Annapolis Capital Punishment

According to the Public Information Officer Rhonda Wardlaw, Philip Favero will facilitate the Market House Charrette on May 30. Wardlaw says he has no relationship to the mayor but did assist the Department of Public Works with stimulus grant writing. He is being paid $1,200 for the charette. How the mayor managed to find this funding so late in the fiscal year is probably no different than how she finds money for whatever may be her pet project. $12oo seems to be within the ballpark for such a contract.

Favero has a strong presence on the web and has done a lot of work with natural resources and water issues. Here is some information and a link to a photo from Farmfoundation.net: "Philip Favero's career in public issues education reflects a strong faith in four ideas: (1) the more informed a public policy decision is, the better the decision tends to be; (2) land grant universities bear a serious responsibility to citizens to be neutral sources of information about public issues and to provide facilitation services to solve those issues; (3) policy education work with governments, particularly local government, is vitally important; and (4) in public decision-making, policy educators should be "on tap," while citizens and public officials they elect should be "on top." Favero has a B.A. in history, and a M.A. in political science from Montana State University, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University. He holds a certificate in African Studies from the University of Wisconsin and Tuskegee Institute. He served in the Peace Corps as agriculture advisor in Kenya. He has experience as an extension specialist in South Dakota and is currently at the University of Maryland, and has been a visiting professor to the Northeast Center for Rural Development at The Pennsylvania State University. Favero has served on both the North Central and the Northeast Public Policy Education committees and has served on the Maryland Public Issues Education committee since its inception in 1995. Most recently, Phil and other policy educators, most recently have developed a program to teach extension educators nationwide about the nexus of conflict resolution and public issues education."

The below is from a June, 2007 report the University of MD's Environmental Finance Center:
"Formerly with the University of Maryland’s Institute for Governmental Service, Mr. Favero has more than 30 years of experience in working with local public officials and
community leaders on complex, sometimes controversial, public policy issues. He has conducted extension teaching at the University of Maryland, where he developed the
Water Resources Leadership Initiative and other educational outreach programs. In addition, he has worked at Washington College designing and teaching courses, facilitating leadership development programs, and learning about sustainable community visioning, working landscapes, bioregionalism, forces for change, and other ideas to help rural communities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore shape their own future. "


He sounds like the ideal candidate to help us realize a vision for the Market House. Next Saturday's charette should be a really...uhh....interesting event....if only we can manage to put our disgust and cynicism aside...for a few hours.



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