BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Voters will decide the primary police agency in Carroll after a bill creating a referendum survived lawmakers’ infighting.

On the last day of the General Assembly’s session, Del. Susan Krebs, R-District 9B, threatened to block the bill’s passage if Sen. Larry Haines, R-District 5, did not stop holding up two other bills supported by the delegation.

One of those bills allowed liquor stores in Carroll to stay open on Sundays; the other expanded the board of commissioners from three to five members elected by districts, a measure that failed two years ago.

Haines could not be reached for comment, but he wanted commissioners to continue getting elected at-large.

Krebs said Monday her plan to use the police referendum as leverage worked, and all the bills were expected to pass.

“We’ve had a number of local bills not get through the Senate and we’re getting a little frustrated about it,” Krebs said. “We’re working as a delegation and we’re trying to get all the bills through, and then we find out he’s working behind the scenes.”

She had initially opposed the referendum, but decided to support it because the rest of the delegation did.

“We want to play by the same rules and that’s it,” Krebs said. “I’m trying to get our delegation to work together.”

County commissioners voted unanimously in October to create a police department with an appointed chief while reducing the Sheriff’s Office and abolishing the state’s only Resident Trooper Program, in which the county contracts troopers to patrol it.

But Sheriff Kenneth Tregoning and many residents have spoken against it, and they say the public was excluded from the decision.

The referendum will take place in November, and the expansion of the commission will take effect in 2010, during the next local election.

msilvestri@baltimoreexaminer.com