The suit was filed by Queen Anne’s Conservation Association Inc. of Centreville, which is a citizen‘s advocacy organization founded in 1970, and seven landowners. The landowners include Richard and Eleanor Altman of Bennett Point Road in Queenstown Richard and Debra Paquin of Tackle Circle Road in Chester.  Virginia West of Skipper Lane in Chester and Bernard and Mary Jedrowicz of Castle Marina Road in Chester According to a statement released by Queen Anne’s Conservation Association the suit asks the Court for an injunction stopping the County and the developers from actions pursuant to the agreement and to ultimately declare the agreement to be illegal.”

The defendants in the suit allege that the signing of the agreement violates the current building moratorium and that the agreement signed on Sept.17 differs substantially from the version of the agreement reviewed by the county planning commission and the public at the commissioners’ Aug. 6 public hearing on the matter.

The suit states that various terms of the agreement violate state laws, and that the processing of the agreement during the building moratorium was unfair to other county builders and developers, who have been unable to advance their projects while the DRRA was being advanced.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are C. Daniel Saunders of Chestertown and Thomas A. Deming of Annapolis. Saunders was out of town and unavailable for comment. Deming could not be reached for comment by presstime.  Ned Gerber; a member of .the Conservation Association, said, “The lawsuit is to protect the county and its citizens from run-away growth. Four Seasons is the biggest development ever pro-posed in the county The primary election showed what the county thinks of the current commissioners and how much we trust them. If we don’t trust the commissioners, we don’t trust this agreement.”

County Administrator Mark Belton’s response Monday was, “We just got it (the lawsuit paperwork from Circuit Court) tot day We just received it today County Attorney Patrick Thompson will be putting together a response for the Court.”  Thompson could not be reached for comment by presstime.

Belton said the commissioners wouldn’t even get a copy of the lawsuit at Tuesday’s meeting.

“The deadline for tomorrow’s meeting was last week,” he said.  “I’ll tell them about it, of course.”

© The Kent Island Bay Times, October 23, 2002