Malcolm Baldwin prunes grape vines and tends to his sheep north of Lovettsville when he is not fighting the PATH power line or engaged in community work to help his neighbors make this a better place to live.
Malcolm Baldwin is running for election as our Supervisor for the Catoctin District on the County Board of Supervisors.
I really think we should elect him.
Malcolm got interested in community affairs when Scott York won election as the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in 2004 and was relegated to the Vice-Chair slot instead. Malcolm objected that this was not what the voters expected when they cast their ballot, and he got involved so that voters wouldn’t be disenfranchised again.
Malcolm joined the Board of the Piedmont Environmental Council (“PEC”) because the Board of Supervisors “rejected a host of smart growth management strategies.” Malcolm sought to protect the transition zone, and to guard against development that our community could not afford.
Perhaps Malcolm is best known for his role as a leader in the recent fight to resist that toxic coal power transmission line that PATH proposed to run from West Virginia, through Loudoun County and Maryland.
Malcolm charged that the line would be “destructive over the properties it passed, have a degrading effect on appearance and value, and we didn’t need the power; we had more than enough.”
“What I learned from our coalition’s triumph over the PATH line,” Malcolm said, “was that you get the facts right, put emotions to one side, work together with differing views in good faith, fight for the best possible outcome, and you can achieve great things as a community.”
After Haverford College, Chicago Law School, and a tour of duty at the Pentagon, Malcolm spent 38 years in environmental law, serving under President Richard Nixon on the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), a division of the Executive Office of the President, and continuing at CEQ until he was its Acting Chairman in President Ronald Reagan’s Administration.
During the recent flap over the questionable health of our streams in Loudoun County, Malcolm considered how best to redress the unhealthy condition of our local streams with a fair and just public policy. Malcolm wasn’t in favor of the original stream proposal but thought that the final version of the ordinance that the Board of Supervisors considered met his reservations regarding cost and inconvenience to the landowners, and fairly addressed the water quality issues.
Malcolm teaches us common sense.
He questions why we should build a corridor through Loudoun West of Dulles airport if Maryland opposes having the corridor pass through its state – kind of a road to nowhere without Maryland’s consent. One of my “faves” is Malcolm’s proposal for a roundabout at that infamous traffic choke-point, the intersection of Route 9 and the Berlin Turnpike.
Malcolm says we can’t afford to build $100 million schools, three of them a year, and certainly not if we can expect even more students in the next generation.
Malcolm supports the needs of food and wine farmers - as he is a farmer himself - and he wants to keep the land open and productive so it can generate revenue to the farmer and for the county.
Malcolm wants to join “a cooperative board of supervisors that reaches decisions based on good and careful analysis and mutual understanding.”
We could use Malcolm on the Board – we need his kind of leadership in making decisions for the County.
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