Times of Ahmad: Perspective: Walkersville citizens learn Islamophobia can be hard on pocketbook

If the taxpayers of Walkersville are waiting to get back the remaining $4.13 million they are still out of pocket from what they had spent on keeping Muslims out, well, it wouldn't be happening any time soon.

(2011) Walkersville Commissioners Debbie Zimmerman and Russell Winch,
Burgess Ralph Whitmore, Commissioners Chad Weddle, Sam Eyler,
and Donald Schildt (Google images)

Times of Ahmad | News Watch |
Source/Credit: TOA
By Imran Jattala | May 1, 2016

In 2008, Walkersville, a town of less than six thousand residents in Frederick County, Maryland, schemed to keep a Muslim group out of its municipality by rejecting a seller's rezoning application for a 224-acre tract of farmland the group wanted to acquire to build a mosque and an occasional retreat for their congregation. The people of Walkersville cited mostly parking and traffic concerns as potential burdens on the town resources. The Muslim group backed off from their pursuit of farmland acquisition, but in the aftermath of a lawsuit filed by the seller against Walkersville, the town quickly opted to buyout the seller and keept the land under it's own control. At the time, the Fredrick News-Post wrote that Walkersville had retained the farm “as a buffer for the town.”

A “buffer” against what? A question the town governors have never explicitly answered but for one private citizen from the adjoining Frederick city, Steve Berryman, the presence of an Islamic retreat center would have allowed some 'evil-willed' Muslims "to operate in an undetectable fashion around our schools." This sentiment, according to a local newspaper, had earned Berryman a leadership role in Citizens for Walkersville, an initiative that was set up to resist the Muslim group's purchase of the farmland.

So, there it was: Walkersville felt it needed a 'buffer' between their town and Muslims, and in the end, Berryman's rhetoric was so convincing that burgess and commissioners had deemed that no price was too high as long as the people of 'evil will' didn't get their hands on the farmland. So, at a total expense of about $5.2 million, the town of Walkersville acquired the farmland and, as a result, its citizens were double-assured that the Muslims were now out for good. (However, the bogus acquisition quickly proved to be a hot potato. The town's bean-counters wrote-off nearly two million dollars of the acquisition cost within a couple of years, according the 2013 financial statements.)

In 2012, Walkersville was wearing a happy face when it sold off a small portion of the land, about 24 acres, to a business group that hosts corporate retreats and wedding banquets. However, this time around, the town was no longer concerned with parking and traffic problems that come with people pouring into retreat facilities. Actually, the sale was being seen as a potential face saver for Walkersville and the town went out of its way to facilitate the deal: first, by arranging over 40 percent of the purchase price in town-provided financing for the buyer and, second, the 'zoning' change - the permission the town planners had so adamantly denied for the Muslim group's use - Walkersville officials voted quickly to approve the zoning alteration for the 24 acres. The Walker’s Overlook facility for corporate retreats, banquets and weddings was up and running.

Let's fast-forward to 2016, and it has surfaced recently in a news report by the Fredrick News-Post that balance of the farmland in question, about 200 acres, was being leased by a local farmer since 2012 for about $32,000 per year, which amount is set to be raised to $35,200 per year in the next lease renewal in 2016.

Now, in a simple layman calculation (based upon the information made public in news reports and Walkersville's financial statements), if the taxpayers of Walkersville are waiting to recover the remaining $4.13 million they are still out of pocket from what they had spent on keeping Muslims out, well, it wouldn't be happening any time soon. Because, at the rate of $35,000 per year, it will take them nearly 120 years to recover their money. And, unfortunately, they will be passing the burden of maintaining a 'buffer' on to their children and grandchildren -- complements of Steve Berryman.

In the mean time, this calls for a “what a sweet deal” shout out to one very smart and self-employed, Matthew Toms, the local farmer who is charged with the task of maintaining the ‘buffer’ around Walkersville against all encroachments - foreign and domestic.

Happy farming Matthew Toms!

-- Islamophobia is not good for pocketbooks

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