January 8th, 2015 by WCBC Radio

State Senator George Edwards has met with Governor-elect Larry Hogan and Senate President Mike Miller to begin an effort he hopes will lead to a program to stimulate business growth in Maryland’s rural areas through major incentives, including removing state property and business taxes for a 10-year period for qualified businesses.  Edwards hopes to introduce the bill when the session opens next week. The plan  says if a business has 20 employees and decides to build a new building, it won’t pay sales tax on the material to construct the building. Once the building is constructed, there will be no property tax assessed on the state or local level for 10 years. in the upcoming Maryland General Assembly that convenes Jan. 14.  Essentially the proposal is an extension, or alternate version  of the existing One Maryland legislation that was developed by then Speaker of the House Casper Taylor back in 2002. Taylor says  partisan politics and geography played a part in One Maryland becoming stagnant at one point. He is applauding Edward’s effort to revitalize the program by taking it in a new direction- hopefully with support from both parties, and both rural and urban regions of the state…