MAYOR ELLEN VISITS KIPLIN HALL, HOME OF LORD BALTIMORE

While on her romp through Merry England, Ellen is continuing to build these terribly important sister-city relationships. Hear Hear!! This is what our globetrotting Mayor writes:

"The link between Maryland and Kiplin is strong. In fact, residents of the State of Maryland are vital to Kiplins future. The Friends of Kiplin Hall is a charity that accepts donations from anyone interested in helping to maintain birth home of the State of Maryland."

CP does not know what it means to "maintain birth home" but nevermind that. CP would like to change her wording around a little bit to now read:

"The link between Maryland and Kiplin Anne Arundel County is weak but should be strong. In fact, residents of the both the county and city are vital to each others future. It is imperative that the Mayor of Annapolis and the County Executive of Anne Arundel become friends so they can help each other to maintain build regional cooperation in transportation, environmental protection and public safety as well as many other areas."

Okay Ellen--you deserve a vacation, but five weeks? Or is it six or eight? And this whole sister city thing is getting....well it's getting to be a global joke.

SALARIES IN GOV'T? THE BOOGEYMAN IS THE SCHOOL SYSTEM

CP would like to see The Capital print the salaries of its top executives. We all know what a pittance it pays its reporters, but if they are going to print the complete list of every government official earning over $100k per year, don't we deserve to know what their top exec's make? Don't we deserve to know their corporate financial details?

What bothers CP more than anything about their annual listing is the subtext that they are all a bunch of wasteful slobs sitting on huge salaries doing nothing. Okay-perhaps this is not what The Capital is thinking, but anyone who reads the paper knows in what regard it holds anyone who works for government. The big issue seems to be overpay time for firefighters and the huge number of highly paid school administrators at Riva Road.

If we pay so much for firefighter's overtime, perhaps we'd save money by paying a higher wage and attracting more applicants and thereby reducing overtime--which is usually time and a half! It would be silly to think all those firefighters actually want all that overtime. As for Riva Road, CP has long contended that the school administrators are in general, a bunch of busybodies who make busy work and attend meetings. Okay, so CP is exaggerating. But seriously, how many assistant program administrators and curriculum resource specialists and who knows what else do we really need? We need teachers, counselors, principals, janitors, but administrators????

CP thinks County Exec. Leopold got it right by raising teacher and principal's salaries but not giving Mr. Maxwell everything he wanted for the rest of his budget. CP wishes they could get along. There is a lot to be done. Maybe we should do at Riva Road what we had to do at Annapolis High--fire everyone and make them re-apply for their jobs. Now, if The Capital really wants to stir up a hornet's nest, go send some reporters to Riva Road to find out what all those busy, busy bureaucrats do all day long......CP is pretty certain the reporters will go from one meeting to another to another...Hey Let's have another meeting!

Mr. Maxwell, please trim this fat at Riva Road!

NEW PLANS IN STORE FOR CITY PLANNER DIRK GERATZ?

A reliable source has informed CP that long-time city planner and Eastport resident Dirk Geratz has moved on to a new position in Virginia. Why would Geratz wish to change his commute so drastically? Why would he leave his long-time position? CP has some insight--and this is not just a personnel issue, but one important to all Annapolitans because of the nature of Geratz's job and how he had come "under fire" for rumored and alleged improprieties, mainly due to the potential or real conflicts of interest that arose as a result of his domestic partnership with architect Terry Averill and projects that Averill worked on and Geratz reviewed. CP can also state with complete reliability that Geratz was the subject of a state-level investigation. CP was interviewed as were local architects and residents. The big questions are how far did it go? How far will it go? How long did it go on? Who will bring the truth out?