Annapolis Capital Punishment

The below is an automatically generated email response from Transportation Director Danielle Matland sent on November 4:

"Until the last week of November, I will be away from the office. Please contact Sonny Hinton x108 for Administrative issues, Dwight Parker x118 for Transit Operation issues. Thank you for your patience."

CP does not fault anyone for taking vacations, but having worked in the Transportation Department for nearly eight years, I am painfully aware of the numerous and lengthy vacations taken by Ms. Matland during which time nobody seemed to be in charge. I am also painfully aware of how much she isolated herself from services and operations even when she was in town. This is a big department with many employees, assets and property. And by the way, she drives to work from her home about a mile away even though there is frequent bus service and she could walk or ride a bike.
Although it is not her fault that our city government scrapped the deputy director position, a position she once held, it does call into question who is running our transportation department, when she is away (not to mention when she is there). It is just another side of the lack of oversight problem in that department and in that of many other departments. By the way, as with other department heads, she is paid well in excess of $100,000 per year. Not bad work if you can get it, along with the weeks and weeks of vacations. Of course she has been there for well over twenty years. That may explain a lot of the situation.