The second installment. Eleven meetings in two weeks, in brief, with the Ward 7 angle where there is one. Votes are as I heard them on the recordings; the Clerk's minutes control.

• Transportation Committee (October 14). I sit on this committee. The State Highway Administration answered Alderman Schandelmeier's questions about the Spa Creek Bridge breakdowns this summer. The cause was operator error, not heat: the contract bridge tender engaged the locks before the spans were fully seated, and the breaker tripped, which is what it is designed to do. SHA is adding training for its bridge tenders. The 1946 bridge was rated "fair" in its February inspection, which SHA considers a state of good repair, and it is not in the replacement program; there have been seven call-outs since 2022, four of them operator error. I asked about bicycles. The travel lanes are 12 to 13 feet, SHA needs 16 feet before it will stripe a bike lane, so no striped buffer is possible on the bridge itself. SHA agreed to work with the City's traffic engineer on the Sixth Street and Compromise Street approaches. The Department of Transportation then presented the Blue Route pilot: one bus, weekday rush hours, from the Eastport Shopping Center along Bay Ridge Avenue and Forest Drive to the Truman Park and Ride, the swim center, and Annapolis High School, where students ride free, running through the end of the school year. I asked for a stop at the Giant on Bay Ridge Road, for the bus to run the arterials rather than detour into side neighborhoods (which is what the adopted transit plan recommends), and for the afternoon times to be checked against when after-school activities actually end. The launch is now targeted for mid to late November. The committee also recommended the driveway parking ordinance, O-17-26, as amended; details in the newsletter. Hillman Garage in September: 31 percent average occupancy, 85 percent at peak.
• Public Safety Committee (October 21). Recommended O-26-26, which reletters the residential parking districts A through E so they stop being confused with wards. Postponed O-28-26, the parking fine waiver ordinance, after the Office of Law said the draft needs rework: as written it reaches all of Title 12, including misdemeanors that only a court can reduce; "city employee" should be broadened to officials and agents; and giving the Council its own waiver power raises separation-of-powers problems. The committee asked the Office of Law to draft a fix for its next meeting. My amendment is on file and will be taken up with it. The Office of Emergency Management briefed $899,000 in federal Urban Area Security Initiative funding at no cost to the City: an updated Emergency Operations Plan (last done in 2020), a replacement bomb squad robot ($235,000, replacing a 17-year-old unit), trailer-deployable crash-rated vehicle barriers for events ($100,000), and sustainment of the mobile command unit and hazmat and rescue gear. Police reported the summer crime plan tracked below 2025 in every category, with six gun violence incidents, all shots fired, against 18 in 2025. The new fireboat is scheduled for delivery October 28. For November the committee set four topics: police robots and AI, youth e-bikes, ICE and what the City can do legislatively, and the state police staffing study.
• Finance Committee (October 21). Recommended everything on Monday's money agenda. The union contracts ratified in September are being funded by moving $759,000 of cash (pay-go) out of four capital projects, two sidewalk programs, the Farragut Road sidewalk, and City Dock, into salaries (FT-3-27), and then backfilling those same four projects from the Capital Reserve Fund (SA-8-27) so no project loses a dollar. Alderman Thorp asked staff for a plain-language explanation to go to the full Council; I want to know what remains in the Capital Reserve Fund afterward. Also recommended: SA-5-27, a larger-than-budgeted FEMA grant that buys three cardiac monitors and up to 15 AEDs; SA-7-27, an $82,404 port security grant for an underwater search-and-rescue robot launched from the fireboat; SA-6-27, a $12,000 state grant for a feasibility study of a solar-and-battery resiliency hub at Eastport Terrace and Harbour House (study due in January, construction estimated north of $2 million); R-37-26, eviction fines at $1,000 per day; and R-39-26, the Clydesdales fee waiver, on a 2-1 vote, with Alderwoman O'Neill voting no and the committee asking staff to bring back criteria for fee waivers. R-40-26 (Naptown Flea) went through with no action because the Code does not require Finance review of it. The FY28 budget instructions went to departments October 19, and the first quarterly budget-versus-actual report is due by the end of October.
• Audit Committee (October 19). The FY26 audit is on track for December. The books closed September 18, final fieldwork is under way, and last year's finding on grant revenue completeness is being remediated. The committee began its monthly review of department performance measures with Transportation: whether parking revenue covers transportation costs, garage occupancy, payment capture, citation collection (running 86 to 88 percent against an 85 percent benchmark), transit ridership, and on-time performance. On the record: the parking contractor is paid a flat management fee, not a share of revenue, and has no ticket quota. The committee wants every department's measures reviewed in January, ahead of the budget. Next meeting November 16.
• Planning Commission (October 15). Three items. First, the Commission adopted its written decision and order on the market and gas station at the former Annapolis Seafood site on Forest Drive, 4-0, with one wording fix to a condition. That decision is now final; my request for reconsideration was not taken up. Second, it approved the preliminary plan for the Robinwood redevelopment on Tyler Avenue: 214 units in all, with 81 demolished, 66 rehabilitated, and 148 new, including a 47-unit senior building at Forest Drive with a community center and gym, a 22-plot community garden, and a dog park. The approval carries a condition that the ten-foot shared-use path be designed to the middle school property line and recorded on the plat with an easement, so students have a way off Forest Drive once the off-site connection is secured. Alderman Schandelmeier testified in support. Third, nine townhomes at 245 West Street, a former gas station, were approved 4-1 with a six-foot sidewalk required on Monticello Avenue.
• Maritime Advisory Board (October 20). Ward 7's member is Duncan Hood. The new Harbormaster, Tim Jacobs, reported the Sixth Street street-end dinghy dock in Eastport is nearly finished, with Tucker Street next; a streamlined anchoring registration signed up 90 anchored boats in two weeks, which gives the City contact information when a boat drags and tracks pump-outs; and the St. Mary's Cove living shoreline is planted. The boat shows went well inside the City Dock construction site, and completion of the City Dock project is still targeted for July 2027. The ferry took most of the meeting. Alderman Thorp asked that the draft requests for proposals be referred to the board and questioned a City ferry alongside the existing water taxi; the water taxi's owner said he could run a token program for underserved riders on his existing boats; members questioned Hawkins Cove and Carrs Beach as landings without breakwaters and asked for an income-and-expense study. I will make the case for the ferry Monday night. Also: the board and the County's maritime board sent a joint letter supporting a 50 percent cut in the Bay menhaden cap, the subject of my amendment to R-45-26; Annapolis Yacht Club's planned acquisition of Annapolis City Marina on Spa Creek, including its public fuel dock and water taxi landing, is on the board's November agenda; and the State held its hearing on the Hawkins Cove living shoreline, with ten speakers, nearly all in support.
• Annapolis Transportation Board (October 19). Heard the Blue Route and asked the department to quantify the time each neighborhood detour costs; the board had approved the route concept in the transit development plan. Members criticized the October 8 parking reform forum, where a technical glitch admitted only about 15 of 35 registrants, nearly all from Ward 1, and noted that the online survey could be taken repeatedly. Parking reform recommendations are expected before the Council in November or December. Also: the Naval Academy is building a new utility bridge over College Creek, a two-year project with pile driving under way, and a resident of Annapolis Overlook asked for help getting a traffic signal at the neighborhood's Forest Drive entrance after several crashes.
• Board of Supervisors of Elections (October 15). The board's chair reported on CA-2-26, my Charter amendment expanding the board from three to five members, and the substitute amendment the Council adopted on October 12 before the meeting ended early. His concern with the substitute is the one I raised on the floor: it moves appointments from the Council to the Mayor, with Council confirmation, which over the decades a Charter lasts invites stalemates and unfilled seats. The Office of Law suggested a middle path, a broader nominating pool (party central committees, the Mayor, and self-nominations, which an unaffiliated seat needs) with the appointment staying with the Council. A corrective amendment is expected Monday. If the expansion is adopted, the two new seats would be filled in early 2027.
• Historic Preservation Commission (October 13 and 22). On the 13th, the Commission approved converting the unused second floor of 87 Main Street (the Mills Fine Wine building) into three apartments, with flood barriers at the entrance because Main Street remains in the FEMA floodplain; staff called it a win for downtown housing. It also approved exterior lighting at the Hammond-Harwood House and a removable mural at First Presbyterian Church, and continued 172 Green Street to November 10. On the 22nd, a work session on two St. John's College projects: a new three-story arts building in the parking lot along St. John's Street, which commissioners called "on a very approvable path," and relocating the 1770s Chancellor Johnson House to the lower campus beside the boathouse, where the Commission flagged floodplain, foundation, and chimney issues to resolve before a formal application. No votes were taken.
• City Council Work Session (October 15). Two items. The Mayor's consultants presented the Citywide Collective Agenda, a community-wide planning process run through a 25-member advisory committee the Council did not appoint. I said what I think: the Council was told about a week before rollout; the Comprehensive Plan already took four years, seven surveys, and dozens of public meetings to set the City's vision; and if the Council is truly the nucleus of this effort, it should come through the Council as a resolution or ordinance, with full public transparency. I am pleased to report that the Mayor listened. On October 21 he wrote to the Council that he is stepping back from the community-wide process and the committee, and pivoting the consultant's contract to a strategic plan built on the Council's own priorities: interviews with each member, a synthesis of where we agree and differ, a review of what existing plans (starting with the Comprehensive Plan) already call for, and a focused set of priorities with actions and indicators. That is the approach I asked for, I told him so, and I am glad to take part. Second, the Public Information Officer presented a new City logo and brand, driven by a federal digital accessibility deadline in April 2027 and by 17 departments each doing their own thing. The mark draws on a boat hull, the Thomas Point light, downtown rooflines, and the old Carr's Beach bandstand. I am quite pleased with it, and with the care staff and the local design firm put into the work: real resident input, a system every department can use, and a rollout that replaces signs and vehicles as they wear out rather than all at once. An ordinance adopting it comes in November; the website and brand launch target February 2027.

If you have an interest in serving on this or any City board, the application is at the City's boards and commissions page, the Boards and Commissions Office is at 410-263-7997, and I am always glad to hear from Ward 7 residents who want to serve.