Josh Cohen’s position on on “council-manager” is now that he will hire a certified professional city manager, but have him or her answerable to the mayor, not the council as a whole. What seems to have been overlooked in the talk about change is that we already have that arrangement with the current administration: like him or not, Mr. Agee is ICMA-certified. See http://icma.org/credentialed/?hsid=1&ssid1=2521&ssid2=2526

Also overlooked is that the goal is not only to ensure competent management, but also to insulate operational management from political interference by one elected official. It is all too easy for a single elected official to use operational control to reward supporters and penalize opponents, but it’s quite a bit harder for a majority of the council to line up that way.

Mayors are elected for leadership, vision, charisma, things like that, and it’s only blind luck electing one with any management ability. What makes us think we will be so lucky in the next election or any other election? If the past eight years didn’t convince us of the need for an operational manager separate from the mayor, I would have thought that the Zina Pierre story would have. Here was a candidate with everything one needed to be elected — vision, charisma, presence, eloquence, etc. Several of my own supporters predicted that she would win because she came across as the most mayoral of all of us. And the truth is she might have made a very good mayor, but perhaps she wouldn’t have been a very good operational manager.

A moderate Republican friend recently gave me a book to read called “The Second Civil War – How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America.”  I am not very far into it yet, but the central message is one that I argued in my campaign: we have become polarized along party lines to the point that our politicians are more interested in party loyalty and ideology than in solving public problems.

That attitude seems to have trickled down, where it makes even less sense, to local elections. Most American cities have already adopted non-partisan elections, and we should do the same thing, for the simple reason that party ideology has almost nothing to do with local governance.

Republican aldermanic candidate Greg Stiverson supports non-partisan city elections:

Fundamentally, I believe Annapolis needs nonpartisan elections. Every other city in Maryland, with the exception of Frederick and Baltimore, has nonpartisan municipal elections. State and national politics have virtually nothing to do with issues of local concern.

Independent mayoral candidate Chris Fox also supports non-partisan elections.

The other argument in favor of non-partisan elections is perhaps more provocative to party leaders, but well illustrated in Maryland. When one party dominates the voter rolls, the primary election, despite its generally lower turnout (and often less serious choice — remember when George Wallace won Maryland primaries?), decides the outcome.

Although much has been made of the Democratic nominee having come in second in the primary, the reality is that approximately 11/12 of the eligible Democratic voters did not vote for Josh Cohen, and indeed even just looking at the people who actually voted, almost 2/3 voted against Josh Cohen. That Josh came in with the second highest plurality is about as meaningful statistically as his shoe size. When we call that “democracy,” we are fooling ourselves.

Run-off elections are the best answer, but they cost money. Although we do have special elections fairly often when elected officials leave their positions early, most politicians balk at run-offs. The next best thing is what’s called  “instant runoff voting” (IRV). As explained in a blog posting by activist Will Small:

IRV is elegantly simple and helps foolproof the election, preventing the spoiler issue and preempting issues such as the sullied results of the democratic primary. In IRV the electorate ranks their candidates in order of preference. If there is a majority winner at the 1st choice the judges stop counting. If not, they go on to the 2nd choice and so on. Takoma Park has it.

See http://www.fairvote.org/

Statement of Gilbert Renaut, Democratic candidate for Mayor of Annapolis

First I want to thank my supporters and volunteers, who have been pleasure to work with and indispensible to my successes. Second I want to thank the voters who welcomed me when I knocked on their doors and even called me when I missed them when I knocked. Third, I want to thank the other candidates, who have not been merely civil and polite, but downright friendly.

In 2005, in a three-way race, I challenged an incumbent mayor who had full party support and who outspent me ten-to-one. I turned down developer contributions that would have doubled my budget. I lost by fewer than 800 votes. I beat the Republican nominee by more than two-to-one.

I entered the 2009 race in the firm belief that I was the best candidate to heal the wounds from the current administration and bring us all back together as citizens in a common effort to make Annapolis what it should be. I haven’t changed my mind. Moreover, I do believe in the saying attributed to Winston Churchill: “Never give in. Never, never, never, never.”

With turnout traditionally low in City primaries, and so many Democrats in the running, it is probably impossible to get poll results outside the margin of error. Nevertheless, I have to make the best of the information that is available, and it suggests that there are at least two candidates with a considerable number of votes to win this race, and it’s a close race.

As I have said before, this is not an ego trip for me — my concern is what’s best for the City of Annapolis and to ensure that our City gets the best Mayor possible. For these reasons, I have decided to withdraw my candidacy from the mayoral race and throw my support to the candidacy of Trudy McFall.

It is times like this that we must stick together and embrace our shared visions so that Annapolis can get the Mayor who, in my eyes, will work hard for Annapolitans. And that person is Trudy McFall

Trudy McFall is the one candidate who has the experience in managing a large government agency. Trudy McFall also has the experience in starting and running a business. Trudy McFall understands the importance of local small business. Trudy McFall is also sensible about the dangers of over-development and out-of-scale building. And, Trudy McFall is in favor of the council-manager proposal, which I believe is crucial for the future success of Annapolis. Thus, Trudy McFall is a candidate who I strongly believe will break from the past and bring real change and reform to City Hall.

I am confident that Trudy McFall will bring outreach, transparency, and policy to the mayor’s office to make Annapolis the best city that it can be.

I will vote enthusiastically for Trudy McFall as Mayor of Annapolis and urge my supporters to vote for Trudy McFall as well.

September 12th article from the Capital at: http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2009/09/12-10/Renaut-leaves-race-for-mayor.html

Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Anne Arundel County

Wednesday, September 9th

7:00 PM

Unitarian Universalist Church, 333 Du Bois Rd.

Sponsored by the Eastport Civic Association

Thursday, September 10th

7:00 pm

Eastport Elementary School

420 Fifth Street

Date:  Tonight, Thursday September 3d

Time:  6:00 to 9:00 pm

2. What is the best strategy for fighting crime in Annapolis?

I have consistently supported the proposition that community policing, with foot patrolmen walking neighborhoods they know and areas where crime seems most common, is the best way to keep crime down. Keeping a crime from happening is vastly superior to arriving after the criminals have fled. I support the current police chief’s moves in that direction

3. What is your stance on a City Manager?

I favor it. What I will do when mayor is to appoint a qualified city manager to the existing “city administrator” position and by executive order give him or her the authority and responsibilities of a manager. Having an elected official responsible for pothole triage just ensures that we’ll never have a comprehensive maintenance program. The usual way it goes now is that only the squeakiest (or best-connected) wheel gets fixed, and everything else is left for the next mayor, preferably to make the next mayor to look bad.

4. Do you support a city tax cap proposal?

If the cap were indexed to some reasonable inflationary standard I would probably support it, but the one that’s proposed is not.  Normally, I would think a cap was imprudent, but given the huge increases City residents have been subjected to the past eight years, and given the current state of the economy, I appreciate the public wish for one. However, an arbitrary cap below expected inflationary levels only reduces and weakens the government’s purchasing power year after year, which is what has been happening to the county.

5. The city borrowed close to $6 million just to ‘balance’ the 2010 operating budget, this means they had to borrow this money just for the daily operation of this city. At the same time no city department head makes less than $100,000 a year (not including benefits). We have so many departments that produce nothing, are totally ineffective. We have 16 sister cities and pay for delegates from these cities to visit Annapolis or send delegates to their cities. Our union employees received DOUBLE DIGIT raises two years ago, since then they have received 4.56% raises every year, including this year when we BORROWED money to ‘balance’ the budget. What will you do about this if you are elected Mayor?

Except in some sort of emergency, borrowing money to fund operations or to balance a budget is completely inappropriate and leaves a larger problem for the next mayor and city council and ultimately the citizens of Annapolis. The Capital reported that tax receipts to the city had gone up 126% in the last eight years, a truly remarkable increase. One of the first things I will do as mayor is charge the new city manager and the finance director to conduct an audit to determine exactly where those increases were allocated, then promptly work to reduce excess spending. As mayor, I will commit to being a responsible leader who is accountable to the people.

6. Do you support lowering the city’s Homestead Property tax cap? It’s currently 10% where as the county’s cap is 2%.

Yes. The Homestead Credit is a cap on annual assessments of owner-occupied principal residences, and under state law the taxable assessment increase cannot exceed 10%, but local governments can lower it. The county has lowered it to 2%, but the city enjoys the full 10%. Ideally, I believe it should be indexed to inflation, but the last time the issue came up I supported a 4% limit as a compromise, since 4% would cover ordinary inflation, which lately has been somewhere between 2% and 4%.

7. How do you feel about expanding the number of 2 am liquor licenses?

The last time this battle was fought, I was president of the Ward One Residents Association and led the forces against any more 2 am licenses. It’s a compromise that was agreed to before my involvement. I still favor that position. There are still people living downtown, which is a good thing, and we should not burden them any more than we have.

8. What are your ideas for continued development of inner West Street? What rules would you put in place to ensure that developers are required to support the infrastructure needs of any further development downtown?

Ideally, I would like to see all new commercial development locally owned and operated and built in human scale, and I will do everything in my power to encourage just that. Big-box chain retail with huge impervious parking lots is the worst threat both to the environment and to the existing local businesses. Infrastructure is more complicated, and the new city manager and I will first talk to the department heads to get the benefit of their views, then I will ask the city manager for a comprehensive plan. The basic premise under which I will operate is that all development should pay its own way, and I will do my best to put an end to development subsidies. This issue is of great concern to me and which is one of the reasons that my campaign has pledged not to take any campaign contributions from developers. I believe that the City should belong to its residents and development should be limited.

9. Do you have any ideas to deal with nuisance crimes (pan handling, public drinking, noise etc.)?

It is pretty well accepted now that a government that puts up with nuisance crimes ends up with more worse crimes. For that reason I am generally in favor of zero tolerance and more aggressive enforcement. As above, I think community policing, with as many officers on foot patrol as possible, is the primary way to discourage such behavior, and I think the new police chief is going in the same direction to the extent he can do so within his budget and staffing constraints.

10. Biographical information (age, occupation, education, where you are originally from, family).

I am 62, a mostly retired lawyer, born in Phoenix, Arizona, where my father was training to be an RAF Spitfire pilot, and my mother had moved because of her father’s health. I grew up in downtown Baltimore. Amicably divorced, three adult children, one granddaughter.

11. How long you have lived in Annapolis and what community do you live in, or what street?

I have lived here since 1975, and I was a student at St. John’s from 1964-68. The community is “Spa View Heights,” not part of the original Murray Hill plat, but usually referred to by people who do not know that as part of Murray Hill.

12. A summary of what you feel are the most important problems facing Annapolis today and how you would go about solving those problems.

It depends on how you slice it, because they are all interrelated — everything depends on improved and integrated City management. Economic development and sustainability, which right now are high on most people’s lists, are related to education, transit, and parking (among other things), Over-development is a severe threat to the environment and economic development. Ethnic and economic polarization are a threat to our community spirit and civic pride. Here’s the way I see it, or one slice anyway.

My first priority will be to hire a qualified city manager and do an audit of expenditures to see where the additional tax revenues collected in the past ten years have gone and the full extent of the expansion and contracting out we have been reading about. More generally, my priorities would be outreach, transparency, and policy.

Outreach means not relying on hearing testimony, but walking all the streets, both figuratively and literally, asking all our residents and business-owners what they think, and meeting regularly with other leaders we need to get along with, such as the county executive, our delegation to the general assembly, and the governor.

Transparency is making decisions in the open, seeking advice from people who are affected and people who know the most about the issue, and explaining honestly why we favor a particular decision or approach, before it becomes finalized, being honest about increased tax revenues due to increased assessments, instead of pretending we’ve lowered taxes.

Policy is what you should end up after you’ve explained honestly and listened sincerely. Instead of reacting on an ad hoc basis, the City should have and follow policies that are predictable, intelligent, and fair.

Clearly, Annapolis is a special place to live and a gem on the Chesapeake Bay, thus everything that the Mayor of Annapolis does should have a focus on cleaning up the environment and making this place great for our residents, businesses, and visitors.

13. Details about other times you have run for office.

I ran for mayor as an independent (required by federal Hatch Act) in 2005, attempting to unseat an incumbent with full party support who outspent me about ten to one. Then as now I turned down any contributions from developers and anyone else who might give me even the appearance of a conflict of interest as mayor (contributions I turned down would have doubled my budget). Lost by about 700 votes.

14. Organizations you are a part of (this includes churches, civic groups, clubs, commissions, committees etc.).

I am currently a member of Ward One and Murray Hill Residents Associations, but have severed all other such ties.

The article: hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2009/08/24-16/City-union-endorsements-questioned.html

An article in the Sunday Capital stresses how much developers’ contributions fill the campaign coffers of other candidates. Gilbert does not accept contributions from developers or any other business interests that might give him even the appearance of a conflict of interest as mayor.

Article at http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2009/08/23-49/Developers-nonresidents-bankroll-city-mayoral-races.html

The video that was done by the mayor’s public affairs office is now available “on demand” on the City’s web site at:

http://origin.peg.tv/pegtv_player?s=annapolis

That will get you a menu where you need to click “elections,” and there you can scroll down to watch Gilbert’s interview (or anyone else’s).

Gilbert recorded an interview with Dr. Herma Percy for our locally owned WNAV, 1430 on your AM dial. It can be heard on WNAV’s website “on demand” at http://www.wnav.com/

There are two candidates nights this week:

The earlier is sponsored by the Annapolis Sustainable Business Alliance and the Annapolis Business Association:

WHEN: Tuesday, August 25, 2009

WHERE: Maryland Hall – Large Auditorium

TIME: 6:30 – 9:00 PM

The later is sponsored by the West Annapolis Civic Association, the Wardour Improvement Association, and the Admiral Heights Improvement Association.

WHEN: Thursday, August 27th

WHERE: West Annapolis Elementary School gymnasium

TIME: 7:00 – 9:00 pm

Have a good and safe Independence Day.