Many wonder how Annapolis will survive as a commercial/shopping destination with massive retail developments at its edge, or are we now the edge? Recently, the Annapolis Economic Development Department sponsored a panel called "COMPETITORS OR COLLABORATORS: DOWNTOWN & EDGE RETAIL DEVELOPMENT" with The Maryland Downtown Development Association (MDDA). Panel members included the president of Commerce First Bank – Annapolis, the developer of Annapolis Town Center at Parole, the general manager of Annapolis Westfield Mall and the president of the Annapolis Downtown Business Association
The first question I have is:
WHY WOULD YOU HOLD SUCH A PANEL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EXTREMELY BUSY AND CRUCIAL HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON?????
( It might make some shopkeepers shake their heads and sigh)
Annapolis must "capitalize" on being a unique and attractive state capital. What makes us special is our boats, history, scenery, the waterfront, unique shops, walking, and sightseeing. You can call a place a Towne Centre--it's anything but that. As for a mall, why do you think they are called malls! While one can talk collaboration and there may be areas of mutual benefit, Annapolis can derive its sustainability only from that uniqueness. If it can do that AND collaborate, that's fine. But it must be Annapolis first.
Speaking of which, how can we talk cooperation if we can't even properly manage our own Market House? Maybe we should ask Greenberg Development to take it over?
The Annapolis Towne Centre seeks to suck everything out of the real Annapolis by free-riding on its image. Just visit their web-site complete with their nautical-looking compass rose:
"Welcome to the New Centre of It All
It’s everything extraordinary — all in one sensational destination. A beautiful new Towne Centre where you can shop, dine, live, work and play.
Annapolis Towne Centre is so much more than a mall or a shopping center. It’s every way possible to put yourself on the fashion forefront. Every imaginable fine and fun food. Everything you need to make your home and your life more beautiful. With luxury condominiums and apartments, you can even make it your home.
Come discover the new Centre of It All."
How do we cooperate with a place that takes from us, including our name and say it is all in "one sensational destination"? That is to say, our destination-the eal Annapolis is not even in the picture.
They even took a full page ad in the program guide for the upcoming Holiday Boat Lights Parade. See lightsparade . Since they can't have such a parade they'll suck what they can out of this real community event. While the city's Economic Development Department and the Annapolis Business Association did not buy an ad, the Eastport Business Association did. I still wonder why are there so many different business associations in Annapolis and how does this hinder our mutual urban goals? To be fair, the city does support the parade in other ways but the Towne Centre bought the huge ad. In other words--the city attracts people because it is special....the towne centre plays upon that to attract them to buy at their towne center, rather than downtown, or downe towne.
Their web-site also says, "Getting to the Centre of It All--It’s convenient from everywhere. Located in Annapolis, Maryland at Town Center Boulevard, Annapolis Towne Center is minutes from the historic district and a short drive from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore." Yeah sure. Unless there's traffic, but why would there be traffic? How about because of huge development???
This is the part that gets me rolling over, as quoted from the local newspaper:
"To tie the shopping areas together, Mr. Miron (Annapolis Economic Development Director) said he's planning to speak with city transportation officials about running a continuous shuttle between the three retail hubs."
Miron and other officials have discussed such ideas more times than the number of gift-wrapped trinkets you can stuff into a shopping bag. What we did was build and build in the county without any plans for transportation and threw up parking garages everywhere. We ignored public transit and ignored our own bus system. Now we expect to ask the tiny, neglected, and mismanaged CITY bus system to solve your COUNTY and CITY problem. Just like all the plans--small area plans, general development plans, transportation vision and master plans...more talk. We have enough unmet mobility needs for city residents, many of whom depend upon our buses. Now we should give more service to the county's big-pocket developers? There's hardly enough money to keep our bus system going yet it should do more?
LET'S ASK THE MALL DEVELOPERS TO:
PUT BUS STOPS WITH PULL-OUTS and SHELTERS AT THEIR MAIN ENTRANCES
To partner with our bus system and to promote and advertise transit
To subsidize all their employees so they can ride for free.
But, if they were interested in buses, how come they HAVE NEVER done this? They have been asked, and the answer is...they don't really want buses in their centers, or centres. They want to pretend they are suburban, yet they call themselves shoppingtownes and towne centres. Can you hear the great sucking sound....?
See Parole Triangle and also the other regional newspaper weighed in a day or two later at The Sun's Take.. taking the whole shuttle idea a step further and even quoting the vp of the Annapolis Business Association as saying "The locals are not going to ride a public transit system, and I don't think downtown needs to ship its tourists to the mall". Well of course not, as long as business leaders focus on parking supply while ignoring the fundamental transportation issue and then poo-poohing our bus system, how will we ever progress??? But she seems to ignore what our bus system could be and what it could mean....but they'd rather argue about parking.
p.s. we got some good posts on this one..check 'em out below...
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CP had to look Potemkin Village up too! It's not about the Russian Battleship Potemkin (you can look that up too), but the expression was used by Craig Purcell, the leader of a group of architects who claims our precious historic character is threatened. According to our local paper,"The group has petitioned the National Trust for Historic Preservation to put the city of Annapolis on its annual 11 Endangered Historic Places list." 
As might be expected, Mayor Moyer reacted harshly, calling the petition:
" 'extremely detrimental to all residents' and said Mr. Purcell's main objective is getting retribution in his personal vendettas stemming from the Market Street dispute and his time as president of the Ward One Residents Association.
'If he wanted to make a difference, he can file a formal complaint with the (city's Historic Preservation Commission),"' Ms. Moyer said. 'Filing this kind of frivolous petition all because you're irritated with a few people hurts all the citizens of Annapolis.' "
Mayor Moyer may very well have a point, but isn't she the queen of personal vendettas? Has Purcell filed a formal complaint? Purcell is a bright and caustic critic of just about anyone who does not agree with him a hundred percent--like the mayor. Those two make CP seem like a smiley-button wearing, Dale Carnegie graduate, milquetoast. Purcell has taken CP to task, often in concert with downtown resident and Moyer contractor Chuck Weikel, because I dared to call into question some of their assumptions about their ferry service concepts and because I refused to turn this blog into a mouthpiece for all of their personal concerns. (Hey guys-it can't be about mine AND yours...)
On the other hand....it could be another example of a dedicated and persistent civic activist who has become frustrated with our local politics or government. Many of us relate to that, but if ever there were a local story with two sides to it, this is it.
As the local paper reports, this stems from an ongoing dispute--and now lawsuit, over the use of fiberglass instead of wood porch columns on a porch belonging to two equally active and public-minded residents. I wrote about this, and though basically sympathetic to Purcell's concern, he wanted me to keep on writing about it, and browbeat me when I refused to do his bidding. I then started receiving unwanted emails and I politely asked Purcell to stop. He refused after many emails and many requests, but finally relented.
The integrity of our Historic District is important--darn important and Purcell yells about it because he cares, but he sure loves a good fight. He's got one now. Meanwhile, would you like your columns paper or plastic? (At least this column is 100% real...)
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See this piece in Arundel Muckraker www.arundelmuckraker.com/storyview.asp?storyID=30
that reports the county council is considering legislation that would "place limits on special bonuses doled out by the county executive."
Arundel Muckraker is quickly establishing itself as a fresh source of news and investigative reporting covering AA County and CP welcomes AM, which it has previously promoted. AM is blogrolled on CP as well.
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In our occasional series about the similarities between these two historic, sailing meccas we report that their recent city council meeting is....well....it seems a lot like a meeting we would hold. The big deal is a controversy about a bar wanting to loosen up some drinking restrictions while condo owners, some of whom "came from Florida, New York and other states to plead with the council to deny the application" complained of "rowdiness on Waite’s Wharf that they said included sex, urinating and defecating."
The Newport Daily News writes that "the condominiums were built under an exception to the zoning law, and that the owners knew they were moving next to a waterfront business district with bars when they bought their condos." Ah hah! Out of state, wealthy owners of second-homes are trying to keep people from drinking! The loosening of restrictions passed. Pity the poor condo owners.
In other news, free parking was approved for the holiday season in a downtown lot, the city established a Newport-Kinsale, Ireland Sister City 10th Anniversary Committee, the council approved a resolution naming Wednesday, Dec. 10, “Housing Authority Summer Youth Program Day” and a lease was approved for a brewery across from the wastewater plant. Hmmmm.
Just like Annapolis! Except Newport adopted a city manager form of government and we are still debating it.
See: newportdailynews for the complete story. (This newspaper quickly archives stories making them only available to subscribers--for a fee....at least The Capital does not do that--yet.)
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In our continuing FAQ on the city manager issue, we again bring you the knowledgeable answers provided by Doug Smith and Bill Kardash. For their bios, and the previous questions, see the original posting of 12-9.
6. Do we as voters lose control over the city?
Absolutely not. With council-manager, voters actually have more representation. Power is now shared across the mayor and aldermen. The city manager is 100% accountable to our elected officials. This structure requires that city council – our elected representatives – are pleased with the city manager performance. If good service is not provided, the city manager’s job is on the line.
7. Some people have said we can’t talk to people in government if we get a city manager.
There is no basis in fact to this comment. Citizens can talk to anyone – same as today. We can talk to the mayor, to aldermen to department directors, to the city manager. If you have a problem or just want to discuss an idea, you can talk to anyone. In fact, with a city manager, you would now have a professional who is directly responsible for daily operations – he is the most direct person to solve a problem. The aldermen can also talk to anyone they want to. The new system would greatly improve their access to information because the city manager would have knowledge of everything going on in every department. Is it really a good use of the mayor’s time to complain that your trash was not picked up? Or that people are parking illegally on your street? I think not. Far better to get these problems solved in the quickest and easiest way.
8. What is the objective of City Manager... that is, what is the nature of the problem to be fixed?
Two primary objectives – the council-manager structure let’s us ELECT a popular, political leader, and to HIRE a trained professional. We achieve good management and we reduce the amount of political pressure on day –to-day operating decisions. The current system elects a popular politician that can win votes, but that is no assurance that person is a skilled manager.
9. Will the City manager have too much power?
The job of city manager is to implement what city council says. If that doesn’t happen, you fire the city manager. The job does not have tenure. You write a good contract that says the city manager serves at the will of city council. We seem to always want to dwell on the negatives. What about a few positives? What if the city manager actually saves us money? What if the city manager actually improves city services/ What if the city manager actually makes Annapolis easier to do business with? Those are the kinds of benefits many many cities have seen.
10. Some people have said we are turning over the budget to a non-elected person.
The city budget today is prepared by a non-elected person – the city finance director. We don’t hear anyone screaming about that. In actual fact, under the new system, the city manager would get direction from city council and PREPARE a draft budget, working with the finance director. This budget would get massaged and alerted by the mayor and city council to balance needs with available funding. Final APPROVAL rests with city council – same as today. However, a big difference would be the management skill of the city manager to coordinate the various departments and look for efficiencies. The public finance training and previous experience of the city manager would most likely result in significant cost savings.
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The "Baghdad By the Bay" award is given by Parking Today's Blog to our city for "its amazing depth of understanding of parking and the free market." Uhh....the writer is being cynical. The award is given to cities that demonstrate that if "there was a proper way to go with a parking policy, they would do the opposite. Many cities, large and small, have been recipients of the coveted award and today it goes to the Maryland capital and home of the Naval academy....To solve the problem the parking wizards in Annapolis doubled the rates in the garage. They seemed confused when that didn't work. Local businesses canceled their contracts to park in the garage. Hmmmmm.....With all the publicity, all the articles, all the research, all the speeches and presentations made by Shoupistas over the past five years since Don Shoup's book, the High Cost of Free Parking, came out, they just don't get it."
I have been honored to have been picked up by another blogger, Paul Foer, and his Annapolis Capital Punishment blog. Turns out my comments below on Annapolis resonated with his blog post, here. Thanks to Paul. Best of luck to him and his campaign to bring parking reason to the Maryland Capital.
I love the double/triple entendre with his blog title. Capital can mean the building or city where government sits, it can also mean money, and of course, that most extreme of punishments. My guess is that Paul considers all three when he writes.
(And CP adds....don't forget our daily newspaper as well!!)Twenty-five years ago this week, the Chesapeake Bay Program was born and CP was there. I was in my early 20’s, and excited about what might come forth. I met Louis Goldstein, former Maryland comptroller and iconic political figure and I sat with the dean of Chesapeake journalists, Tom Horton, as we watched then Governor Harry Hughes next to my childhood hero-Jacques Cousteau on a big-screen tv. We were at
The article I wrote for the small newspaper appeared as a cover story, with a biq question-mark superimposed over a map of the Bay with the question, “Will This Conference Save the Bay?” Here it is 2008 and I am a bit wiser and I guess we’ve found-at least according to many experts, critics and news accounts and the answer is simply “No.”
This does not mean the massive, multi-governmental Chesapeake Bay Program is a total waste. The knowledge, the monitoring data, the modeling, the cooperative efforts, sharing of information, and the long, slow effort to enlighten the public has had some payoffs. Of course more and more people clearing more and more land, and putting in more and more inputs is just the American way, and we’ve gotten richer, fatter and more wasteful the past 25 years, so how could we blame this on anyone but ourselves? How could some $25 million dollar program stop this? However, any progress we have made—or will make, will be because of “thou-shalts” and “thou-shalt nots” rather than “let’s all agree on voluntary actions.”
I think we’ve proven the limitations of this huge program which I once proudly supported and served. Not so much anymore. I like to say the strength of the Bay Program is that it is a multi-governmental partnership based on a consensual agreement with targeted goals based on science. In the next breath, I always say the downfall of the Bay Program is that it is a multi-governmental partnership based on a consensual agreement with targeted goals based on science.
I truly thought we would have by now achieved what most everyone thought was the most achievable goal, that of upgrading all of the water treatment plans to state of the art performance to vastly reduce phosphorus and nitrogen enrichment. It has never been met although it is easy to do compared to controlling farm runoff or mobile sources of nitrogen compounds, i.e. cars. Had there not been a Bay Program, I feel certain that the Bay would be much worse off, unless of course we had conserved all that precious land instead…of course it is vastly more complex that that.
Learn more at chesapeakebayprogram .
In recent posts, I delved into similarities between Annapolis and Newport, RI.
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Today's local newspaper got me shaking my head, tsk, tsking and wondering what the hell is so wrong with government half of the time--or is it just Annapolis? The first piece is an editorial about the failure of the special tax increases from the special session to do much of anything special. Okay, that's not directly about Annapolis--but it is about the state government that meets in Annapolis. And there is the piece about the failure of the Knighton Garage to really do what it was built to do--provide parking. It just has not worked. CP watched that whole venture unfold, raising the clarion call that downtown does not and has not ever had a parking problem. Even the mayor's former "parking coordinator" said ...now the discussion is we have too much parking".
CP has long maintained that the issue is not parking. What we have is a transportation and mobility challenge. Downtown parking garages really serve little utility. They suck up public dollars, take otherwise productive land out of real use and they don't solve or address problems of mobility or congestion--they just take us away from our largest personal investment where they let our second-largest investments sit...and sit.... So--does it come as a surprise to CP that the garage is not doing what it is supposed to do? The parking management contract is up next year and this is what The Capital says:
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