Public Housing: Will The Debate Widen and Heat Up? When Will We Fix it?

Our local public housing challenge, and its concomitant problems of racial and economic inequalities are our most serious local problems. They are inter-related but for some reason, only seem to spill over into the larger public sphere when violent outbreaks occur. We need a radical transformation of our public housing, a gaping wound that is the result of a well-intentioned but ultimately failed public policy whose roots stretch back many decades.Times have changed and few community or political leaders seem willing to accept that the times demand a new approach to public housing. Which elected officials and which political candidates will step forward?
Following a two-part enterprise story by the most capable journalist Earl Kelly that appeared in the local newspaper, my friend, neighbor and fellow civic activist Stanford Erickson published a cogent and impassioned plea for serious public discussion and attention to the issue. It is already eliciting comments from local newspaper readers. See his column at: Erickson .

College Creek Terrace photo by RR Layman

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Chariots of Ire! Police Get More Contraptions to Endanger Public

Have you seen the photos of the new "T3" Segway-like scooter our city and Department of General Services Police will now be using downtown? Uggh! The local newspaper says:

"It's starting to hit the public safety community by storm," said Sgt. Matthew Warehime, of the state Department of General Services Maryland Capitol Police.

A more appropriate sentence might have been, "They're starting to hit the public community at up to twenty miles per hour. Wham!" Eegads! In a city originally made for walking, where it is increasingly difficult to walk anywhere including sidewalks, we are now making it increasingly dangerous to walk in public places and on sidewalks--because law enforcement officers supposedly protecting the public will be riding around in these modern-day chariots!

The funniest thing is the state official who is quoted as saying they were purchased because they are energy efficient! And I guess walking is not??? How many steps to the donut do these things get? My first prediction for the New Year is that a citizen will be accidentally run down and severely injured by one of these things. You read it here first! See the article and photo at Danger!

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The New Year And A Time To Reflect Upon Time

With the new year, let us pause to reflect about time and its passing. Let us consider that the world is not all bad and neither is or should be our news about it. CP strives to balance negative with positive news, tearing down and building up, preserving the old and creating the new. Similarly, every year-end recap brings remembrance of good things that have happened and bad things that have happened and wishes about the year to come. But first, a commercial break from our publisher:

CP had another string of record-breaking months and this December pushes us above 5000 site visits and 7000 page views per month for the first time. These stats are double that of December a year ago. Thank you. We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog....

Please allow your local blogger who is educated beyond his means, to wax philosophical for a moment...a moment of your time.

While we segment time into tiny units and try to draw meaning by segmenting them into years, decades or eras, let us never lose sight of the fact that we don't even know what is time. We see time as the past, present and future, but the past is gone. It exists but in memory. The future is not here either. It exists but in our imagination. As for the present--well, where is it really? We only measure the present in its passing. Therefore, if there really is no such thing as time but in our minds and in its passing, does this mean that time and the world itself are only mental constructs? Perhaps all time and all existence really is NOW, as in right NOW. Such a world-view has profound implications, the mass acceptance of which would do more to upset the world order and world systems than would global terrorism. (Read the children's allegorical novel "Momo")

Back to journalism for a moment. As this gathering and redistributing of news occurs at a faster and faster, and is almost instantaneous (what is an instant anyhow?), remember that none of us, nobody, despite what some tabloid newspapers might say, can foresee the future. And despite this silly mistake of employing the term "the foreseeable future" in journalism and in political or economic pronouncements, let me repeat that---nobody can foresee the future and the future is NOW...for the future is always becoming the present which is fading into the past. Let me repeat that--nobody knows what is going to happen the second after I finish writing and posting this or the second you finish reading it. Nobody. Time could end. Time could have been made up a second ago and all we have is memory to make us think it stretches back...and back.

Every second is a new world. Every day is a new world. Every year is a new world.

Time and our personal or social concept of time is perhaps the most politically, psychologically and culturally charged construct in the entire human world. In this culture we equate time with money. We talk of leisure time, quality time and lost time. We have work time, drive time, and overtime. There is but time and it is life.

A great rabbi once said that time is life and killing time is murder.

Every second is a new world. Every day is a new world. Every year is a new world.

Let us wish each other the very best new second, new day, new year, new decade, new era and new world. Remember that when we count down and watch the ball drop. The ball is always dropping. Time is fleeting. Tempis Fugit! Carpe Diem!

For a slightly different take on this whole construct, try to find and watch a copy of the 1975 French film "Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000". Perhaps you would like comedian Steven Wright's take on it. He does a sketch where he talks about someone who "died slowly." He doesn't get it. Died slowly? "You're alive. You're alive. You're Alive. You're Dead." He also says that every day he puts a little time aside and forgets about it. Then at the end of the year he puts it together to have a few days for himself. Sounds like Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle."

So with this year passing into the past, with today becoming the future which tomorrow will be the past already, let us ask ourselves this question:

Are we dying all the time or are we living all the time?

Happy New Year.


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921 Bus Doomed! Transportation Director to Mayor--I Am Out of Town For Two Weeks...I Know Who Should Be Taking A Bus Out of Town...

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.....does not mean don't sit next to Gloria on the bus Monday. It means "so goes the way of the world."....and so it goes...

Although we tried, I felt that even a concerted effort to save the 921 Bus Route was doomed. The state budget crunch is too severe and transit is too easy a target, but today's lead story in the local newspaper got weird. We learn that "Mayor Ellen O. Moyer said she is checking to see if it would be feasible for the Annapolis Department of Transportation to pick up the 921 route. Yesterday, she sent a memo to Director Danielle Matland about the issue, but she is out of the office this week and will have to examine that when she returns, Ms. Moyer said."

The mayor did speak out at the public hearing urging MTA to keep the route. This is a correction from my original post and I apologize for the oversight. However, nobody seems to care about the about the loss of the 210 route to Baltimore and the mayor does not pay any attention to the management and operations of our own bus system but now wants it to do more--outside the city no less. Her own transportation director can't even maintain the air conditioning systems on our buses but she entertains offering more service OUT of the city?

Just a week or so ago we read that her economic affairs director similarly asked the transportation director to run yet more buses between the county shopping malls (who likely do not want them...) and downtown. Our so-called leaders ignore our bus system and let it and its customers languish, but then like to jump forward and keep pretending that it can do more--for residents outside the city. Why don't we first offer a route down Edgewood Road? At least that's in the city? Why don't we replace the shelter at Forest and Hilltop that got wrecked a few months ago? Why don't we build a real bus station in the city instead of making everyone wait and transfer at a piece of blacktop shared with public works vehicles? C'mon--we own a bus system--let's make it great instead of trying to do the state's job!

While our own system has cut routes in the past two years, the mayor thinks we can just run another route that even the MTA does not want to do? And where will we get the bus for this route? While we have replaced our aging fleet (and still manage to make them look, sound and feel old), we just don't have excess capacity. We are a small-city bus system. If Ellen "O" wants to send one of our buses through two counties and almost into another city, she better start thinking, talking and acting about a region-wide presence--but somehow she and her county counterpart can't or won't even communicate--but they trade barbs about it.

And there is more. She sent a memo to her own employee, not even knowing she was out of town! But that should have not been a surprise, as Director Danielle Matland is often out of town, and often for long periods, and often around holidays...and still collects well in excess of $100k per year for the privilege to leave town often and not likely by bus. Does that perhaps explain a bit about why our buses are in such poor shape?

This is a not too atypical email response from the 100k+ per year transportation director: _______________________ Danielle Matland

show details 11:20 PM (1 minute ago)

Reply

From 12/20/2008 through 1/5/2009, I will be away from the office.
If you need assistance during my absence please contact Rosa Fuller x14 fullerr@annapolis.gov in order that she may direct you to the person best able to deal with your particular issue. Thank you and have a wonderful Holiday Season.
________________

That's right. Two weeks---and apparently, or at least according to the local paper, the mayor did not even know it. And how come she could not have discussed it for the months that the impending route cut was announced?

As usual, the local newspaper runs to the pusillanimous and overfed (with our public dollars) Annapolis Regional Transportation Management Association or ARTMA to get a quote. This time the quote was that ARTMA "Officials....were not surprised to learn about the cuts." Hmmm. "Officials"? What kind of "officials"? ARTMA has one employee, a genial and well-meaning person who unfortunately does little more than go to meetings--official meetings, one may presume.

The local newspaper and county officials has never been willing to do an expose about this useless organization which I have investigated. It's not a pretty picture. It does next to nothing, and even its signature goal of matching rideshare partners has about a zippo track-record. I know. I've read all the reports which it refused to give to me but I got from another source. It mostly relies on another database to do what little work it barely accomplishes and the twp times my wife has contacted it for ridesharing, nothing came of it. However, the local newspaper sycophantically runs to it for "official" comments about anything to do with transportation. That would be akin to a reporter calling the same local boatyard chicken-necker every time there is a story about the seafood industry. (No offense intended to any boatyard chicken-neckers. I've used chicken necks and I read "Beautiful Swimmers" too.)

Here is a thought--let's replace the fareboxes on the buses with slot machines....think of the possibilities....

See:Bus to Nowhere...

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Police Give Bicycles to Area Youth

I recently learned that our police department is giving away bicycles to area youth, chosen by the Housing Authority of Annapolis (HACA). Overall, this is an excellent idea and I applaud the police department, but as I have said before, access to a bike is not the big issue here. The concern is access to places to ride. I've been involved in bake safety, education and planning issues and gave away hundreds of bike helmets to local children through a grant from the Rotary Club. Despite our best efforts to educate the children and their families in Spanish and English, to provide fitting and usage information as well as that for bike safety and laws, I fear our efforts were in vain. I have never seen any of the 450 helmets in use by children. Not one. This is not the place to extol the virtues of bicycling for youth or to lament its decline in our suburbanized, car culture BUT....there are inexpensive bikes available all over the place. The issue is not the bike but the place to ride. I fear that the police department's worthy efforts may not make much of a difference and wonder what has happened to the bikes they have given away over the years. How many were lost, stolen, abandoned or in disrepair?

I wrote the following letter to the Police Department:

I am interested in the bike giveaway program. Were children given helmets? Were they given instruction in how to wear the helmets? Were they given locks and keys? Were they given instructions in safety and how/where to ride? Has this been done in years past? Does the APD check up on where those bikes are?
My concern here is that APD has not thought this through and the program may not be as successful as it otherwise could have been. It may in fact be endangering these children. I know this may sound like I am just looking to dredge up bad news but the issue is not availability of bikes--cheap bikes can be found all over the place--and these kids could also be involved in restoring and maintaining bikes--they are thrown out all over the city on each of the four bulk pickup days a year--the issue is not bikes---it is bike safety , safe operation, wearing of helmets and above all--where to ride??? Where can a kid from Newtowne or Robinwood ride???

I received the following reply from Jane Schlegel, A.P.D. Public Information Officer:

Yes - helmets provided and instructions from our officers on proper fitting

This is the fifth year for the bicycle gifts

No tax dollars at work, funding for this initiative is from the surplus donations, from the youth fishing camps (also operated by A.P.D.)

Donations for operating fishing camps are made by civic organizations, businesses and private citizens

K-Mart provides bikes at cost

Chief Pristoop has asked me to coordinate a day, hopefully, at Truxtun Park, to place personal identification information on bikes, mopeds, skateboards, etc.

The department has bicycle safety days with area youth, as a regular calendar event.

We have already had one generous resident offer to support the bike give-away and any other positive results from your readers are welcome. Give me a call if I can provide more details.

Hope all is well...

Jane Schlegel, A.P.D. Public Information Officer 410-268-9000 ext. 7294

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SAIL INTO 2009: New Year's Eve in Annapolis

It's not called First Night anymore but the family festivities for young and old in Annapolis this New Year's Eve will go on as in year's past. Visit new years annapolis or see the promotional poster at annapolisalive for complete details.


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Top News Stories We'd Like to See in Annapolis in 2009: Warning--Some Of These May Be Considered "Rhetorical Bombs"

CP Invites Readers to Send In Your Top News Stories We'd Like To See In 2009...Or Perhaps More Likely In 2010.... Here Are Some of Ours:

City Manager Charter Amendment Passed

Competent, Bi-Partisan, Honest Mayor Who Values Citizens and Public Service Elected; Promises to Work With County Executive and City Council-Annapolitans Rejoice

New Public Works Director is Hired; Council Calls Experience and Credentials "Impeccable"

Council Acts to Merge Departments to Improve Performance, Save Money; Public Works to Absorb Transportation, HarborMaster and DNEP; Economic Affairs and Youth and Community Affairs Disbanded; Police, Fire, Emergency Planning Merge Into Public Safety Super-Department

City Hires First Bicycling and Walking Planner/Coordinator

Josh Cohen Abandons Mayoral Aspirations; Seeks Re-Election to City Council

City Council Acts to Curtail Mayoral Hiring of Consultants

Transportation Department Audited; Director Resigns Amid Controversy

City and County Agree to Bi-Level Cooperation in Transportation and Other Services; Agree to Discuss Multi-Modal Transportation Center (this will only come to pass if some of the other above stories come true first...)

Media Investors Buy Annapolis Capital Punishment Blog for Reported Six Figures

ZipCar Opens Annapolis Office; One Thousand City Residents Expected to Sell Personal Cars

Commission on Future of Public Housing Suggests Sale and Bold Transformation of Projects

Chief Pristoop Develops Innovative Plan for Community Policing; Substations, Increase in Bike/Walking Officers Expected

City Settles Market House Lawsuit, Agrees to Favorable Terms for New Management

And here are some that we'd like to see but frankly, don't expect them to ever happen....

Mayor Moyer Admits Mistakes, Apologizes for Mishaps and Says "Yes-People Are At Least As Important As Are Trees" ... Mayor still not certain whether money does or does not actually grow on trees

Air Conditioners Finally Fixed on City Buses

National Trust Tells Annapolitans: Quit Petty Infighting, Get Your Act Together or Face Wrath of Department of Interior

Mayor Moyer Admits Mistakes, Apologizes for Mishaps and Says "I Now Support A City Manager Form of Government"

Mayor Moyer Admits Mistakes, Apologizes for Mishaps and Says "City Attorney Stephen Kling Was A Poor Choice and Fires Him"

Express Bus Routes to Washington and Baltimore Re-Opened

and finally:

Mayor Agrees to Take Chalk to City Dock and Write One Thousand Times:

"I AM SORRY FOR IMMEDIATELY RUNNING TO THE BALTIMORE SUN SAYING THAT MY NEIGHBORS AND CONSTITUENTS IN EASTPORT WERE RHETORICAL BOMB THROWERS WHEN THEY PACKED CITY HALL TO ASK FOR ACTION ABOUT GUNFIRE IN EASTPORT"


While I am on this roll, I highly encourage you to read Eric Hartley's latest column about some stories of 2008--wait until you see what he writes about the mayor...LOL....LOL
See: hartley 2008


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Scott Bowling on Our City Attorney Fiasco

CP Note: The following is a guest editorial from local activist and former aldermanic candidate Scott Bowling. CP thanks Mr Bowling for his contribution :

Is this disturbing to anyone other than me? Why do we Annapolitans continue to allow such inappropriate actions by our leaders; quickly dismissing them as oh well, it's just Ellen, and next year she will be gone and we will have a new Administration (which may or may not be any better).

What a message we are illustrating to municipalities throughout the State and our precious sister cities around the world. Look at us; we are Annapolis, MD, your Capital City, your sister City in the United States. Our City Attorney and chief legal counsel is not legally permitted to practice law, but continues to do so, on our behalf because he is our friend, a nice guy, and makes very generous campaign contributions. Yes, he lacks proper certification and credentials from the MD Bar Association, but he will take care of that in a timely manner when exposed. Our supposed City Administrator and Director of Public Works is allowed to do hold two jobs within our City even though he does not have an engineering degree, which is a requirement (per the Charter) for being the Director of Public Works, but he is a really nice guy, and a friend of our Mayor's. We appear to support nepotism within the Finance Department, but oh shucks, doesn’t every government, and most recently, we have a $1 Million lawsuit for discrimination within the Department of Economic Affairs, oh well, what’s one more lawsuit to add to our growing tally.

Why do we the people of Annapolis continue to allow this? Why do we not demand better? Are we this apathetic?

For a Mayor who is so opposed to the idea of a Council/City Manager form of Government, her actions speak louder and louder every day as to why this change may be Annapolis' last and only hope for professional management and leadership.

Stand up folks and demand better, or we just might lose this precious city we call home, forever.


Respectfully submitted,

Scott Bowling, Annapolis

CP NOTE: According to official city sources, Acting City Attorney Steve Kling has been re-certified to practice law, but it is not known if there will be any repercussions or disciplinary action. As for City Administrator Bob Agee, I have been told he is receiving the city administrator's salary and not that of public works director. Why Mayor Moyer does not hire a real public works director is a good question. It is well known that Mr. Agee is not a licensed engineer, and I believe there is or was legislation to rescind that requirement. However, as long as there are other qualified PE's an an official city engineer in DPW, it may not be necessary that the director be a PE. You speak of nepotism in the finance dep't. Can you be more specific?


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Advice on Making New Year's Toasts

CP and fellow toastmasters worked with local newspaper reporter Theresa Winslow for today's article on making New Year's Eve toasts. The feature story is titled:

Experts agree: Brevity is best when raising your glass

and can be found at Champagne

Now if only I could follow my own advice and employ brevity in my articles on this blog. Maybe I'll make that a new year's resolution.

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