What’s in a name? Commissioners split on what to call buildings

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008

The new meeting room will be in the Chesapeake Building, the existing governmental center building will be called the Potomac Building and the annex building the Patuxent Building.

The names were adopted on a 3-2 vote. Commissioners Kenny Dement (R) and Larry Jarboe (R) voted no.

The annex building — now the Patuxent Building — houses the sheriff’s office, the county treasurer, the department of land use and growth management and the department of recreation, parks and community services.

County Administrator John Savich brought forth the name proposals from staff recommendations.

Other buildings on the governmental campus already have names such as the Joseph D. Carter State Office Building and the Garvey Senior Center.

The public works building off Route 4 in California is called the Richard Arnold Building, who served as county commissioner from 1978 to Sept. 24, 1986, when he died.

Savich said the new names are from the waterways that surround St. Mary’s.

‘‘The names are commonplace” throughout the state, Jarboe countered.

The Garvey Senior Center and Loffler Senior Center are named after local people, he said, and he wanted to explore naming buildings after notable countians.

Jarboe suggested former state Senator Paul Bailey as a suitable candidate. Bailey served several terms from the 1940s to the 1970s, though he lost some elections along the way.

Dement said he agreed with naming buildings after local people, and said that system has been fine so far.

Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D) said, ‘‘I’m not so sure it’s working.” The annex building was built to accommodate the St. Mary’s County Circuit Court while its building was renovated. The circuit court moved back into its quarters in 2001 and the annex building has been nameless since, although it houses governmental offices.

When people want to know where the treasurer’s office is, ‘‘We’ve got to say it’s that building over there,” Raley said.

All of the buildings on the county government campus need a designation of some sort, but it’s difficult to single out individuals, said Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D).

‘‘How far back in history do you go?” he said.

‘‘This is simple; this is clean,” he said of the new names. ‘‘It doesn’t put any individual higher than another.”

The county owes its beauty to the surrounding waters, Mattingly said. ‘‘It’s all driven by our location, surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay, the Potomac River, the Patuxent River,” he said.

Those names are all derived from American Indian names for the rivers and bay.

Commission President Francis Jack Russell (D) said he had no problem with the names ‘‘being a water person with salt water running through my veins.”

He added, ‘‘No way can this be done without causing controversy.”

The new meeting room, now the Chesapeake Building, will be finished this spring. It cost $3.6 million. The current meeting room dates back to 1978.

jbabcock@somdnews.com