Here are details on our next special Council meeting, coming up this Monday. Besides the consent calendar, it’s dedicated to public hearings, both general comments as well as comments on a couple pieces of legislation.

If you missed the planning & zoning presentation earlier this week on the Annapolis 2020 Comprehensive Plan progress, you can view it here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 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

I recently returned from our City-County-State delegation visit to Sweden, to learn about sustainable mobility and carbon reduction approaches. They are, by far, the world leaders on those topics. We also visited an electric boat manufacturer which I am hoping will open up shop here in Ward 7. I have a lot to say about this trip and will post more next week. But for now, I point you to the County Executive’s weekly letter: Swedish Inspiration. I apologize for not getting you more information now, but I am feeling under the weather and am late enough with getting this newsletter out.

In other news, last week the Environmental Matters Committee discussed our ban on gas-powered leaf blowers. This was a long requested piece of legislation, as people have grown quite fed up with the noise and bad air they create, and I’m proud to say that we are among the early adopters in the State. Besides Montgomery County and DC, Baltimore City just adopted a similar prohibition. Our law takes effect January 1^st. What the Committee delved into was our enforcement process, as well as discussing a transition assistance program that we will provide to local businesses and residents to help ease the monetary cost. These are both in development so I’ll send you more at a later date.

That’s all for now. Happy for the beautiful weather but wish I felt better!

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

Coming out of our August recess, the Council resumes Monday with a regular Council meeting. There are two pieces of legislation up for a public hearing, one is my Ordinance that would prohibit new drive-thrus, which emulates other jurisdictions and seeks to make our community safer for pedestrians and cyclists. This will also be the first meeting for our newest Council-member, Harry Huntley, who was appointed by the Annapolis Democratic Central Committee as Ward 1 Alderman, replacing Alderwoman Elly Tierney, who has moved out of the area.

September Town hall meeting

Alderman Arnett and I are holding a joint Ward7/8 town hall meeting on Thursday, September 12^th, 7pm at the Eastport volunteer fire company, at 914 Bay Ridge Ave. I’ll send more on this later, but please mark your calendars.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

 Rob

At tomorrow’s Council meeting, we will be holding a public hearing on a new piece of legislation that would establish a Tenant Displacement Fund, to help relocate lower income residents when/if their units are deemed unfit for human habitation. Also, we have two new pieces of legislation being introduced: one would help us become a Bird City, and the other would move forward with condemning an old gas station site at West St & Monticello so that the city can acquire it and install hopefully a public park and some affordable housing.

Also, we will be having a final vote on our Annapolis Plastic Bag Reduction Act, which mostly copies the County’s legislation at this point. And we will also be voting on a Resolution showing our support of the Eastport Choice Neighborhood Initiative Transformation Plan that would redevelop some older public housing as well as the old Spa Rd Public Works property into mixed use housing.

Lastly, just a reminder that the Council will be in recess during the month of August, so I may be slower than normal in getting back to you.

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

First up, I wanted to let you know about memorial vigil that will be taking place on June 11^th at 6pm at the State Capital building. This vigil is for the victims of the horrific shooting incident on Paddington Place that happened last year. You can find the flyer below.

Second, below I have details on our all-day Council meeting tomorrow that is focusing on the budget. I don’t believe there will be any public comments as we are focusing on deliberating on the budget. Staff hasn't seemed to have posted the amendments yet, but I did give you a summary of my amendments in my last email. I know my colleagues also have amendments. Most of them are utilizing either our "one time use" money (i.e. not a recurring expense, so it essentially utilizes savings from the City spending less last FY than anticipated). This allows us to fund improvements and studies without adding to our recurring expenses and without needing to increase the tax rate. That said, I also know that one of my colleagues was contemplating moving forward with a few amendments that would increase the tax rate very marginally, to fund a few additional positions. I don't know for sure if those will still be introduced so I'm not going to elaborate much at the moment. 

Stay healthy and stay safe,

Rob

Happy 4^th of July! I have details below on our City celebrations, details on Monday’s Council meeting, and our first water access plan draft that is out for public comment.

 Stay healthy and stay safe,

 Rob