Health & Fitness

Boteler Wants To Disband Revenue Authority

Republican delegate calls selection of Gordon Harden to fill a vacancy on the agency's board "outrageous."

The recent selection of Gordon Harden to of the Baltimore County Revenue Authority is not sitting well with some state legislators in Annapolis who are now vowing to dismantle the quasi-public agency.

Harden, Towson resident who unsuccessfully ran for the Baltimore County Council in 2010, was selected by the council to fill the vacancy left open by the . Harden, who was picked by Councilman David Marks, a Perry Hall Republican, is drawing criticism because of and nearly two-dozen housing code violations that were previously filed against him.

"With all the stuff we're doing down here to at the authority and for [the council] to go and do this—it's outrageous," said Del. Joseph Boteler, a Parkville Republican.

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Boteler and fellow Parkville Republican Del. John Cluster are sponsoring a number of bills seeking to change how the authority operates. The bills include requiring the agency to conform to county ethics and procurement laws have passed the House of Delegates.

Both those bills are scheduled for hearings in the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee and the county Senate delegation.

Find out what's happening in Parkville-Overleawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The authority is a quasi-public agency that operates four parking garages in Towson as well as a number of metered spaces and surface lots around the county and five public golf courses.

Boteler said Thursday that he and Cluster plan to introduce a bill to dismantle the agency that the legislature created in the mid-1950s.

"The fact that this is going on is unbelievable," said Boteler. "We're going to come back next year and introduce a bill to dismantle the authority and I don't care if they know it now or not."


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