Questions Raised About Cohen's Appointment of Doug Smith As City Administrator ~ Annapolis Capital Punishment
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Thursday, December 10, 2009

Questions Raised About Cohen's Appointment of Doug Smith As City Administrator

As active Annapolitans know, Bill Kardash and recently-appointed City Administrator Doug Smith have been co-leading the initiative to bring the council-manager petition to referendum through their group, Annapolitans for a Better Community (ABC). The two are downtown businessmen and Smith just resigned as president of the Ward One Residents Association to take his new position. In my "The Ninth Ward" column in yesterday's The Capital, I referred to Smith as a  "very bright, capable and diplomatic businessman" but added that his selection "has confounded and upset some." In light of Smith's support for Trudy McFall and then Dave Cordle as well as his efforts to create a council-manager government, I described the choice of Smith as "oddly refreshing". However, I also noted "Yet I am not the only one puzzled by it as well."

The following is a letter from Bill Kardash to supporters of ABC. It is presented on the jump page in its entirety and unedited.



Dear ABC Supporter,

I have received calls and emails from many of you, so I wanted to respond to those questions by making the following comments about the recent news that affects the initiative your support has helped to make possible.

You may have heard that Doug Smith, co-chairman of Annapolitans for a Better Community has been named by Mayor Josh Cohen to serve as his Chief Administrative Officer. While this is described as a “new” position, it replaces the current position of City Administrator which had been held by Bob Agee. The announcement was made at a press conference last Friday morning in City Hall.

An interesting sidebar to this is that Doug has been hired as a “consultant”. Why? “Consultants” don’t need the approval of the Council. And, since several Aldermen have already indicated their dismay at Doug’s appointment, Mayor Cohen avoids a possible show-down over Doug’s role. Unfortunately, this is not the “transparent and inclusive” government Cohen promised during his campaign and spoke about at his Inauguration just days ago. It sets the wrong tone for a City government that has suffered for too long under “politics over good judgment”.

When Doug told me of his impending decision last Thursday, it was, as they say “a done-deal”.  I wished him well.  I hope he and the Cohen Administration will be successful, particularly with the pressing budgetary issues.

Having worked with Doug for the past 18 months on the Council-Manager petition initiative, I can tell you he is competent and dedicated to good government. And he confirmed to me, after accepting his new position, that he remains committed to our efforts to bring the Council-Manager form of government to Annapolis.

As you may know, Doug and I have spent countless hours talking about and lobbying in favor of a Council-Manager government that would recruit and hire for Annapolis, a “qualified and experienced City Manager". The Charter Amendment we have proposed, and that forms the basis of our petition drive, specifies “the City Manager must have an advanced degree in public administration, business administration or a related field and at least 8 years of experience as a City Manager”.  The City’s current Charter has similar, but slightly less-stringent, requirements: “the city administrator shall be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council solely on the basis of his/her knowledge, experience and training. The city administrator shall have had, prior to appointment, an advanced degree in business or public administration from an accredited college or university and at least five years' experience in public administration; or an equivalent combination of education and experience. The city administrator shall be thoroughly familiar with contemporary budgeting and accounting practices”.

While Doug may have significant management experience in the corporate world, he has no public administration or City management experience and, it would seem, he would not meet even the current requirements of the Charter.

Further, I wonder how Doug will “explain” accepting a position that is contrary to what we have been advocating, i.e., an experienced and seasoned professional city manager to run the day-to-day operations for Annapolis and answerable to the full Council. The CAO position in the Cohen Administration is answerable only to the Mayor .. this is the same structure that has existed in Annapolis for decades and it is the structure that we believed must be changed if we are to have a well-run and cost-effective local government that is not influenced by “politics”. In short, while I wish Doug well, I believe his appointment continues “business as usual” and illustrates why we need to press on with making the Charter changes that will allow a Council-Manager form of government. 
  
What we have said from the beginning -- and I want to reiterate now-- is that the change we seek to a Council-Manager form of government is needed regardless of who is Mayor or who is the Chief Administrative Officer; we want to change the STRUCTURE of how municipal services are provided for the citizens and tax-payers of Annapolis”. We think that can only happen with a true Council-Manager form of government.

It is our intention to continue the petition drive we began earlier this year. Right now, we need about 1300 signatures to reach the threshold of “20% of registered voters”. With your continued help, we hope to reach that total early in the New Year. At that point, we can submit them to the City Council and request a Special Election. With a Democratic –controlled City Council, and a Mayor who campaigned as NOT favoring a Charter Amendment to a Council-Manager form of government -- we believe the best opportunity we have to get the Council-Manager government will not come from the Council but, rather, rests in the hands of the voters.  We need to get the issue on the ballot to make that happen.
  
If we are to be successful in bringing about the Charter changes we seek, it will require the continued commitment of all who care about good government.  I hope we can count on your support and help in the coming months. We will be reaching out to all of you in the coming weeks to get just a couple of signatures. We can identify those who have not signed the petition. But we NEED everyone to pitch-in and help us to reach our goal.

Thank you for your past support and please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Bill Kardash
Annapolitans for a Better Community

 
 
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