Annapolis Capital Punishment

Annapolis residents, overwhelmingly from Eastport, and from a variety of backgrounds are moving forward in their campaign to move our local government leaders to a more proactive and coordinated crime fighting strategy. Did I say that in a fair and reasonable manner or did I make someone angry already? CP has been somewhat involved with this group, participates on the emailing end of things and discusses it with some of its leaders and supporters. CP attended the recent meeting of some 80-100 civic activists which appears to be mainly in preparation for its second descent upon City Council this coming Monday night to make their concerns visible again.

Hopefully Mayor Moyer will not run over again to a reporter and label this group "rhetorical bomb throwers" as she so hastily did last time. Hopefully she will use the City Council meeting to apologize to the group and invite them to continue developing their platform and develop partnerships to fight crime.

Please Mayor Moyer, please rise to the occasion and do the right thing. You are the one who asked us all "What are we missing" many months ago. Many of us have answered. Many of us have been ignored. Many of us have been derided and put on the defensive.

We know how "prickly" you can be, but we also know how much you care for and are committed to our city. Your harsh attacks only make everyone's job harder. It gives comfort to criminals when they see we are divided and ineffective. It makes our city look bad to the rest of the world.

Please Mayor Moyer. Please rise to the occasion and do the right thing. Apologize and invite this group in to the fold.

In all fairness, while this group has quickly gathered and is making progress, it is still rather loose-knit and has not yet coalesced. It has drawn attention to the serious issue of crime in Eastport, and throughout Annapolis. It is putting city leaders on the defensive--and in some, but not all cases, in a most deserved manner. Many have questioned their tactics, some have felt that a few people, while expressing their own opinions, were speaking on behalf of the entire group. There are rumors of personality conflicts. This is to be expected when busy people get together and volunteer to take on a controversial issue. Give this group some time. Don't jump to conclusions. Rumors abound about who was invited to the meeting, who was not, and who got upset.

CP was impressed with the presentations at the meeting, with the obvious preparation that went into it and with the publicity flyer that was created. That flyer and the other literature presented at the meeting is pretty clear and straightforward. People want action and they want a plan. A plan! Yet even that has stirred controversy. A plan to fight crime by partnering between city officials and community members should be day one, lesson one, agenda item number one and this is the main objective of this rapidly growing "gunfire" group.

The mayor's two daughters attended the meeting and despite the briefness and fast pace of the one-hour meeting, they each had more than one chance to make pointed and firm comments. They did not identify themselves to the audience as the mayor's daughters. Despite the racial mix of Eastport and despite the fact that each homicide victim last year was black, there was but one black person in the entire audience. That man, who told the group that his three brothers had been murdered, made an impassioned speech to the group to not point fingers at anyone, but to get involved in their community.

The meeting digressed a bit while one resident went on and on about how he is installing cameras in Patterson, New Jersey. That was quite odd and CP wondered if he's fishing for a city contract. Trudy McFall and Dennis Conti made a presentation about crime statistics and their relation to public housing. CP and others continue to question the manner in which these statistics are interpreted and I once again urge Dennis and Trudy, who should be recognized for their community involvement, to subject their studies to a disinterested third-party scholar to more fully interpret.

A small debate ensued about public housing--who owns it? Who controls it? Did the Boys and Girls Club get into a spat with them? Should there be a swimming pool or a police presence instead? uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh CP could care less about the endless debate about details about public housing or why we have it or who did it or does it invite crime or not. It is the result of a failed policy whose time has come and gone. It is a blight and a drain and hurts those who must live in it more than anyone.

There should be only one debate about public housing in Annapolis and that is:

How do we best totally transform it or end it? Everything else is window dressing.

There may be some reasons to question this group's tactics and actions, but their motives are clear and should be applauded. Let's all hope that residents and city officials come together and do make a plan to fight crime. This is not to say that nothing has been done, that the Mayor or Aldermen do not care or that the Police Chief is incompetent. What it does say is that residents are not satisfied and want to see better and more effective action.

A plan. If any city official has a problem with that, please let us know why.