Havre de Grace City Council passes forest conservation ordinance

The city of Havre de Grace has 200 more acres in forest preservation than neighboring Aberdeen, a Havre de Grace councilman pointed out Tuesday night as the city council approved a forest conservation ordinance.

The Havre de Grace City Council unanimously approved of a forest conservation ordinance, only with a few "housekeeping" amendments.

During Tuesday night's meeting - pushed to Tuesday because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday - the council approved the ordinance with little discussion and a few amendments that Councilman James Miller described as "just housekeeping."

The amendments all dealt with the wording or certain lines, and were suggested by former council president Joe Kochenderfer, as well as Miller, during the Jan. 4 public hearing. All were minor, including deleting an erroneous "s" in "conversations" and spelling mistakes.

Councilman Fred Cullum said the planning committee had reviewed the ordinance and while the city could have referred everything to the state, they believed it was "good to go ahead and have our own ordinance as we've had in the past."

Councilman Randolph Craig commented that Aberdeen has 75 acres in forest conversation, while Havre de Grace has 275.68 acres.

The numbers "speak volumes on the amounts of forest conservation in an urban city like Havre de Grace," he said.

In other business from Tuesday's city council meeting:

The council unanimously approved six events at the Lock House Museum for 2012: War of 1812 re-enactment on May 5, the 5th Annual Pirate Gala, Pirate Encampment and Pirate 5K Run all on July 14, Christmas Boutique on Dec. 8 and the 40th Annual Candlelight Tour on Dec. 9.

Director of Administration Carol Mathis informed the council and audience members that the new version of the city's website, http://www.havredegracemd.com went live Tuesday afternoon.

The newly designed site has "all kinds of information," Mathis said, including quick links with the city's tourism site, chamber of commerce and more. The site also has icons to pay city water bills online.

Mathis commented that the city had received many complaints from residents about difficulty of navigating the site and hopes "this one will be a great improvement."

Cullum pointed out the new TV monitors in city hall that are visible to the audience, as well as the council, and showed the meeting's agenda, as well as the new city website.

Cullum said the monitors are "a new venture" and that the city wanted to "do something for us for a change" and make an improvement to city hall.

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