Update and Action Alert: Building Momentum, Strengthening Partnerships
The time is NOW to help us impact the funding for Program Open Space! Critical budget decisions will be made by the end of the month with key decisions being made on March 16 and 25. The Committees are debating and making decisions NOW.
Your Partnership is essential to our success. While the steering committee can talk details with key legislators, we rely on you, our network of organizations who care about protecting land with Program Open Space, to go to your members and ask them to contact their legislators. That is how we get it done!
Momentum to support Program Open Space is growing. We have new partners joining every day but we need your help to stabilize and develop a plan to move forward with these key programs.
Action Alert to Share With Your Supporters
Funding for Maryland’s parks, recreation and farmland preservation is in jeopardy.
Maryland preserves important land all across our state through Program Open Space, funded by the real estate transfer tax. In recent tough economic times these funds were diverted and replaced with bonds. In this year’s proposed budget, $115 million of funding is being diverted, there are no promises for future repayments, and previous promises to repay are being stripped from the budget.
Now is the time to stand up for land conservation.
Help us protect Program Open Space by asking your legislators to restore Open Space funds in the 2016 budget. The future of Maryland’s precious farms, open spaces, and priceless ecological resources depends on it.
We can’t afford to lose our open space funding – especially not now. We’ve already lost a billion dollars that should have been used for buying land, and we can never get that back. As Maryland continues to grow, we must preserve our special places now for us and for future generations. Once land is lost to development, it can never be recovered.
Contact your state legislators now, and tell them to work to restore the $115 million in transfer tax revenue swept in the 2016 budget and to include a good faith plan to get back to the required funding formula. We need to return to the full cash funding in accordance with the legally adopted formula. Only by fully funding Program Open Space can we ensure that our special places are still here in the Maryland of tomorrow.
Steering Committee Members
1000 Friends of Maryland, Dru Schmidt-Perkins; American Farmland Trust, Jim Baird; Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Elaine Lutz; Chesapeake Conservancy, Joel Dunn; Maryland Parks and Recreation Administrators, John Byrd; Maryland League of Conservation Voters, Karla Raettig; Howard County Office of Food Policy, Kelly Dudeck; The Conservation Fund, Bill Crouch; Maryland Recreation and Parks Association, Chuck Montrie;
The Nature Conservancy, Steve Bunker; Preservation Maryland, Nicholas Redding; Rural Maryland Council, Charlotte Davis; The Trust for Public Land, Kent Whitehead; The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, Josh Hastings; Director, Ann Jones
PartnersforOpenSpace@OpenSpaceMD www.partnersforopenspace.org PartnersForOpenSpace