Angry Residents: Where Was Lisanti?

Cedarday residents were expecting Harford County Councilwoman Mary Ann Lisanti to show up on  to fight the extension of their neighborhood road to Maryland Route 136.

In a June 13 letter to community members, Listanti said she would attend.

"I look forward to attending the June 21st meeting and will continue to work with you and the Administration for the duration of this project," Lisanti wrote in the letter. (See attached photo.)

But she did not show up at the meeting, which escalated into a shouting match between government officials and community members. Many of the residents at the meeting demanded to know where Listanti was.

Some were so disapointed with Lisanti's absence, they threatened to vote her out of office in three years.

Lisanti told Patch being at the meeting would have complicated matters after County Executive David Craig's chief of staff told her the extension was imminent.

“Last week [Aaron Tomarchio] conducted a meeting with his staff, the DPW folks and the leaders of the opposition,” Lisanti told Patch by phone after Wednesday’s meeting. “Aaron had reported back to me that he communicated to them that the final decision by the administration had been made that this road project would go through.”

The councilwoman said Department of Public Works employees had no obligation to hold Tuesday's meeting, but did so at her request.

“I have been nonstop and responding to emails and talking to people on the phone to try to explain to them how this decision was made first and foremost and the role of the legislative [body] versus the administration,” Lisanti said. “I worked with DPW to get this meeting set up so that they could publicly address all of these questions.”

When the residents of the southern Bel Air community said their voices were not being heard, Tomarchio said that time had passed and the residents should speak to their council representative, who is Lisanti.

“? Did anybody at all pay attention to the budget within the last year?” Tomarchio said at the public hearing. “. That’s your opportunity.”

While sympathetic to her constituents, Lisanti agreed.

“Once the budget’s passed," she said, "[the council] cannot rescind the funding that has already been allocated. The budget’s done."

But some residents did not think that justified her absence.

“,” Dan Beil, a Cedarday resident, yelled to county Chief of Engineering Jeff Stratmeyer at the public hearing. “She set you up, by the way. Lisanti let you take the fall for this. That’s wrong. Completely wrong.”

Lisanti said she did not want to give false hope, and that some residents in the Cedarday community want the road.

“It’s in David Craig’s ballpark and his people. ... I chose not to be there for the sole reason of not giving any legislative interference,” she said. “There’s been a lot of movement among people in the original Cedarday community wanting that road to go through.”

Lisanti emphasized the limits on her power.

“I’ve had lots of people call me, email me and say, ‘I signed the petition, but you know what? This has become a very vicious battle and I don’t really want to get into it … I signed it to keep neighborhood peace,’” she said. “While I am very concerned for the folks that are most immediately impacted by this road, and I have done everything within my purview to allow them a venue to speak their concerns and advocate for them, I think their expectations [of me] are unrealistic.”

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