Dyson: Move voting machines, elections office

Monthly rent could near $10,000

Friday, July 3, 2009

The board of elections office is in the old sheriff's building on Tudor Hall Road in Leonardtown, while the actual voting machines are stored at the old Carver school in Lexington Park.

Dyson's letter suggested renting office space at 22100 Point Lookout Road, owned by Redgate Properties, home to Winters Sheet Metal. The monthly rent is estimated to "cost between $7,083.33 - $9,916.67. Per Maryland law, the cost to warehouse voting equipment is a split between the county and the state," Dyson wrote.

Except for utility fees there is no cost to store the voting machines at Carver. The old school building is also used for programs overseen by the county's department of recreation and parks and is home to a substation of the sheriff's office. County government's archives used to be stored at Carver, but have been moved back to Leonardtown.

A replacement Carver Elementary School was built farther down Great Mills Road for $15.4 million and opened in 2006. That moved the students out from underneath the airspace of Patuxent River Naval Air Station.

Dyson said in the letter that the proposed location in Redgate would consolidate the board of elections into one place for the convenience of voters. "It would house the voting machines for storage, provide office space, as well as provide space for early voting. It would provide our constituents a one-stop facility for all of their voting and election needs," he wrote.

Brenda Burch, supervisor of the St. Mary's Board of Elections, was unavailable for comment Thursday.

Among the issues at Carver listed in Dyson's letter are safety concerns. "The current warehouse is located in a common[ly] viewed unsafe neighborhood. Several staff member[s] refuse to go to the warehouse alone. Earlier this year the front window of the current warehouse was broken by what appears to be a gunshot."

The old Carver is located in the Southampton neighborhood.

Commissioner Thomas A. Mattingly Sr. (D) said the neighborhood's characterization isn't accurate. "Some of it is not factual. There's not any security issue that we see," he said Wednesday.

While the commissioners as a group have not discussed Dyson's proposal, Mattingly said he didn't support the idea. "I don't think it's warranted. We have space at Carver. It just doesn't make any sense. We don't need someone trying to figure out how to spend $100,000 [a year] for us," he said, while the state is still trying to balance its finances.

Commission President Francis Jack Russell (D) said, "It's a proposal we're going to have to look at. I'm not going to make any comment on it because we haven't had the chance to vet it."

Of the board of elections, "We gotta see how bad they're jammed up."

In terms of security in the area, "That's one of the reasons we put that [sheriff's] substation down there," he said.

jbabcock@somdnews.com