Here is a chronology of some of the pollution discharge events we have had at Quiet Waters Park, due to the failure of the contrator, Reliable Contracting Inc, to follow our environmental regulations, and also due to a failure of the City's enforcement arm (Department of Public Works) to do effective enforcement to achieve compliance. Besides the environmental impacts, they have also failed to comply with our traffic control (dangerous to residents), noise restrictions (impacts residents), work hour restrictions (residents kept up at night), and pavement standards (danger to cars).

This is a DEFCON 1 situation environmentally. We have laws to prevent sediment pollution for a reason. It contributes to the creation of dead zones (areas devoid of all oxygen and life) in our waterways, toxic algal blooms, and flesh-eating bacteria. I'm an environmental scientist. I know very well the impacts this pollution causes; hence my sense of outrage. And now we have our most sacred public park that has been impacted. 

The first Council meeting of the new year is this Monday. There are two pieces of legislation up for a public hearing and two up for a final vote, but nothing too controversial. On Monday January 17^th is a virtual Dr. Martin Luthor King Jr breakfast; information below.

Enjoy the snow and winter weather and happy new year!

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

First of all, happy holidays! Second of all, thank you for re-electing me to serve as your Alderman! I look forward to serving you for the next term. As you may have noticed, I’ve tried to take a bit of a break here between Council terms, but, alas, it feels like that went by rather quickly and here we are with our first Council meeting of this term coming up on Monday. Given that this is our first meeting, there isn’t too much on the agenda. I’ve provided a summary below. As always, feel free to reach out to me witih any comments.

There are a number of important updates at the end of this email, including information about upcoming hearings about Ward redistricting, a community safety meeting with the Police Chief, and an update on the Parkside Preserve pollution issues.

Also, given that the new year is almost upon us, please send me your priorities you want me to focus on for the next term.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

This Monday will be our last Council meeting for this term. I want to say how much of an honor and privilege it has been to serve you these past 4 years. I’m even more honored and humbled (and appreciative of my family’s support!)  to be able to continue serving as your Alderman for another 4 years. I hope you have been happy with how I’ve been performing my duty to represent you, and respectfully ask for your vote on November 2^nd.

Stay tuned to your email as I plan on holding a Ward 7 social gathering at the Maritime Museum’s Moyer park campus in early November. Since I haven’t had a town hall in a while, I will also be there to answer any questions folks may have and likely give a number of updates for what we may have in store for next year.

I’ll also include an update on the Parkside Preserve pollution at the end of this email.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

Given that there isn’t too much on this second-to-last council meeting of this term, the big news I wanted to lead off with is the pollution in Quiet Waters Park. I’ve been sent numerous pictures over the past few weeks of this muddy water illegally entering into the park from the adjacent development project, ironically named Parkside Preserve, which is actually a new ~130 home residential development. I want to assure you that I’ve been working tirelessly to address this situation (my family has seen me for only a few hours this week). I went out to the site (without entering) and observed 12 different violations on the work site (remember, I used to do environmental inspections for the City, prior to getting elected), and promptly sent that to the City Manager. After a slow response from staff, I proceeded to contact the Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment.

I’m happy to say that the site is now mostly in compliance, after 7 long days. Keep in mind that the developer is required to keep their site in compliance every single day. So the fact that they were out of compliance for weeks, and the City gave them another entire week is a problem. It’s also a problem that the department in charge of the inspections, Public Works, failed to notice these violations for weeks, despite their thrice-weekly inspections. It’s also a problem that after 12 violations, and 13 out-of-compliance inspection results, the developer is allowed to get away with this with zero dollars in fines for sending this pollution into our park. To top it off, the permit for this work actually expires at the end of today, and once this was brought to the City's attention, they quickly extended the contractor's permit (in violation of our laws); much more quickly than it took them to respond to our citizen complaints. The fact that this violates our laws is something I will need to figure out how to address.

In anycase, this is why our neighbors in Beechwood hill and surrounding communities organized a brand new coalition, called Annapolis Stand Up! They are organizing a march and rally for TOMORROW AT 7AM starting at the entrance of Quiet Waters park and heading over to the project. The early time is due to that being the time that workers get to the site. I will post their flyer down below.

In other news, I’m withdrawing O-12-21, the Police Enhancement And Community Engagement (PEACE) ordinance. I will be bringing this back next term, but it simply proved to be too complex to be passed this session, especially since we made major revisions to it after meeting with the Police Department, law office, and ACLU, which need to be brought back to the public.

Lastly, I respectfully ask for your vote when you receive your ballot. I have thoroughly enjoyed serving you and look forward to continuing to do so for another 4 years.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

This Monday you will have an opportunity to testify on some important legislation that is before the City Council, including:

1. a proposal to shift away from the Planning Commission model where they approve and review development projects, and shifting to a model with a single hearing officer filling that role, and
2. the proposed changes to our maritime zones from the maritime advisory task force, and
3. legislation I’m proposing to close two loopholes in our forest conservation act.

Furthermore, we will be holding a final vote on the Accessory Dwelling Unit legislation, so if you have any comments on that, please send them my way.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

Hello again! It has been a while! I took a nice long break during the August recess of the Council, took some much-needed family time, but now it’s time to get back into the Council work. We have 4 meetings left in this term until our “sine die”. I have a number of pieces of legislation on the docket that I’ll be hoping to bring to a positive conclusion:

• Police Enhancement And Community Engagement (PEACE) ordinance, which would transition more towards community policing, enacts common sense reforms, adopts recommendations from the AA County gun violence task force, and much more;
• Forest Conservation tweak – closing two loopholes; and
• Requiring permits when removing trees over 23” anywhere in City.

I’ll include a few election updates below, but I do want to note that you will NOT be receiving a primary election ballot since there are no contested primary races in our Ward. You WILL receive a general election ballot. I also want to say a big THANK YOU, and say that I look forward to representing you for another 4-years. I hope to organize a town hall in October at an outdoor venue.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

I’d like to fill you in on an environmental emergency out at ironically named Parkside Preserve (aka Reserve at Quiet Waters), which instead of preserving our newest park instead has polluted it. I’ll provide details below in the updates section. But if it outrages you that developers polluted public lands, sensitive non-tidal wetlands that form the headwaters of Quiet Waters Park, and broke the law to do so, then please read on.

Also, this is our last Council meeting before our August break, and it’s our last meeting for us to introduce Ordinances before the end of our terms (unless we suspend the rules); hence, we have quite a bit of legislation on the agenda.

In case you didn’t notice from the last meeting, we postponed the Short Term Rental legislation vote until this Monday, we voted down the medical cannabis legislation after it was weakened with some poison amendments, and we passed the legislation that allows the proposed Lidl grocery store to connect to our sewer and water.

Also, at the start of our Monday meeting, at 6pm, we will be having a closed door meeting speaking about the Hillman parking garage replacement project. Our regular meeting starts at 7pm.

Lastly, I’m introducing two pieces of legislation to address some loopholes in the City regarding tree/forest protection that we uncovered recently. More information on these below.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

I hope you had a pleasant 4^th of July. It’s so nice to see our City start to look like normal again, and I’m very excited that our outdoor concerts are resuming at the Maritime Museum and Quiet Waters Park. But down to business…

We have a few upcoming votes I wanted to draw to your attention. The first is on legislation that would allow medical cannabis dispensaries to be located in certain areas in the City, and the second is a final vote on legislation that would require non-owner occupied short term rentals to get special exceptions (e.g. have to go before a board for final approval). I’ll give you my thoughts on these below.

Also, we will be voting on the two pieces of legislation that would allow the proposed Lidl (redevelopment at the old C&C liquors site) to connect to our utilities.

Details on that and more below.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

Campaign kick-off a success

For those who were able to make it out to the campaign kick-off this past Thursday, thank you! It was a very successful event and it was indeed a pleasure to see everyone again. If you were unable to make it, I'll look forward to catching you at the next fundraiser or town hall meeting. 

Lidl grocery store & C&C liquors site

As you’ll see below, I’m introducing two pieces of legislation that will allow the proposed Lidl grocery store, to be located at the old C&C liquors site in the County, to connect to our City utilities. Now that they have committed to honoring our comprehensive plan and working with the adjacent lot to make a parking lot connection (for the proposed Bay Village Drive connection), I no longer have any reservations about this project.

Previous meeting

At our previous meeting we voted in favor of CA-1-21, which created an Office of Community Services, located under the City Manager's Office.

Read on for a full break-down of our upcoming Council meeting, as well as for details on the latest draft of the Annapolis Comprehensive Plan.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob