City Council-The Shape of Things to Come

The only major surprise from the recent special election that retained two Democratic seats on Annapolis City Council was just how close was the race in Ward Four. A white, male Republican political neophyte living in a newly developed and newly annexed “suburban” part of a heavily black and Democratic ward nearly defeated a black woman and longtime political activist. Jim Conley, a mortgage banker, was beaten by Sheila Finlayson, past president of the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County. It should be noted that Mayor Ellen Moyer is a former lobbyist with the Maryland State Teacher’s Association. Finlayson’s campaign manager is Kathy Nieberding, a prominent figure in state politics and has worked as a lobbyist/consultant on behalf of Annapolis under Mayor Moyer.

Perhaps the unexpectedly strong showing of Conley is an indication of dissatisfaction with Finlayson's close ties with the mayor, who was narrowly re-elected in a three-way race over a year ago.

Democratic civic activist and health care consultant Ross Arnett handily beat community activist Frank Bradley in Ward Eight. It will be interesting to see in the years to come, whether Arnett and Finlayson develop an independent streak, or whether they will “rubber stamp” the mayor as some have suggested. I suspect that Arnett will continue to fashion himself after Josh Cohen, the man he replaced, by being generally, but not always supportive of Mayor Moyer. He is likely to closely align himself with Ward One Alderman Dick Israel and Ward Seven Alderman Sam Shropshire. Finlayson, on the other hand, is likely to associate herself more closely with the mayor, and possibly even Democrat Classie Hoyle, although Hoyle burned bridges with Democrats when she openly supported County Council Republican candidate Renee Swafford in 2006. Hoyle sometimes seems estranged from the mayor as well. It was not just the support she offered, but the manner in which it was done. Swafford, who was trounced by Josh Cohen supported Frank Bradley in this most recent election.

Bottom line? Mayor retains voting bloc, and we now have four women on council, three of whom are Democrats, two of whom are African-American and one, Julie Stankivic, is Independent. Republican Dave Cordle, perhaps the most conservative voice on council, and is possibly jockeying for a mayoral run, remains mainly an opponent of the mayor, while new Republican Mike Christman seems to be a moderate swing vote. I will say that the City Council in recent years has shown itself to be a more effective, cordial and collegial body than I can remember in a long time. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Ferry Tales Can Come True, It Can Happen to You...

Today’s Capital (February 1, 2007) tells of a local group thinking about solving Bay Bridge traffic woes and it comes up with--a ferry system? I think we’ve all read this story before, and again and again and all they can come up with is a return to the very type of service that used to move us until the first bridge was built? This type of “thinking” if you can call it that, continues to operate on the same old assumptions that we must drive cars, we will always drive cars, and there will always be cheap private automobile transport available.
The first bridge came in 1952, followed by the second one about twenty years later, and ever since, they have been followed by talk and more talk about bridges here, bridges there and now ferry systems.
It’s a big challenge, but one must ask, who will make up the masses of people that will make such a trip? Where will a ferry big enough to carry hundreds dock in downtown Annapolis? Where will all the cars be parked (on both sides) for the people to get on the boat? By the time one parks a car on Kent Island, boards a ferry, rides on the ferry and then disembarks, I predict about 45 minutes will have elapsed.
We cannot compare ourselves to either Seattle or New York, although maybe Rhode Island has some similarities. A lot of conditions as well as infrastructure need to be in place for a ferry system to work, but most of all, there must be a market that meets a critical mass requirement that will actually ride such a ferry system because A) It saves a lot of time B) It is comparable in cost to driving C) It is a lot easier than, or otherwise preferable to driving or D) Some other compelling reason or set of reasons such as lots of high paying jobs in a dense area and lots of nice bedroom communities in outlying areas.
Does either Baltimore or Annapolis offer that? Will they ever?
Remember the Concorde SST? If it were profitable, the French and British would still be doing it.
Why are we proposing complex, large scale “solutions” when the state capital does not even have commuter buses to Baltimore and when our own local transit system is beleaguered by mismanagement, labor shortages, poor morale and tenuous federal funding issues that are not even addressed? And why are we not seriously talking about major development of express commuter buses for crossing the existing bridges? At the present, Annapolis Transit sends one commuter bus back and forth to Kent Island each weekday morning and afternoon. It goes over empty in the am and comes back full and then goes back full in the pm and comes back empty, and is considered to be a very successful run. So, why are we not expanding that? Why are we not expanding other commuting options by transit? Why are we not discussing reinstating the commuter express bus chopped under the Ehrlich Administration?
Again, we operate under certain assumptions that we will also be commuting in droves in the year 2010 and 2015, but will we? Only if we choose to keep doing that.

Joe Gross...too good to simply leave as a comment

I just had to print this again, not that Joe's choice words need to see more ink--or electrons, but it's just so, well, it's so gross. Joe is a decent fellow, and we've even had some pleasant conversations, but for years, his useless and poorly-written blather has earned him his living and taken up lots of space in our local paper which could otherwise have been occupied by something meaningful, not to mention factual (At least now they do check his atrocious spelling before printing). Both he and Eric Smith are unaccountable to anyone or to any standards, yet they get columns--and even a cartoon, to write about whatever they please! What's wrong with this picture?

In response to my piece about The Capital in which I wrote, "Now, if only they could get rid of Smith and Gross" here goes Joe, and my comment:

joe gross said...
I love my job, ASSHOLE.
January 30, 2007 1:26 PM

Paul M. Foer said...
Well, Joe, who would not love your job? You can write whatever you want, without any regard to facts and without any accountability and you get paid for it! We the readers of The Capital, have suffered your vapid and inane writings, and along comes a fellow who publishes a blog (without pay, mind you), and you finally get to tell readers what you have really thought of us for all these years. Way to go, Joe.
January 30, 2007 1:40 PM

Green Party Upcoming Events

The Anne Arundel Green Party, which seems to become more activated all the time, would like you to know about these upcoming events:

Monday, February 5th--Green Party Lobby Night. Visit your representatives in the Maryland House and Senate to lobby for the Green legislative agenda (online at http://www.mdgreens.org/agenda2007.html). Please reserve a space by contacting Robb Tufts at rtufts812@yahoo.com. Registration is free, but we would like to have materials printed for you, and to schedule time with your lawmakers.

Feb. 6: Steve Warner, 2004 Green Party candidate for U.S. Congress (District 5), will speak about the planned expansion of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant.

Feb. 13: Delegate Ron George (District 30) Del. George serves on the Ways and Means Committee. This is his first year as a state legislator.
Biography:
http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa14645.html

Topic: Upcoming state legislation

February 20:
Delegate Virginia Clagett (District 30) Del. Clagett serves on the Environmental Matters Committee, is chair of the housing & real property subcommittee, and serves on the agriculture preservation & open space subcommittee.
Biography:
http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa12200.html

Topic: Upcoming state legislation
February 27: Delegate Pamela Beidle (District 32)

Del. Beidle serves on the Environmental Matters Committee, and the following subcommittees: Environment; Housing and Real Property; Local Government and Bi-County. This is her first year as a state legislator.
Biography:
http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa14495.html

Topic: Upcoming state legislation

All meetings are Tuesday nights from 7-8 PM at 49 West Café (49 West St., Annapolis) in the back room. Please contact Karen Jennings (kljennings.geo@yahoo.com) or Virginia Smith (vfsmith@earthlink.net) for more information.

Is justice on the way?

A father will be sentenced shortly for sexually abusing his two nieces along with his own daughter for many years. His wife knew and never told anyone until a neighbor heard the rumors.

So, a judge hears the preliminary case and releases the guy to live back home with the very daughter he molested!

The abuse occurred over a period of almost 20 years and the guy apparently apologized to the victims after each act. He is to be sentenced on March 22 and according to the procecutor, they will not be seeking "a specific jail term". I will be keeping an eye out on this.

It is a shame that they don't publish the names to protect the victims. Seems like a free ride for the abuser to me!

Read about this in The Capital and The Baltimore Sun.

NAACP News Conference

The Anne Arundel County Branch of the NAACP will hold a press conference at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 8, 2007 at First Baptist Church in Annapolis. Newly elected Branch President, Wayne Jearld will discuss the following areas of interest:

1. Education - Annapolis High School, the AACPS and NAACP OCR Agreement and Minority Recruitment and Advancement.
2. Economic Development - The State of Affairs of Small and Minority Business Development
3. Community Development - The Revitalization of Clay Street, College Terrace and Obery Court
4. Public Safety - The disparity in County traffic stops and minority recruitment
5. Political Action - What is missing and What are the Next Steps?

The public is welcome. Please help spread the word, make plans to attend, and encourage family, friends, and co-workers to join you.

From Douglass to Marshall to....Snowden???

From the great state that brought forth Thurgood Marshall and Frederick Douglass, we now bring you, ta dum, Carl Snowden!! Carl Snowden? Yup-Doug Gansler has just given him a fancy new job as an expert in civil rights. Good Grief--how can we forget Snowden? His last "job" was as a sinecure in the Owens Administration right here in AA County where he apparently did much ado about nothing, but always seemed to show up everywhere making some statement about something or other and it was always confusing and unclear as to whether he was speaking for Ms. Owens and AA County, or for some "community" or for himself. I mean--what did the guy do??? Except of course, get pulled over, not once, but twice for drunk driving? Or was he being victimized? I got the scoop on this from a well-placed source in the Owens Admin. AND a high level Annapolis police officer personally told me, "I wish I was the one who pulled him over for drunk driving--and I wish he would have resisted arrest." Yep--and this cop is an African-American!
Yet amazingly, this is what our own Capital opined recently:

New Attorney General Doug Gansler created the position to give his office "strong leadership and representation in the civil rights area." If Mr. Gansler wants someone who has been active in that area for many years - and already knows all the players - he'd be hard put to find anyone better suited than Mr. Snowden.

Um, yeah, I am sure we would all be "hard put" to find anyone better....as if there is no other accomplished, intelligent, hardworking civil rights expert or activist in our entire State. Stay tuned--if Snowden gets a DWI while working for the state's top law enforcement official, it may turn out differently for him than when he was just a shill for a county executive.

Blog Arundel

Blog Arundel

Free State Politics

Free State Politics

Admitting They Were Sloppy

Tom Marquardt’s “Editor's desk” is perhaps the most refreshing and worthy change to come to our local daily in years. For those of you who may not know, he is the executive editor who took over from Ed Casey some years ago. And if that does not jog your memory, he writes the wine (that's w-i-n-e not w-h-i-n-e column.) Consider this selection which appeared in Sunday, January 28:
"Mistakes left an impression of bias in joblessness story
Editors often wonder why readers think news stories are biased. Reporters struggle to keep their opinions out of stories and make sure all sides are represented. But sometimes a run of mistakes can reverse the most earnest attempts to avoid any appearance of bias.Take a recent Business section story on the jobless rate in Anne Arundel County (The Sunday Capital, Jan. 14). Our critics faulted it as a terribly skewed presentation of an obviously positive story - and they were on target.The story reported that unemployment in the county was 3.4 percent - which is full employment, by most standards. To give some human dimensions to what otherwise promised to be a dull recitation of statistics, the reporter talked to an unemployed professional who was having difficulty making ends meet.Such well-intentioned anecdotal leads often backfire because they appear to telegraph the reporter's sympathies. In this case, a story about an exceptionally strong employment picture would have been better served by an interview with someone who was happily employed.The headline was "Nearly 10,000 jobless in Anne Arundel." Sounds bleak, doesn't it? The right headline would have been: "Anne Arundel jobless rate at five-year low."Finally, there was the graph on unemployment rates, which showed the progression of years from right to left - an unorthodox setup, as we're all used to reading English from left to right. Instead of clearly showing Maryland's jobless rate declining from a high of 4.5 percent in 2002 to a low of 3.9 percent in 2006, the graph could easily be misread as showing joblessness going up.Wrote a Severna Park reader (The Capital, Jan. 17), "I congratulate you for your ability to use graphics to bend facts to fit a story. … I would never have realized that one could make it appear, despite actual numbers to the contrary, that county unemployment is rising rapidly."Wrote another reader, "The graph plots time backward, something that is never done. Was it done this way so as to mislead the casual reader into thinking that, under a Republican governor, the unemployment rate increased? I am not one to imagine monsters in the dark, or see things in a jaundiced way, but why in heaven's name would one plot the x-axis in reverse?"We were sloppy on this one. My apologies.”
What a welcome breath of fresh air--admitting they were sloppy and apologizing for it. Annapolis and AA county folks who love to bash The Capital will do well to follow the various changes Marquardt has brought to the paper over the years and to read his weekly “desk” piece. Now, if only we could get rid of Smith and Gross….

I Must Be A Liberal Moron, But What Does That Make our President?

From one state capital to the nation’s capital…. I was among the few dozen local folks who protested Bush’s ongoing war in Iraq from the Eastport Bridge on Saturday. From 12 noon to 2 p.m. we walked and waved signs, doing our local part in concert with the many tens of thousands who were doing the same thing in Washington.
I just want to comment on the nastiness of some of those who obviously disagreed with the those of us on the bridge, which is to say they also disagree with most members of Congress and most of the American public. To the fellow who drove by in a Cadillac with a license plate that read “USNA 60’” and honked at us and flipped us his middle finger, let me just say that along with me on the bridge was a Korean War veteran and a retired Navy officer. Yeah pal--peace is patriotic. If you still think this debacle is good for our country or for anybody else-that’s your business, so go out and protest all you want, but please, grow up already!
And to the fellow who repeatedly drove back and forth in the big white SUV proudly displaying your poster, grow up too pal! He kept showing us a drawing of a World War II era GI with the caption “Why don’t you root for our side once in a while you liberal moron!”. Hmmm….so if we are against the war, we are liberal morons? And as for rooting for any one side in particular, would you be referring to Shiites or Sunnis? Whose side are we on Mister? What are we fighting for? And as for both of you, go out and protest for the war, but attacking those with whom you disagree is, well, it’s downright Un-American. So, whose side are you fighting for?
I am sick and tired of those who proudly proclaim to support American freedoms yet bash anyone who actually employees those freedoms. Ari Fleischer and Condoleeza Rice both warned us to be careful about what we say. I remember the same kind of blather from the Vietnam War era when I was just a child. It seems that some people can never learn a lesson from history, whether it’s in Southeast Asia, the Fertile Crescent or the streets of our cities. They also seem to forget the crucial role our government played in putting Saddam Hussein in power. The Taliban are on the move in Afghanistan, the place where we should have sent more troops and aid! Iran is on the warpath and civil war rages in Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq. And how did North Korea disappear from the news?
Meantime, our power, economy, military and prestige has suffered and we have lost over 3000 men and women in a war that has gone on longer THAN OUR INVOLVEMENT in WORLD WAR II!!!! Think about that! Yeah-I guess I must be a liberal moron if that’s what I’ve come to realize, but what does that make our President?

Would be rapist gets a break

Another travesty in Maryland. A man invades a home with his pants down, two rubbers in his pocket, and a tube of KY jelly. Grabs a woman by the throat and muffles her screams! Judge Manck feels he cannot delve into his mind--convicts him of assault and attempted robbery. Attempted rape would have him facing a life sentence. Now, who knows!

It did not help that the police threw out the KY jelly!

Sometime, these judges will need to grow some balls and realize that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...well it must be a duck!

http://www.topix.net/content/trb/4075268604412739151932517045460870126266