Annapolis Capital Punishment

The City Council approved $8K increase in the Mayor's salary, starting January 2010. A number of people have asked me "Can we afford a City Manager now that we are paying more money to the Mayor? "

This is a great question -- and here is how I see it.

The City needs a City Manager to help use SAVE money. We just saw the citycouncil increase the planned spending for 2009-2010 by $5 Million. The Starting point was a budget of $81 M, but the council has a very difficult time setting priorities - and they have no objective person they can turn to to ask for recommendations on where we might cut back. The 17 departments of the city have grown over time, and no one is offering to cut their individual department budgets.

We would pay for the City Manager by eliminating the city administrator position. That saves us approximately $100K now. To hire a qualified city manager, we think the cost will be around $150K. We can certainly find $50K needed for city manager in the $86 Million budget. Even at $150,000 that is only 0.2% of the total city budget.

Other cities have found that a good city manager will save 3x to 5x his salary in cost savings. Watching this latest budget cycle, it was very clear that the Council needs a professional to help them find economies in the budget.

And here is how to get involved in putting it on the ballot:

We are making a special push to get the City Manager petitions turned in. We have lots of petitions out with volunteers, and this is a great weekend to spend part of your Saturday morning talking to neighbors. We want to get the next wave of petitions in by May 29. There is no question we need everyone's help. We have a lot of support, and we need a lot of petitions. If you need a petition, reply to this e-mail and we will mail to you.

By the way, we have a bunch of petitions signed by one spouse, but no petition signed by the other spouse (or significant other!). Ask your favorite person - have you signed a petition? if not, help us get that second person to sign!

You can mail (or drop off) petitions to Doug Smith at 5 Revell (21401)
or Mail to ABC City Manager, C/o Bill Kardash, 111 Annapolis Street, 21401.
A big thank you to all the people working on this. We have volunteers working in all Wards! A great example of Citizens in action!

Get YOUR Petitions in by May 29!

Are YOU registered?
We are finding a small percentage of people who are not registered.
You will certainly want to be registered so your petition can be validated, and so you can vote this fall. You can get an application by going to www.elections.state.md.us. You download an application, fill it out and mail it in to Board of Elections, 151 West Street, 21401. You can also register to vote at the MVA. If you have any doubt if you are registered, you can contact the Board of Elections office at 410-269-8683, or drop in, 8-5 daily - and they are very helpful people!

Doug Smith

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