Annapolis Capital Punishment

Confusion. Grandstanding. Posturing. Positioning. It took great, great personal courage and self control on my part not to fall over in convulsions, or at least to stand up and testify about something. But there were too many tough acts to follow. The only one who made any sense was Arthur Kungel. ...and of course City Attorney (can you say "Acting") Steve Kling, prepared and articulate as ever.

Give the mayor more money, more money, more money--and it's not political!!! It's all based on rigorous, scientific analysis. Yeah sure. And the head of the committee is a major Democratic activist and fund-raiser. Another is an opinion pollster. Another is a school system muckety muck. (think about those connections AND the prevailing mentality to spend, spend and pay and pay). Oh yeah! But as the mayor said, it is NOT political. Mayoral candidate Sam Shropshire said when he votes on it, it will have nothing to do with him being a mayoral candidate. I am really sickened by the compensation committee report concerning the mayor. As for the alderman, it seems much more sensible.

Terrible economic depression and we should spend more! Later we heard about waiving fees for a homeless shelter already supported with public dollars. It's only $210,000 per year! One man stands up and says since economic times are so tough, we have to waive these fees! Spend more public money. That's the same "reasoning" we use to spend more public money when times are booming! You're flush--spend it! You're broke-spend it!!! I know that if you paid my bills, the heat would be up to 74 in January and down to 68 in July. But if I pay for it.....

I think the compensation committee managed to do the mayor's dirty work! Push through a package to pay the mayor so much as to virtually kill the city manager issue-now going to referendum. Raise it enough to bring in a certain undecided candidate and voila! Mayor Moyer leaves her stamp for years to come after leaving office. Am I crazy or what? (I know what you're thinking, Ellen "O"...) Here is a little item--the chair of the compensation committee said the one city most like Annapolis which was used to study salaries was Charleston, SC which she noted, had about the same population as Annapolis. When she said that, I shook my head and turned to the people next to me and said Charleston has over 100,000 persons. It turns out that the census estimate for 2006 is 107,845. If the committee can't get that right--or fabricates, well...it makes you wonder...

I am still trying to digest Alderman Paone's points as to why he voted against the city manager amendment. I think he acted reasonably. Voting against the fake city manager bill for the same reason he gave for voting against the real one scored more points in my book for him. I am not sure that he is being fair in saying he is the only one of the council who listened to all the testimony and did not make up his mind in advance. Heck--somebody has to take a position. Somebody has to sponsor a bill. Then it gets read, re-read, amended as it moves through the sausage machine. But if no legislator in deliberative bodies ever took stands and sponsored bills, where would we be? His belief is that this must go to referendum. Okay. We can dissect that, but the charter gives the council the power to amend the charter. If that is wrong, then Paone could have introduced legislation to repeal that right by referendum as well. He and his colleagues are elected to represent us in a republican form of representative government. If he can vote on a budget to spend $81 million dollars, why can't he vote on this? Well, I am not going to take too much issue with this.

His vote would have made it 5-4 either way. When the Supreme Court has a split decision, it influences the sustaining power of the decision and challenges to it for years to come--as a 9-0 or 8-1 vote would do. We can only hope that the citizens will pay attention and vote wisely in this referendum. On the other hand, if he felt all along that this should go to referendum, why did he not say that from the beginning and craft an amendment as such? Finally, if he felt all along that a referendum was in order, why did so many of us bother trying to influence his vote? On the one hand he says he is there to listen and not make up his mind in advance as he listens to citizens. On the other hand, he says in order for citizens to be heard, there must be a referendum.


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