St. Mary's County holds public hearing on code changes for property remediation, civil penalties and ethics disclosures

St. Mary's County commissioners held a public hearing in which County Attorney George Sprawley outlined three proposed amendments to the county code: (1) authority for voluntary property maintenance remediation agreements reimbursed through amortized property tax payments, (2) consolidation of scattered civil-infraction penalty provisions into a single civil-infraction framework, and (3) narrower financial-disclosure and conflict-of-interest rules for many volunteer boards. No members of the public spoke at the hearing, and no final votes were taken.

Sprawley said the first proposal would allow — but not require — the county to contract with a willing property owner to perform maintenance or remediation work and recover costs through an amortized addition to property taxes. "Such an agreement on the part of the property owner would be purely voluntary. There's no compulsion involved," Sprawley said,…