My taxes since moving to MD are much higher than the other places I’ve lived. I knew this ahead of time. What I expected in return, though, is more services. Instead, I have have FEWER services that I’m used to any other place I’ve lived!

Utilities
-Electricity is deregulated and costs a fortune here.
-Water? Nope, no water–even though there’s no way we’d be on well water having a neighborhood this big this close to city water in any other state I’ve lived in.
-Sewer? You’re kidding, right?
-Trash? Okay, it gets picked up twice a week instead of once a week. But, of course, that means I’m paying more than twice as much what I’m used to.

Services
-Police? We do have a professional policed department, at least!
-Fire? Come on, now! You don’t expect the city or county to actually PAY for professional firefighters when the altruism of the citizens can be exploited instead?
-Hospitals? Well, there’s some in the next county over. Does that count?

Roads and Traffic Management
-In some ways, it’s unfair to compare our ratsnest of pre-interstate-system roads to traffic patterns further west. And road repairs really are handled well and *swiftly* here–many times better than in NM. (The first word the Bear ever read was “closed,” from a sign that said “road closed.” It’s sad when you kid sees more signs about road and lane closures than stop signs…) But on the other hand, we’ve still got one of the worst places for commutes in the country.

Rec and Parks
-Community centers. Got tons of these with lots of activities. All the activities charge a small fee and most are run by volunteers, though.
-Swimming pools. There is 1 swimming pool for every 80k residents or so. FAIL. The little town in Texas I grew up with has 1 public pool per 17k county residents. And the taxes, of course, were much lower, with entrance fees lower, too.
-State parks. These suck. I mean, really, really SUCK. When we went on vacation to VA this year, the state parks were quite nice but nothing that blew us away. We were puzzled, then, as to why they were rated the best state parks in the US. Then we came to MD and figured it out–it was a matter of comparison. MD state parks make VA state parks look like five-star resorts.

Responsiveness of Legislators
-In NM, my state representative came by my house twice. She introduced herself and talked to me the first time, and the second, she talked to my mother–not only did she remember me, specifically (she asked if my mother was a new resident), but she even remembered my occupation. That’s called paying attention to your constituents. Here, delegates participate in the 4th of July parade and have their people hand out campaign stickers and flyers. That’s called grandstanding.
-I wrote to my NM representatives–several at the county level and at both levels in the state legislature–on multiple issues of interest to me. First, I received an IMMEDIATE response that was usually written by a staffer, I’m sure, (if it was at the state legislature level) but was actually, you know, relevant to the specific issue I wrote about. Second, several of the representatives who chose to take a stand in agreement with my position kept me updated as to the status of their efforts to either defeat or pass the bill in question. Now, recently, I contacted my US Representative and my local state legislature delegates about a matter and received a form letter that was more than underwhelming–with a totally inappropriate photocopied article attached–from the US Rep. and nothing–absolutely freaking nada–from my delegates. Want to guess who I’m voting against this fall? Yeah. Them. I might add that my parents have also written letters to their state and federal representatives in Texas at various times and have always received replies. I’d like to note that all of our representatives from which we received fast, meaningful replies were Republicans. The ones here, who blew me off? Democrats. I find it doubly ironic that these people got elected on their claims to really CARE about the “common man.” Guess what? Paying attention to your constituents rather than just trying to schmooze your way into political power IS CARING ABOUT THE “COMMON MAN.”

Schools
-The schools in my hometown were better. And cost less. And offered more electives. And had a much better special ed program. And more AP offerings. Um. What am I paying for, again?