would bear that out, then I have no problems with moving forward with that. Okay. Some, some residents have concerns for balancing future development with protecting the environment. What is a, what is the suggestion for balancing those two? Well, and again, you know, so well, first off, when you talk about future development, I want to make it plain and clear to the public, Aquinians County as it is, it's no hidden secret that I get blamed for development of be it four seasons, cloisters, any of these developments, I get on the developer's whipping boy. And in fact, if you call up to planning and zoning, I've only voted on one development in my five years as a commissioner actually my eight years of service to the county because again commissioners don't vote on it. The planning commission does and I voted on one and that's a fact of 20 senior apartments in Chester, Maryland. So I want that notion to be out there with the public so that they realize of what being spread about me is just not the truth. When it comes to the environment, and that's what I talked about with the comp plan, you have to be prepared to look at the rising tides and what we will, what we consider conservation in certain tracks of land that we don't want any development on. What are some of your thoughts for fostering business growth and economic development in the county? And that's what we have the meeting today about with the county commissioners. There is a huge opportunity for economic development on the 301 corridor because you're going to see traffic triple. It's going to, yeah, triple. It's going to go from five double to go from 5,000, about 15,000 vehicles in a matter of a year or so. So there's going to be a lot of traffic there that's going to be needs for that. The study today showed that and you know what with Queen and County, the first and foremost things we need to do when it comes to businesses is we need to get a high speed internet. We need to get broadband and that's one thing that Commissioner Jack Wilson and myself are working hard at is because you know the egg or the chicken you have to have that broadband ability. If you want to get any high tech high paying jobs to stop our students and our workforce from crossing that Bay Bridge. Absolutely. Residents in the northern part of the county sometimes voice their concerns. They didn't get the sleep services that the rest of the county does. What are your thoughts about that and addressing that concerns? I don't necessarily see that as far as services. I will say that sometimes their voice isn't heard because that's the majority of our farming industry. And for instance, you know last night we had a discussion on solar and some of our farmers are opted to to at least their farms out for solar. And you know they have my full support and I just think that that they have different issues. They have issues that need to be brought up and they need to be heard but I understand their issues. Are there any issues that I know we had a short amount of time that we didn't touch on that you want to talk about? Well I'd like to talk about you know I think one of the big things with Queen Anne's County and you see it on the weekends is our parks. And what we've decided about three years ago we had an opportunity to develop another park. And I rated the notion that before we build any new parks let's bring all of our existing parks up to grade. And if you know what you're seeing now is all the parking lots being paved all the parking lots being marked. We're trying to add bathrooms to all the big parks. Concession stands. We're removing dead trees. I mean we just we want to enhance what we have now because we have a lot of kids and a lot of families in our parks on the weekends. And it's one of the things that I'm proud about being the liaison to parks and rec. You know and another thing is the opioid awareness and I think that the drug free coalition in Queen Anne's County going purple for the month of September did a great job bringing awareness. Because you now have people talking about it everywhere and that's exactly what we've been trying to do for three years. Okay I'd like to thank you for joining us and taking time to participate in this work. Thank you very much. Thanks.