Chestertown Mayor Margo Bailey received the William Donald Schaefer award yesterday from Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot – honoring her two decades of service to the community.
Franchot said he “could not think of a better person” to receive the award.
“I’m delighted to be here to present this award to my favorite mayor, Margo Bailey,” Franchot said to a large audience at the Kent County Visitor Center in Chestertown. “She really personifies goodness and she’s done so much for this wonderful community.”
Franchot said his “favorite initiative” of Bailey’s was when she led the effort to stop Walmart from coming to Chestertown.
She told Walmart “you can build somewhere, but not in Chestertown,” Franchot said, sparking applause from the audience.
Chestertown’s fight against Walmart during the 90s was popularized by local freelance journalist, John Lang, in the November 2003 issue of Preservation Magazine.
Franchot also praised Bailey for her “green initiatives” and said he’s tried to follow in her footsteps – noting his recent decision to go paperless with state tax returns this year and require Marylanders to use e-filing.
“We did not print 30 million pages of tax returns this year,” Franchot told Bailey. “It’s good for the environment and it saves the state money.”
Bailey graciously shared her success as Mayor by crediting the many volunteers who helped shaped the town over her two decades in office.
“To be successful you have to have passion, and I am fortunate in this town to have so many people with passion,” Bailey said, as she named many volunteers in the audience during the ceremony. “You ask them to help and they say “yes” over and over again, they never stop giving. Everybody has volunteered because they love this place so much, and they want it to be the very best.”
Bailey reflected on her years of service and the need to inspire younger people to lead the town.
“We’re all getting a little older,” Bailey said. “We’ve been doing this for a long time, so our goal now is to get younger people to move up the ladder and continue the work.”
Councilman Jim Gatto reiterated Franchot on Bailey’s commitment to the environment and the town.
“She has been a true leader in the environment and a leader of the town,” Gatto said. “She has stuck her neck out a number of times. The one thing you can say about Margo is that she is firmly in love with this town.”
Below is a 13 minute video of the ceremony. Members of the Town Council and Town Manager Bill Ingersoll spoke of Bailey’s leadership and commitment to Chestertown.
Joe Diamond says
Uh?
As I recall it there was a large faction ready to block WalMart. Nonetheless WalMart is and was a licensed Maryland corporation with a right to make application for a business license etc. in the same way a private individual can open a store. After several years of expensive litigation and zoning opera I think Margo told the lawyers to cease fire; they had no mandate to defend Chestertown merchants from competition.
AND if this guy wants to go to e-filing that is great. It remains to be seen how many state citizens will not file a return because they do not possess a computer, internet access or the skills to fill out a computer form. Why does the state comptroller see a need to align his great idea with someone else?
This is the same guy who led mourners at a traffic fatality and took credit for a MDSP drug seizure.
He is everywhere!
Joe