I have a number of important Ward 7 updates for you. First of all, the Department of Planning & Zoning has launched a new neighborhood zoning initiative called Tyler Avenue Complete Community. The initiative is focusing on improvements to the Tyler Avenue corridor including a safer streetscape, new housing options, expanded tree canopy, and community spaces. 

Also, for those who live on Back Creek, the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative is having two public meetings in Eastport to get project ideas.

As far as Monday’s meeting, there is no legislation up for a public hearing, but we will be having a final vote on legislation dealing with the class & compensation for City employees.

Legislative action summary from last meeting

• R-10-25 – 2025 Annapolis Film Festival Fee Waier – Adopted (I voted Aye)
• R-11-25 – Dir3ector of Finance – appointment of Brittany Moran (I vote Aye)

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

Happy St Patrick’s day! I hope everyone enjoys the parade this Sunday and has a safe weekend.

At this upcoming Monday’s Council meeting there will be public hearings on some proposed legislation that would alter the appeals process for property development in Annapolis, and on the 2025 Salary Reivew Commission’s recommendations for adjustments to the Mayor and Council’s compensation. In addition, there are two final votes: one on waiving fees for the 2025 Annapolis Film Festival and another on confirming a new Director of Finance.

Legislative action summary from last meeting

• CA-2-24 -Turned HR and IT into full Departments per the Charter -  Adopted (I voted No)
• O-2-25 – WRNR radio tower lease with the City – Adopted (I voted Aye)
• O-23-24 – Expanded radius at which we can select towing companies – Adopted (I voted Aye)
• O-32-24 – Fire sprinkler downtown requirements – Adopted (I voted Aye)
• O-34-24 – FY2025 changes to exempt employee job classification – Postponed
• R-1-25 – Thompson street park naming – Adopted (I voted Aye)
• R-2-25 – Demo project for green roofs on bus shelters – Referred to committee
• R-6-25 – Boat show non-profit vendors – Adopted (I voted Aye)
• R-7-25 – Itinerant merchant sales in historic district – Adopted (I voted Aye)
• R-53-24 – FY25 executive pay scale – Postponed
• R-54-24 – FY25 changes to position classification & pay scale – Postponed

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

First of all, here is an update on some legislation that passed at our previous meeting on February 10^th.

Passed legislation

O-28-24 - Police Department -- Property and Contraband Disposal

O-29-24 - Fence Permit Requirements Related to Buildings and Construction Standards in Title 17 (my legislation)

Monday’s meeting

At this upcoming Monday’s meeting there will be a public hearing on some proposed speed camera legislation, which may be of interest to you. We will also be officially receiving a report from the salary review commission that details their recommendations to increase the Alderpersons/Mayoral pay. Also note the survey link below from the Resilience Authority. They are looking for properties with flooding issues that they may work on resolving for you, so please take time to fill out the survey if this applies to you. Lastly, note the County will be holding an upcoming “safe routes to transit” event.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

First of all, an update on some legislation that passed at our previous meeting.

Passed legislation

O-31-24 – Mobile Food Service Vendors’ Signage (my legislation)

O-35-24 - Fair Cannabis Employment Practices (my legislation)

R-3-25 - City Dock Resiliency Project (I co-sponsored)

Monday’s meeting

As far as Monday’s meeting, there is no legislation up for a public hearing. Though we are introducing some legislation that would authorize the installation on speed cameras, and a demonstration project to install green roofs on some of our bus stops. We are also having final votes on legislation including O-28-24 that would require that APD donate confiscated bikes to non-profits to serve local residents in need.

Fence updates

I know this is of special interest to some of you. O-29-24, which is part 1 of my two-part legislative package updating our fence code (in response to an issue that popped up in my neck of the Ward), is up for a final vote. There are a number of amendments that I detail below. Also, its sister legislation O-30-24 has made it through the planning Commission with a favorable recommendation and will be coming back to the Council in February and March.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

I have a number of events to update you on that have a particular relevance and importance to Ward 7. But before I get to those, I have a few updates on Monday’s City Council meeting. Of particular note is that we will be holding a final vote on three pieces of legislation:  First is O-31-24, which is my legislation that would create sign regulations for food trucks, so that we don’t have a proliferation of bright, blinking signs on the food trucks on Forest Drive. Second is O-35-24, which is my Fair Cannabis Employment Practices legislation that would protect employees rights to utilize cannabis while off-duty by prohibiting testing for cannabis on current or potential employees. Lastly is R-3-25, which is an expression of the Council’s support of the City Dock resilience project. You can get more information on all of these below.

If you see any sidewalks that still have snow on them, please report them to the City at https://www.annapolis.gov/2025/Report-an-Issue. As a reminder, adjacent property owners are required to remove the snow in front of their houses. The City can issue fines for not doing this. They may also do the work themselves and then charge the homeowner. This has become a very important issue to me given that our kids need to be able to walk and ride their bikes safely to school. In addition, I was quite shocked the other day when I saw a resident pushing another resident on a wheel chair in the middle of Forest Drive because that particular section of sidewalk is still covered with snow, despite the fact that County Code says it should be cleared within 6 hours of the storm event. I’ve passed this along to the County so I hope they get to this soon before someone is killed.

We are asking for Community Input for the Carr's Beach project. There are a number of events going on from January 30^th to February 1^st in an effort to gather such input. Please see below for details.

We are also looking for project ideas, on public or private land, to address any flooding/sea level rise issues in the Back Creek watershed (i.e. Ward 7). There is a new initiative called the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative (AMRI) that is a partnership between Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, and the Resilience Authority. Please see below for more information.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

First of all, Happy New Year! I hope everyone stayed safe during the previous snowstorm and found some time to enjoy the beauty and peace provided by a nice snowfall. I did, as I took it as an opportunity to travel this weekend on a father-son ski trip; hence my delay in getting this out. I apologize for the delay but I do need to prioritize family and didn’t want to miss this opportunity.

Snow response

This was the City’s largest snowstorm in eight years. Dedicated Public Works crews were operating on twelve-hours shifts throughout the week to clear our 275 miles of streets and spread over 600,000 pounds of salt. In addition, Public Works staff had to quickly and efficiently address a few water main breaks that popped up due to sustained temperatures below freezing. I understand that some of your streets remain icy. The challenge the City had was that with the cold temperatures continuing after the snowfall, the salt was not able to accelerate the ice’s melting, and plows are not easily able to remove ice. It’s best to apply salt prior to the snowfall, but in this case they did that but the snow quickly overwhelmed our initial efforts. All that said, no snow response is perfect. If you have any issues in the future, the best way to report issues is at https://www.annapolis.gov/2025/Report-an-Issue

If you see any sidewalks that are not cleared of snow, please report them via that link as well. Sidewalks in both the City and County are the responsibility of the adjacent property owner to clear. If you report them to the City or County they should then be sending enforcement notices to the property owners.

Previous Ward 7 Town Hall on YouTube

If you were unable to attend our last Ward 7 town Hall this past December, you can view it here. The Mayor and I presented on our local takeaways from our work study visits to Europe. I enjoyed chatting with everyone and am looking forward to applying these lessons to improve your lives and our City.

Other items

I discuss other items below, including a public hearing on our seasonal outdoor dining Ordinance, support our City Dock resilience efforts with R-3-25, and a Resolution that would establish a task force to look at our houseboat code.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

First of all, since we are getting closer to December 16^th, I wanted to remind you that we are having a Ward 7 Town Hall that day at 6:00pm at the Eastport-Annapolis Neck library. I’ll be presenting on local lessons drawn from our work-study to Sweden that was on Sustainable Transportation in particular. The Mayor may be joining us as well. After this the meeting will be opened up into a general Q&A Town Hall. I could really use help distributing flyers, so if you have the time and inclination to leave them on the doors of your neighbor’s houses, please let me know and I’ll ensure you get some flyers to distribute. Ideally I’d like to get them out this weekend or early next week so people have ample notification of the meeting.

In other news for Monday, we will be voting on a Resolution that would delay the enforcement of our gas-powered leaf blower ban. I want to be clear: this is not a step back from that ban. It’s clear that this is the direction the public wants to go. What this is, is an effort to respond to some concerns we have heard about the financial transition to electric equipment, so we are working on securing funds and setting up a program to administer a voucher or rebate program to assist residents and local landscaping companies.  But we need time to get this set up. So the ban will still go into effect January 1^st but the enforcement, as far as fines, will be delayed. If you do notice violations, please take pictures of the company or individual in question, email them to [email protected] and City staff will reach out to them to help educate them about the law and our transition assistance program.

Also, my Fair Cannabis Employment Ordinance is up for public hearing. More information on that below. Lastly, my legislation that would prohibit new drive-thrus will be up for a final vote. I’ve posted closing comments on that below, but suffice it to say that my intention is to build a more sustainable, safe, and accessible community for all. I’ll explain more below. 

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

We have a number of things up for public hearing and first reader at Monday’s Council meeting that may be of interest to you.

What I’m most excited about is the introduction of my legislation, titled “Fair cannabis employment practices”, that I’ve been working on for a while. This would prohibit the City from testing any applicants or employees for cannabis use, unless otherwise required by the State or Federal government. I detail the problem below, but suffice it to say that the City’s testing methodology detects cannabis use that could date back weeks or even months, which obviously has no relation on someone’s ability to do their job. Yet if someone tests positive during their pre-employment screening or if a current employee has any positive test, they are either terminated immediately or have to undergo a full drug rehabilitation program. Potentially losing one’s professional career for a completely legal activity they engaged in while off duty, with no impact to their job performance, seems rather draconian to me. Hence this change.

As far as public hearings, you’ll have an opportunity to testify on one of my Ordinances tweaking the fence code, an ordinance dealing with police contraband disposal that I hope to amend to allow them to donate bikes to kids in need as opposed to auctioning them off, and also my legislation that would require food trucks to follow the same sign laws as our brick and mortar stores; in this case prohibiting those flashing signs you may see on some food trucks.

Lastly, as a reminder, I have scheduled a town hall meeting at the Eastport-Annapolis Neck Library for 6:00pm - 7:30pm on Monday, December 16^th (I apologize for the earlier time, but it appears the library has changed their hours slightly)

Stay healthy and stay safe,

 Rob

Monday’s meeting will be starting with a closed session on the lawsuit that has been filed against the City, in a seeming attempt to stop our efforts to protect it from climate change. I don’t know much about it at the moment, and we’ll see what I can disclose after our closed meeting. Slightly more on this below.

I am going to try to manually add three pieces of legislation to the agenda that are not on the final posted agenda. O-29-24 (Title 17 fence code update), O-30-24 (Title 21 fence code update), and O-36-23 (Forest Conservation loophole closure). You can get more information on all of these below. I have to manually add them to the agenda via a motion to amend the agenda because, while I had requested they be on the final agenda they were removed without my permission, so now I have to add them back on manually. Code requires they should have been on this agenda given where they are in the process, so they were removed in violation of our code. Regardless, that’s why you don’t see them on the final posted agenda.

As a reminder, I have scheduled a town hall meeting at the Eastport-Annapolis Neck Library for 6-7:30pm on Monday, December 16^th (I apologize for the earlier time, but it appears the library has changed their hours slightly)

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

A few things regarding this Monday’s Council meeting. Alderman Arnett and I are re-introducing our legislation that would create a task force to establish the need, then some recommendations if needed, regarding updating our Code on houseboats. I’ll write more below, but suffice it to say this is a much bigger issue than some of my colleagues seem to realize, and so there is much research we need to do before doing anything on this issue. And frankly, I don’t see why we are going to open up an entire can-of-worms that risks upsetting the monumental work we did a few years back to update our maritime districts, just to suit some investors who want to put houseboats on our waters and rent them as short term rentals. I don’t like the idea and I don’t want to waste any of our time. Unfortunately, that ship appears to be departing regardless of the concerns Alderman Arnett and I have (as the Aldermen with the most marinas), hence this task force to at least make sure we get the information we need.

On other issues, you’ll also notice legislation on outdoor dining. This is a Resolution that would extend outdoor dining and then sunset if my other legislation creating a permitting process for such dining passes.

I also think I promised you some more information on the delegation trip to Sweden. If you have thoughts on how you would like to hear the local lessons or takeaways that I took from that trip, please let me know. I have scheduled a town hall meeting at the Eastport-Annapolis Neck Library for 6-7:30pm on Monday, December 16^th (I apologize for the earlier time, but it appears the library has changed their hours slightly), and I’m thinking I may take the opportunity to go through some pictures and takeaways. I may invite the Mayor to that meeting as well. I have also started writing an op-ed for The Capital. What I’ll say for now is it was entirely worthwhile. We built connections with the State and County, which will prove quite essential as we seek to build a sustainable transportation system over here. I also made the pitch to a Swedish electric boat/ferry company to set up shop in Ward 7’s maritime district. They are looking to set up shop in the States, and obviously Annapolis would be a perfect place given our maritime culture and heritage and fit right into our plans to create a 100% renewable & clean public transportation system. Which, by the way, Stockholm has already accomplished! They are also at over 70% renewable/carbon-free for their entire transportation system in the City, both public and private. That is phenomenal! And quite inspiring! You know what this leads to; cleaner streets, cleaner air, quieter streets, and more people walking and cycling around the City. And when you have more eyes on the street you also make your streets safer, not to mention the increased foot traffic also brings more economic activity. Moving towards a more sustainable, carbon neutral City/society is a smart move for quality of life, healthier living, and a stronger economy.

Happy Halloween! Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob