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St. Mary's County approves two highway-safety grants totaling roughly $194,100
Summary
The Board of County Commissioners approved an $81,100 budget amendment to increase the county's FY2009 highway safety grant and authorized a new $113,000 Southern Maryland media-and-enforcement grant, expanding enforcement and public-education efforts aimed at impaired driving, young drivers and seat-belt use.
St. Mary's County commissioners on Aug. 26 approved an $81,100 increase to the county's FY2009 Highway Safety Grant and accepted an additional $113,000 competitive grant to fund a Southern Maryland media-and-enforcement campaign aimed at reducing impaired and aggressive driving.
County officials said the combined awards would expand enforcement activity, public education and targeted overtime patrols around large regional events. The board voted unanimously to authorize Commissioner President Jack Russell to sign the grant agreements and related budget amendments.
The county's highway safety coordinator, Jackie Beckman, told commissioners the program uses a multi-pronged approach — “education, enforcement, engineering and EMS” — and partners with law enforcement, schools, businesses and regional agencies. She said seat-belt and DUI citations have risen as enforcement increased, and that the county’s seat-belt use rates have been higher than the state average.
Beckman described several initiatives the grants will support, including sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols, underage-drinking compliance checks, distribution of child safety seats and bike-helmet programs, young-driver education and outreach at high-traffic events such as the Blue Crabs and regional motocross meets. “Prevention, of course, is through public education, presentations and programs,” Beckman said. She added that enforcement operations also serve as education because citations remind drivers of the law.
Dennis Connolly, representing the county's Department of Human Services, said the base grant match of $57,100 is already in the FY2009 budget and that the $81,100 action before the board was to increase the grant application amount; the county’s cash-match requirement would not increase for the new $113,000 regional media-and-enforcement award. The board discussed how the new $113,000 award will primarily fund pre-event media and overtime enforcement tied to large local gatherings; the grant manager said much of the media work will occur in the months before events and enforcement in-season.
Superintendent of Schools (unnamed in the record) praised the county’s youth-focused efforts and described a school-based safe-driving contract tied to student parking privileges. Sheriff Cameron described sobriety checkpoints as an effective deterrent but said saturation patrols produce more arrests; he supported a mix of both tactics.
Commissioners discussed operational details, including that the new $113,000 award uses soft-match credits (public channel time and other in-kind services) rather than additional county FTEs or hard cash-match contributions. Jackie Beckman said no new county staff are required and that the county plans to partner with Comcast, radio outlets and organizations such as Long & Foster and Chesapeake Regional Safety Council to deliver campaign messages.
The board approved both items without recorded opposition.
Looking ahead, Beckman said the county expects notification from the state within several months about the final allocations and will return to commissioners with any required adjustments to the project budgets or scopes.
