The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Anne Arundel County Ethics Commission are investigating the county's relocation of a proposed road last year -- and whether the change was intended to help developers planning an Annapolis-area retail and housing complex.
The FBI is interviewing people associated with the rerouting of Medical Boulevard, which county officials last year said should lead directly to the entrance of the proposed Annapolis Marketplace west of Annapolis, according to sources close to the investigation.
The ethics commission, meanwhile, recently subpoenaed five current and former county officials to demand "any and all documents" relating to the change in road alignment, according to records obtained by The Sun.
Among those subpoenaed March 16 to testify was Thomas C. Andrews, the county's top land-use official and the chief administrative officer under former county executive John G. Gary.
"I had no conflict of interest," Andrews said yesterday. "And I would venture the opinion that nobody else in county government did, either."
At the center of both investigations is a May 1998 proposal by Annapolis Developers Associates Inc. to build 21 stores, two restaurants, a 12-screen movie theater, a six-story office building and perhaps dozens of homes on Bestgate Road across from Annapolis Mall.
Following the recommendations of the Gary administration, the County Council in May changed its capital budget to say that the $2.7 million project to extend Medical Boulevard from Jennifer Road to Bestgate Road should no longer specify Severn Grove Road as its destination.
Instead, the budget said that the road should connect to Bestgate Road at both Severn Grove Road and near Commerce Park Drive, adjacent to the Annapolis Developers property.
A county public works document said that the county's top priority was to connect Medical Boulevard directly to the Annapolis Developers property, and perhaps connect to Severn Grove Road "at some future date."
The developers used the county's proposed change in road alignments as an argument to try to persuade the county's administrative hearing officer in May 1998 that he should change the zoning on the 34 acres from residential to commercial, saying that the proposed road changed the neighborhood's character, according to county records.
The officer, Stephen M. LeGendre, turned down the request in July. And newly elected County Executive Janet S. Owens changed the alignment back to its original location in January.
The developers are pursuing the rezoning, with hearings scheduled for 4 p.m. today before the county's Board of Appeals.
County Councilwoman Barbara Samorajczyk, an Annapolis Democrat elected in November after criticizing the county for seeming to do favors for developers, said yesterday that the change in the alignment of Medical Boulevard was highly suspicious.
The alteration suggested that the county was manipulating its budget to try to help a developer win a rezoning that meant millions of dollars.
"This was just the grossest thing in the world," Samorajczyk said. "It subverted the normal process. It shouldn't be up to the developers to make the rules. It should be up to the developers to follow the rules."
State tax records show that the registered agent for Annapolis Developers Associates Inc., based in Annapolis, is John Bruno. Bruno could not be reached for comment yesterday.
A spokesman for the developers, Robert Agee, told The Sun in January that the project would be good for the county because it would allow a mixture of homes, shops and offices so that people would need to drive less.
A consultants' report written by Landvisions Inc. for the developers said that the project would have "no detrimental effect on any of the surrounding properties," according to a document on file with the county's Board of Appeals.
Gary, who was voted out of office in November, said yesterday that he proposed the change because one of the developers told him that directing the road toward the proposed Annapolis Marketplace project would be better for the environment.
Gary said he initially bought the developers' argument that connecting Medical Boulevard from Jennifer Road to Severn Grove Road, as initially planned by the county, would hurt a tributary of Weems Creek by requiring a bridge across it.
Gary said he also thought that that alignment of the road would improve traffic near the Annapolis Mall and help a number of development projects in the area.
"It was the developers' idea" to change the road's path, Gary said. "I figured, if it helped the environment, and if if helped the traffic flow in the area, we didn't care if it helped the developer or not."
Gary said he later learned that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which monitors adjacent wetlands, said it did not support the developers' assertion that the new road alignment was better for the environment. This made Gary change his mind about the proposal.
The Maryland Department of the Environment told the county in September 1998 that directing the road to the Annapolis Developers site would be bad for the nearby Cowhide Branch because it would run along the stream and might pollute it, according to county records.
William C. Mulford, a former Annapolis-area county councilman who supported the change to the county's road construction plan, said he thought it absurd that the FBI and ethics commission would waste their time on "conspiracy theories" about the project.
"If you thought that Ken Starr wasted time and money on the Monica Lewinsky investigation, this is even worse," Mulford said. "They are barking up the wrong tree."
Pub Date: 3/24/99