Columbia, Inc.? Old idea gets new traction - baltimoresun.com: "It's been 13 years since the failure of the last real effort to convert Columbia into an incorporated municipality, but some feel the current suggestion that the town's homeowners association seek power over zoning is tied to that old debate.
'If they can get control of zoning, they'll also be asking for incorporation,' said Pearl Atkinson Stewart, the Columbia Association board member with the longest tenure and institutional memory. 'I can't see it going anywhere.'
In fact, deputy county solicitor Paul Johnson said that based on his experience, he feels incorporation would be the only way for the town's residents to get zoning authority, an opinion shared by the Maryland attorney general's office, said spokeswoman Raquel Guillory."
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Libertarians argue that CIDs will replace cities, but I think it is more likely that the really big ones, like Columbia, MD, will incorporate as municipalities.
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Thankfully, they are not supporting giving a private corporation such authority. Of course when they incorporate as a political subdivision of the state, hopefully the HOA can and will be terminated. Assessments become tax deductible as property tax. Meetings have to be subject to open meetings and open records - no CAI compromised version of the same. All residents get a vote, not just those approved of by the corporate board. Any resident can run for office - not just those approved of by the board. No more suppression of fundamental rights - and all because as non-owners they wanted the power to control the use of other owners' properties. So quite possibly in their effort to restrain freedom in some areas they might well create freedom in other areas.
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