There are a few things going on next week that I wanted to keep you abreast of, including a City Council meeting on Monday and the Summer Ward 7 Town Hall meeting on Wednesday (6pm at the library).

Ward 7’s Summer Town Hall meeting - Wednesday at 6pm at Eastport-Annapolis Neck library

I hope you can join me for my second town hall meeting. I will give some opening remarks and then open the floor to all of you to ask me questions or speak your mind about anything going on in the City or Ward. Is the proposed downtown hotel on your mind? Or the re-paving of Georgetown Road? I hope to hear your thoughts on those things and more.

I am looking for volunteers to help spread the word about this Town Hall meeting. If you can help drop flyers in your neighborhood, please let me know.

Update from previous Council meeting

Before moving on to new business, at the last City Council meeting we approved the union agreements with the Police, Fire, and Public Works employees. Most notable is that these are 4-year agreements (easier to plan for in terms of our budget) and the Police Department were given a phased in Take Home Vehicles policy. This policy encourages officers to live in the City or County. While we had our concerns about the fiscal impact of doing this, we determined that we need to be able to attract high quality officers to our Capital City, and to do so we need to stay competitive. Take home vehicles are a large part of that. To lesson the fiscal impact, the Police will be getting less salary increases than other employees.

Information on Monday’s Council meeting

• The Housing Authority of Annapolis will be delivering a report.
• There are many appointments being confirmed to City boards, including our own Kia Baskerville to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

Public Hearings

• O-19-18 - 2018 Zoning Code Updates and Amendments -This ordinance includes some relatively minor tweaks to our zoning code. I’d recommend perusing the Planning Commission findings to learn more to see if you want to testify on any aspect of this proposal.

Second readers (final votes)

• R-38-18 - National Sailing Hall of Fame - expresses Council support in retaining the National Sailing Hall of Fame. I intend to support this resolution, but welcome your thoughts before I make a final decision.
• R-39-18 - The Capital benefit concert - waives fees associated with this event and makes it a City co-sponsored Special Event. The total fiscal impact to waiving the fees would be approximately $32,060. Despite this, I do intend to support this event, although I am reserving some judgement. I’d like to know if the families and The Capital support this effort. I welcome any thoughts you may have on this proposal.
• O-14-18 - Development Review Process Amendments - This ordinance fully implements the public meeting overhaul passed by the last Council. What the previous legislation did is create a new public meeting requirement to force developers to get more public input on their projects. However, the previous ordinance was overruled by the courts when local developer Alan Hyatt sued the City insisting the process was too vague. He maintains that he supports the intention but not the implementation. This ordinance is in response to the Judge’s order and would in his view correct the previously passed ordinance. I do have a few issues with some of the things passed, but nothing major, so I intend to support this ordinance, pending any comments from you. I did try to get a few things strengthened in this ordinance to require newspaper and web postings, but not all of them were agreed to. I will likely be introducing legislation at a later date that further improves upon this process as I’d like to expand the radius of who is supposed to be notified of new projects.
• O-28-18 - Arts and Entertainment District tax credit - This ordinance simply officially adopts the tax credit that was intended to have gone with the Arts & Entertainment District to begin with. I intend to support this Ordinance, pending any comments from you.

Other updates

• One Annapolis World Cup Celebration - The Mayor's Office will be hosting a One Annapolis World Cup Celebration at The Bates Heritage Park(Adjacent to Bates Boys & Girls Club), from 11 AM to 4 PM. France has won the World Cup, so they Mayor’s Office has decided to make the event French themed, with the opportunity for cross cultural entertainment from Nations represented in this year's World Cup event.  There will be food, music, and Soccer. Two exhibition games will be showcased with an adult and youth game. Several food trucks have been invited to provide cross cultural food to event attendees.
• Georgetown Rd/Victor Parkway paving & sidewalks - As you may have noticed the City has finally started to re-pave Georgetown Road and Victor Parkway (Fairwinds side), and repair some of the adjacent sidewalks. Many of you commented to me during my campaign about the state of these roads and sidewalks, and I'm happy to say your concerns have been heard and are being resolved. If there are any other areas you would like to see repaired, let me know and I'll pass them along to the City.