Jay Fergusonjay@deepcreekvacations.com301-501-0420
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JUST LISTED- 420 Sam Snead Circle

Check out my listing in Oakland!

4/5BR home on 2.5 lots @ Country Club Acres, ~4,500sf. Renovated top to bottom, there are truly too many features to list!

Spacious bedrooms, multiple living areas, sun room overlooking golf course w/ heat+AC, multiple garage stalls, workshop, wine cellar, massive basement rec area, whole-house backup generator, one level living and a landscaped yard with endless possibilities!

Truly a must see!

For more information, click here.

 

 

NEW LISTING- 1137 BOY SCOUT ROAD- 2 HOUSES FOR 1

Check out this amazing compound on Boy Scout Road!

2 high-end vacation rental properties on 5 acres + DOCK! Each home boasts granite, SS appliances, and private hot tub. ‘Log Hut’, the 2nd house, offers 4BR, 2BA, private deck.

Private basketball + tennis courts, play-ground, massive lawn to accommodate weddings & events, and a private, country setting.

The sky is the limit with this unique setup! $40k+/- income.

Live in one, rent the other!

For more information, click here.

 

NEW LISTING- 37 LAUREL BROOK

Check out my listing in Laurel Brook!

Lake area townhouse. 3 levels with plenty of living space in a private setting. This end unit fronts on a small brook and backs to woods.

Serene setting, but within a short walk or drive to dining, shopping, entertainment and Deep Creek Lake state park.

Great value for the money!

 

For more information, click here.

FEATURED LISTING- 4792 Friendsville Road

Looking for an amazing custom home close to Deep Creek Lake?

Check out my listing on Friendsville Road. This home is directly in between the lake and I-68 making it incredibly convenient.

10+acres! 5,000+sf, indoor heated pool. Uber-efficient compound constructed w/ Polystyrene poured concrete. Radiant floor heat, hardwood, granite, central vac, stone fireplace & accent walls, spacious rooms, massive walk-in closets in every room, skylights-contact for FULL feature list.

7 add. acres avail. UNZONED recreational paradise.

Must see to appreciate!

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CLICK HERE.

PRICE REDUCTION- 440 Ben DeWitt Road

 IMMACULATE 4BR home in a country setting! Built for entertaining, the massive rec room & custom bar lead out to a loaded backyard with swimming pool, outdoor lounge & fireplace.

Virtually every square foot of this custom home is tastefully improved. Custom everything – gourmet kitchen, tiled baths, multiple master suites, sun room, 2 car garage.

Contact for even more pics. $500k+ invested in home.

for more information, click here.

 

The case for a Maryland fracking ban

Next week, on Feb. 28, the Health, Education and Environmental Affairs Committee in the Maryland Senate will take up legislation dealing with shale gas drilling (fracking). For public safety, economic and environmental reasons, we believe the technology should not be allowed in Maryland.

Nearly three out of four senators have indicated a willingness to extend the current fracking moratorium, set to expire in October. This suggests they recognize that gas drilling will not be the economic bonanza that supporters have claimed since 2011, when the mountains above Marcellus Shale deposits in Western Maryland were first targeted.

Two bills are pending. One bans fracking altogether, while the other extends the moratorium for two years — though it departs from the current moratorium by permitting fracking in counties that approve it by referendum. On the ban bill, 23 of the Senate’s 33 Democrats are co-sponsors; the moratorium bill has 24 co-sponsors, including several Republicans.

In the House of Delegates, leadership declared long ago that a frack-free Maryland was its preference. A ban bill is advancing, and there is no moratorium bill. After committee hearings, legislation may go to the floor of each chamber for further debate. If the House and Senate don’t pass the same bill, some sort of compromise is required before any legislation can be approved and sent to the governor for his consideration.

About three-fourths of Marylanders already live in a place where local elected officials have created anti-fracking laws or resolutions. But fracking is regulated by the state. So, for those who’ve worked for six legislative sessions on the issue, the “heavy lift” is in the Maryland Senate.

Unlike neighboring Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Maryland did not rush into fracking. Successive administrations studied the technology, then overhauled outdated regulations. Meanwhile, energy prices continued to fall. The industry allowed nearly all of its original sub-surface mineral leases purchased last decade to lapse.

Furthermore, Maryland lacks the large-scale deposits, pipeline and processing infrastructure, and interest from industry (in the form of leased mineral rights) needed to make large-scale fracking financially feasible today. Yet we can’t rule out a change of circumstances that drives up fossil fuel prices — setting set off a new round of leasing that leads to fracking in years ahead.

Meanwhile, mounting problems elsewhere show the technology cannot be effectively regulated. In Pennsylvania recently, investigators from Public Herald, an investigative journalism nonprofit, dug up previously undisclosed citizen complaints about water contamination from fracking. Their work took years. Far from regulators’ 280-odd citations against industry, Public Herald found some 4,100 complaint filings — all told, one official complaint for nearly every well drilled. There’s more. It appears that the vast majority were never investigated. Then unresolved original complaints were shredded. Hundreds of state law violations were documented, and Flint, Mich.-style government criminality is a possibility.

In recent weeks in Western Maryland, many residents were infuriated by the Senate president’s public remarks that “there are no jobs whatsoever” in that part of the state. In fact, the unemployment rate in Western Maryland in 2016 was almost identical to the state average, and lower than some counties. Long gone are the days that Mountain Maryland depended overly on extractive energy and assembly line work.

Tourism and vacation real estate provide about half of all jobs and two-thirds of Garrett County’s tax base. Some of the highest-value rural real estate in the eastern United States lines the shores of Deep Creek Lake — second only to Ocean City as a vacation destination for Marylanders. Generations have visited and created the magical memories that many families cherish forever.

To state the obvious, nowhere in the world do fracking and world-class tourism mix. That’s why in Florida right now, with Republicans in charge, the legislature is considering a fracking ban. Florida’s economy is Deep Creek’s, writ large.

Additionally, fracking is “anti-business”: While a few short-term jobs may be created, most Western Marylanders — like others in a state where the solar industry grew 40 percent in 2015 — prefer small-business ownership, with sustainable economic investments in tourism, agriculture and green energy.

Mountainside solar installations are burgeoning. Indeed, Western Marylanders want the same future as the rest of the state. Most polls show that a strong majority of Garrett and Allegany county residents want the fracking ban that Marylanders as a whole support.

Is this another “jobs versus environment” debate? Not at all. Nationally, less than 10 percent of jobs on a well-pad are unionized. Along with embalmers and theater projectionists, zero petroleum engineers belong to unions.

The Laborers International Union recently came out in support of fracking and staged a rally in Annapolis. In a union with a proud tradition of training workers in emerging industries, wouldn’t organizing solar-industry installers sustain and grow its membership?

Finally, there’s the matter of fracking’s effect on global climate change. Farmers statewide are already feeling the effects of erratic precipitation, unpredictable freezes and bigger storms. This year, the annual “Winterfest” festival in Oakland, Md. (the state’s “snowiest” town) was postponed due to spring-like weather.

Scientists agree that fossil fuel combustion is driving planetary warming. And new scientific analysis confirms that fracked gas is nearly as bad as coal for the atmosphere. That’s because, before it is burned at distant power plants or on your stovetop, natural gas (mostly methane) is constantly leaking from wellheads, pipelines and compressor stations. Estimates of leakage vary from about 2 percent of production to more than 10 percent. Overall, carbon dioxide is a more potent greenhouse gas, but in the short-term — measured in 20-year periods —methane is orders of magnitude more detrimental. So the life-cycle warming impact of gas rivals coal. To save our climate, we have to steadily move off of gas, not increase its use through reckless fracking.

For Maryland’s economy, health and environment, we need to ban fracking once and for all. This drilling method will never be safe. We have all of the data we need on that. Now we just need the political will of our leaders in Annapolis to finally do the right thing.

For more information, click here.

Deep Creek Lake & Garrett County, Maryland Offer Military March Promotion

The Deep Creek Lake area and Garrett County, Maryland salute our nation’s heroes with a Military March promotion. The Garrett County Chamber of Commerce is offering discounts for military members on their website, www.visitdeepcreek.com. The promotion, which is sponsored by GCC Technologies, LLC,  runs from March 1 – March 31, 2017, non-holidays.

Twenty-three businesses are participating in the promotion offering military discounts on dining, shopping, lodging, groceries, design work, clothing, glassware, car purchases, oil changes, hot tubs,  lift tickets, rentals, lessons and snow tubing.

“The Military March promotion is a terrific way for military members and their families to save on a trip to the Deep Creek Lake area and Garrett County,” said Sarah Duck, Director of Tourism & Marketing for the Garrett County Chamber of Commerce. “We are proud to honor our nation’s heroes with discounts from a wide variety of our area’s businesses.”

The Military March Promotion includes offers from Bear Creek Traders, Cabin on Farm View Rental Home, CurlyRed Inc., Deep Creek Beverage, Deep Creek Shop ‘n Save Fresh Featuring Mountain Flour Bakery, Haley Farm Inn & Retreat Center, Joyce’s Deep Creek Rentals and Trips, Lake Pointe Inn, Ledo Pizza, Pasta & Pub, Long Branch Saloon & Motel, McHenry Beverage Shoppe, Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, Railey Mountain Lake Vacations, Rudy’s Clothing, Savage River Lodge, Simon Pearce Factory Outlet and Glassblowing, Suites at Silver Tree, Taylor-Made Deep Creek Vacations, Team One Chevrolet Buick GMC, The Hot Tub Store, Uno Chicago Grill Deep Creek, Will O’the Wisp Resort and Wisp Resort.

To redeem the offers, military members simply need to show a valid military ID when purchasing. Blackout dates and other restrictions may apply; please see specific details and restrictions for each offer at https://www.visitdeepcreek.com/pages/MilitaryMarch2017.

To view all of the military March offers or for more information about Garrett County, please stop by www.visitdeepcreek.com or call 888.387.5237.

 

for more information, click here.

 

Property Owners’ Association: State Money For Garrett County

February 7, 2017

Folks,

The State (DNR) owns approximately 90,000 acres of land in Garrett County which is not subject to property taxes for the county due to state ownership.  The current means to recoup some of the lost property taxes is to provide the county with 25% of the revenue obtained from the sale of timber on this land.  For the last several years, however, very little timber has been harvested so the revenue coming to Garrett County has been very low.  This process currently exists throughout Maryland for all counties in which the state owns land that cannot be taxed.
To remedy this situation and insure a fair amount of revenue, consistent with the amount of acreage owned by the state, this bill will provide a more equitable reimbursement of funds to Garrett County for land owned by the State of Maryland. The proposed bill breaks down the acreage into “units” of 10,000 acres and would mandate $250,000 per unit income to the county annually.  SB273 will make the County’s reimbursement approximately $2 million annually. SB273 is being heard by the Senate Budget & Taxation Committee on Wednesday, February 15 at 1:00 p.m. Please send written testimony to George.edwards@senate.state.md.us by February 14, asking the Budget & Taxation Committee to give SB273 a FAVORABLE REPORT, and indicate if you plan to testify in person. Senate Bill 273 (SB 273) may be seen here. The existing system related to timber would no longer be used.
Your POA supports this bill because it is a fair way to reimburse the county for taxes that currently cannot be collected, and asks that you consider sending a written testimony  of endorsement.
Thanks very much in advance for your support on this bill which, if passed, will insure Garrett County is fairly reimbursed for uncollectable tax revenue.

  Cheers,

Bob Hoffmann

President

For more information, click here.