As A Maryland County Debates Who Pays for a Warehouse It Never Approved, a Community Leader Is Removed From the Podium

The NAACP president linked the county's 911 shortfall directly to the federal facility. Commissioners cut her off and removed her from the hearing.

Washington County, Md., commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to raise the monthly 911 emergency fee by 25 cents — and the hearing that followed made clear that no budget question in this western Maryland county can be separated, at the moment, from the $215 million federal immigration facility sitting in Williamsport that has drawn fierce opposition from residents across the region.

Opponents who packed the hearing room made a connection the board declined to address: the Wright Road warehouse, purchased by the federal government without consulting the county, sits on land that Taj Smith, president of the Washington County NAACP, argued would generate an estimated $2 million a year in property taxes if privately owned — $20 million over a decade. As federal property, it generates nothing. The county, meanwhile, is staring at a $3.7 million gap between what its 911 system costs to run and what it can collect to fund it — and asking residents to help close that gap 25 cents at a time.

Smith took the podium and pressed the argument further. With 182,500 people projected to move through the facility annually, roughly equal to Washington County’s entire population, she told commissioners the strain on local emergency infrastructure would only grow.

“You are presiding over a massive loss of tax revenue,” she said. “It is fiscally reckless for this board to proceed.”

Commissioners ruled her remarks outside the scope of the hearing. When she continued, a sheriff’s lieutenant was called to remove her. By Tuesday afternoon, Hagerstown Rapid Response, a local advocacy group organizing against the facility, had posted a statement to their ongoing petition opposing the facility. The group said Smith had been removed “mid-speech after drawing a direct line between the controversial ICE detention facility and a proposed increase in 911 fees,” and described the moment as evidence that officials were “trying to shut down that conversation.”

Smith was not the only speaker to connect the facility to the fee. Dave Williams, a Smithsburg resident and member of Washington County Indivisible, a local group that has organized against the facility since January, told commissioners he supported the increase but doubted it would hold. Communities with detention facilities nearby had seen 911 call volume rise, he said, and residents would likely be calling to report activity related to ICE operations across the county. Those claims could not be independently verified before publication.

Shaun Porter, whose previous appearances before the commission have included behavior disruptive enough to prompt the board to relocate its meetings and suspend public comment periods entirely, used his allotted time to argue that fee revenue should be redirected to offset what he described as broader budget failures — inadequate school funding, worn-out bus fleets, legal costs he attributed to the county silencing constituents. His remarks ranged well beyond the scope of the hearing. Commissioners did not interrupt him.

No commissioner responded to any of the arguments. None disputed the math. Smith could not be reached for comment in time for publication.

The Fee Vote and What It Doesn’t Fix

The vote was 4-0, raising the monthly fee from $1.75 to $2.00. Even after the increase, the county projects a $3.7 million gap between what the fee generates and what the 911 system costs to run — $7.4 million annually. State law permits counties to raise the fee high enough to fully cover that cost. The board did not.

Curtis Ray, a Republican candidate for county commissioner, pressed the board on the decision.

“You have the legal authority to fix this right now,” he said. “There’s no reason we should not cover the whole fund.”

The structural shortfall will carry into fiscal year 2027 and beyond.

What DHS and Washington County Did — And Didn’t — Discuss

The day before the meeting, Washington County officials sat down with Department of Homeland Security representatives for the first time since the Wright Road purchase became public — a conversation Commissioner Jeffrey Cline described as productive. DHS officials said the facility was a processing center rather than a detention center. Detainees would stay three to seven days on average before transfer out of state, with around 500 housed on a typical day and 1,500 beds available for surges. The facility would be fully staffed with medical personnel, DHS said, and would not place significant demands on county emergency services.

None of those claims could be independently verified before publication. ICE has not provided a specific Detention Reengineering Initiative document for the Williamsport, Md., facility, as it has for other sites.

What neither party mentioned: a federal judge halted all construction at the site six days earlier. U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson issued a temporary restraining order on March 11, finding that federal officials likely failed to complete required environmental reviews before breaking ground. Maryland’s lawsuit warned of threats to three nearby waterways — Semple Run, Conococheague Creek, and the Potomac River — as well as endangered species in the area.

Because the property is federally owned, Cline said, the county has no jurisdiction over it — a position it has held since the purchase became public, through a resolution supporting federal immigration enforcement, and through Tuesday's meeting. The temporary restraining order expires in eight days. After that, the legal question of whether the facility gets built — and who ultimately bears the cost of hosting it — returns to court.