Annapolis Capital Punishment

The lovely, historic sailing town shown above has a council-city manager form of government. Could it be Annapolis? Only if our city council votes to make it happen. It is a city very much like Annapolis....read on..

Mayor Moyer likes to boast that we already have professional management in our government and therefore do not need a city manager. She points to Neighborhood and Environmental Protection (DNEP) Director Mike Malinoff, who served as the city's first administrator under the late Mayor Al Hopkins and as city manager of Newport, RI (as seen above...). CP asks if Newport can have a city manager, why can't Annapolis? This is something the mayor or Mike Malinoff could write about on her blog. (The mayor created DNEP at great cost thus guaranteeing Mr. Malinoff a top salary as a department director--but why he left Newport could have been for any reason. She did a similar thing with another Mike M., as in Miron, with Economic Development)

CP has been to Newport many times by land and sea. Newport's population is around 24,000 compared to that of Annapolis with about 36,000. However, Newport and Annapolis are similar to each other because both are:
+ colonial era seaports with important historic resources
+ situated on large, inland bodies of water
+ resort towns that have also hosted US Presidents
+ full of rich people--and a legacy of such that their fancy homes remain
+ full of not so rich people--and a legacy of their not-so-fancy homes remain
+ on peninsulas with bridges in and out
+ plagued by traffic congestion-especially in summer
+ international sailing meccas, each with their own annual boat shows
+ full of bars and restaurants, tee-shirt and souvenir shops
+ about an hour or so from two much bigger cities (as in Boston and Providence)
+ (were) home to signers of the Declaration of Independence (William Ellery)
+ homes to national US Naval institutions (The Naval War College is in Newport-interestingly our Academy moved there during the Civil War)

This is what Newport's web-site says about its government: The City of Newport operates under a home rule charter. The Charter provides for a Council/City Manager form of government. The Council is comprised of seven members; one representative is elected from the City's three voting wards and four are elected at-large, all for two year terms. The Mayor is elected by the Council from among the four at-large councilors.

Below you see the Newport City Council. While it is not as diverse our council, there are three women and four men. The council members elect the mayor-the guy in the middle, but this is NOT being proposed in our current legislation.



This is what it says about the role of its city manager:

The City of Newport operates under a Council-Manager form of government, whereby the City Manager serves as the Chief Administrative Officer. The City Manager's Office is responsible for overseeing all day-to-day City operations, directing all administrative City departments including public safety, preparation of the annual budget and insuring financial stability, facilitating strategic planning for preservation and development, and for maintaining the City's overall commitment to providing high quality services to Newport residents and visitors.

Remember--preparing a budget is different from approving it!!!

Read about the duties of the city manager as expressed in the city code at manager. The city manager earns a bit more than $132,000 per year. See Salary

Although Newport's web-site is not as interesting or as detailed as that of Annapolis, I did compare its organizational chart. While there is no box for "mayor", the box for "City Council" is above that of "City Manager". I liked how the name and phone number and email address of nearly every city employee was provided on the site in an alphabetical list.

Newport implemented community policing nearly twenty years ago. They have duty officers manning sub-stations in four sections of the city--and crime trends are way down. Newport even did a comprehensive citizen satisfaction survey from a sample of 851 residents. See city-manager

Learn more about Newport at: newport

So remember--when Mayor Moyer dismisses the current legislation as an "assault on representative government" just look at any of the thousands of cities with such a style including Dallas, Sacramento, San Jose and closer to home, Alexandria and Rockville...or just look at Newport, RI, a logical choice for a domestic sister city if there ever was one. Speaking of other historic, waterfront cities, Savannah Ga adopted a council/manager form of government in 1954 (app. 130,000), Portsmouth, NH in 1947 (app. 21,000), and there is also Portland, Maine (app. 64,000), New London, CT (app. 26,000), and the small but very touristic Cape May, NJ which adopted a council-manager form as recently as 2004.

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