December 20th, 2018 by WCBC Radio
Reflecting on his eight years as mayor of Cumberland, Brian Grim tells WCBC News that among his biggest regrets is the manner in which the Maryland Avenue Redevelopment Project was initiated. Commonly referred to as the Rolling Mill project, the plan implemented included purchasing and demolishing some 60 properties in that section of town to create a commercial cordidor and a hub of business activity just off of Interstate 68. About a dozen property owners have been fighting the effort- expressing no desire to sell their homes. Mayor Grim says that a failure to establish firm timelines- as well as having no discussion to at least consider the use of eminent domain- has substantially delayed the project’s progress…
December 20, 2018 at 8:55 am, Bob said:
His original mistake was following the lamebrain suggestions of the halfwit consultants he had hired. He announced that he would not let the $30,000 of city money spent on the consultants go to waste by not implementing their suggestions. He then spent 200 times that amount to create a mostly-empty lot to sell to a developer for one tenth of the cost leaving Cumberland with millions of debt from which it will never recover. He has left the city in ruin in pursuit of a truck stop. Sadly, he is not alone in the area in his use of not-very-bright consultants to conceive major projects resulting in massive debt for the few remaining taxpayers.
December 20, 2018 at 12:53 pm, Jerry Lancaster said:
It’s a shame that our community has to go shopping for brain power and pay outrageous sums to so-called professional consultants. Is the IQ of residents in our area so low we have to pay others to think for us? I don’t think so. I think we are simply electing the wrong people. Evidently we are electing people with the iQ of a June Bug!
December 20, 2018 at 4:21 pm, Bob said:
> The local decision makers do not even know where to shop for “brain power” and would not recognize it, or the lack of it, if they stumbled upon it. They get consultants from Mensa-forsaken places like Calverton, MD and Indianapolis rather than Boston or NY because it is difficult to communicate with those with IQs 20 or more points different from oneself. The ones they do hire are strange enough as they are not from around here. The locals have a powerful disliking of anyone really smart and like to stick with folks like those with whom they went to elementary school.
December 20, 2018 at 2:34 pm, kevin said:
The lack of openness and the unwillingness to talk to all the residents before house one was purchased and the ignorance the Mayor initially showed in talking about how easy it was “to put people on the street with the stoke of his pen” made any hope of a smooth project impossible. There are other areas that could and should have been developed first, starting with the railroad property just past Martin’s that is flat and open all the way to Patrick’s. Excluding local business from the immediate Rolling Mill project is also pretty stupid.
December 21, 2018 at 4:59 am, mike said:
So Grim just regrets he didn’t use force to make people sell their homes. Next time maybe he should run for “Dictator”. Obnoxious know-it-all jackass wasted over 6 million of the taxpayers dollars to buy an empty lot that they proceeded to give away. Smells like corruption.