Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I am writing once again to express my concern that Mathews County is racing full speed towards adoption of a flood ordinance that very few have read and even fewer, if any, understand. It reminds me of the passage of President Obama’s health care act when Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that “we have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”

We are substituting nine pages of a plain-language ordinance that a layman could understand for 28 pages of FEMA-provided gibberish that is intended to mask what it does. Furthermore, it is being considered in the shadow of a not-so-veiled threat from FEMA Region III Mitigation Planner Mari Radford, who is quoted in this paper stating, “I’ll look at you twice if you don’t adopt it.”

A few things that the new ordinance does do, is to create a new floodplain czar with broad powers and few, if any, checks and balances. It grants the power to delegate duties to others, as well as enter...