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Reflections on the Season and the New Year: A Message from the Maryland Historical Trust Director
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| Elizabeth Hughes, Director of the Maryland Historical Trust |
The longest night of the year offers an opportunity for rest and contemplation. We can take time to reflect on our history as Marylanders, understand better how we came to be, and chart new roads for the future. Thanks to generations of citizens who have invested in protecting our treasured historic places, we continue to experience and learn from our shared heritage embedded throughout our cities, villages and landscapes.
And with the Winter Solstice, light is just around the corner! Certainly we in preservation have many things to celebrate. The popular Sustainable Communities Tax Credit Program was recently lauded as a model that other state tax credits should emulate. A new partnership between the Maryland Historical Trust, the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Natural Resources, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Maryland Environmental Service is leading to creative thinking about how to protect irreplaceable cultural assets from natural hazards.
The improving state budget may mean more opportunities for underfunded grant programs in the coming year, and the House Natural Resources Committee is considering a hearing on the federal Historic Preservation Fund in January of 2016.
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Clifton Mansion in Baltimore, a recipient of Sustainable Communities Tax Credits
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In my new capacity as Director of the Maryland Historical Trust, my spirit is buoyed by the talented team of staff who consistently strive to make Maryland better, by the Board members who are dedicated to our mission, and by the many citizens of Maryland who care so deeply about the special places of our past. Thank you for all you have done to support preservation. I look forward to working with you in 2016.
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