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DENTON – The agenda was light, but the discussion was lengthy as the three Caroline County Commissioners held a workshop to discuss two potential pieces of legislation concerning public nuisances and solar energy, as well as to enact a new bill.
Meeting Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, President Travis Breeding, Vice President Larry Porter and Commissioner Frank Bartz passed Legislative Bill 2025-008 and calendar.
Read for the third time, the bill passed. It amends the text of Section 175-34 of the County Code to allow for a reduced setback from lot lines for agricultural and fishery products processing plants. It was deemed emergency legislation in order to enact it immediately upon its adoption.
Two proposed pieces of legislation were presented in draft form for open discussion by the Commissioners as well as by County Attorney Stewart Barroll and Deputy County Administrator Daniel Fox.
The first proposed legislation, Bill 2025-010, would amend provisions of Chapter 137 of the County Code pertaining to the definitions of public nuisances and the procedures for addressing them.
The bill would broaden and refine what constitutes a public nuisance, provide for the investigation of complaints, authorize the Department of Planning and Codes to “serve notice of a Declaration of Public Nuisance and public nuisance abatement order,” and provide for the right of appeal, among other provisions, according to the 18-page draft with comments.
The legislation would place the Commissioners in the position of arbitrating appeals during their public meetings, the feasibility of which concerned both Breeding and Porter. On the other hand, the Commissioners’ arbitration would obviate the need for creating a new board of nuisance appeals.
Porter said his “biggest concern” was that appeals wouldn’t “end up taking an inordinate amount of time on our regularly busy agenda.”
Joining in the discussion were Caroline County Planning and Codes Director Crystal Dadds, Assistant Director of Review Matthew Kaczynski and County Health Officer Robin Cahall.
Dadds and Cahall agreed that few complaints rising to the level of an appeals process would result from the proposed protocol. A public nuisance affects more people than an adjacent property owner complaining about a private nuisance.
“I don't think this is going to be used hardly at all,” Breeding said. “I don't think we really have many issues that rise to the level of a public nuisance.”
Available to a property owner would be the option of working with Planning and Codes staff to address a complaint, and “self-abatement,” thus minimizing the need for appeal. Cahall said most complaints could be handled at the Health Department level.
However, Breeding said he thought the legislation would be “very controversial, even though it probably shouldn't be controversial, because it really does not extend any authority to the Commissioners that the health officer doesn't already have.”
Cahall said the system of responding to public nuisances currently in place is working. “It’s just slow-moving and it’s a lot of coordination,” although staff between the two departments “work well together in those circumstances.”
However, the enforcement and abatement aspects of the current code need legislative muscle.
Porter said the proposed bill is a “step in the right direction, because frankly I’m tired (of complaints from constituents who say), ‘So, you guys are going to let me have to live next to this mess?’”
“My staff is, too, when we get the complaints, and then we have to tell them, ‘We're sorry, there's nothing we can do about it,” Dadds said.
Breeding said the public nuisance code “needs to be easier for the public to understand, as well.”
Reading from the draft soon after the discussion began, Porter clarified that “public nuisance does not include any condition resulting from a farm operation following generally accepted agricultural practices that are not creating a condition dangerous to health or safety; or … any condition resulting from commercial fishing or seafood operation (following generally accepted industry standards and processes that are not creating a condition dangerous to health or safety).”
While the draft legislation needs refining, Porter said, “It does address, for example, some of the things that I have been concerned about for years, from abandoned structures that … catch on fire, trees fall through them, and they just sit there, …. (generating) health and safety issues, and they also are detrimental to property values.”
Porter said he believes lending institutions that foreclose on properties should maintain them to keep them safe and to prevent surrounding property values to decline.
The Commissioners asked county staff to continue refining the legislation for introduction at a later meeting.
Potential legislation concerning solar energy would align Chapter 175 of the County Code with legislation passed by the Maryland General Assembly this year.
The bill would be emergency legislation “concerning community solar generating systems, energy storage devices, and solar energy generating stations to provide consistency with State Law known as the Renewable Energy Certainty Act” and required by Senate Bill 931 and House Bill 1036.
Among other provisions, the bill would also require the payment of a Compensatory Preservation Contribution to the County when solar energy generating stations and energy storage devices are developed on agricultural land which is classified by the United States Department of Agriculture as either “Prime Farmland” (soil with the highest productivity for producing food crops and, thus, of national importance for preservation as farmland); or “Farmland of Statewide Importance” (the second highest level of productivity, soil which is of State-wide importance for food production).”
The Commissioners’ next meeting will be held at 9 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 2, at the Caroline County Courthouse, 109 Market St., Denton.
Caroline County Commission meetings are livestreamed and archived for later viewing. To watch the Aug. 19 meeting and download the agenda with linked documents, including draft legislation, visit carolinecountymd.new.swagit.com/videos/352895.
