Director Of Rec and Parks Blasts Golf Course Idea**

**Rumor Alert.

Admittedly I have not followed the golf course proposal as closely as others, but I know enough to say that it is not a well thought out idea, probably even a bad one. Why? Because the city has no expertise in maintaining golf courses. Surprisingly to yours truly, while monitoring some email chatter that I am cc'ed on, I learned that the city apparently owns Eisenhower Golf Course and leases it to the county. So I guess we are already in the golf business....on property that not even within our city limits! Heck, take my tax money and let's buy a golf course in a sister city!

Anyway, rumor has it that the Director of Rec and Parks, LeeAnn Plumer, was asked to weigh in on whether or not she thought it was a good idea, and she responded via a memo that it would be better to buy 1,000 "Golden Tee" Arcade Golf Games and hand them out, as maintaining an actual golf course with actual grass, sand, and water would stretch the already thin resources of the department. (Note, I added the Golden Tee deal for dramatic effect.) Were such a memo to exist, it would certainly be a nice thing to read.

But let's just forget that for now, and consider that nobody really knows exactly how the city would or could run a golf course. There are certainly costs involved, which means that the city could very well lose (your) money through the operation of something which it has no business operating.

If Mrs. Politics is reading this, hopefully she can buy me a new set of golf clubs so that I have more vested interest in this potential debacle.

O'Malley Math From Herb McMillan

I am friends with former state delegate Herb McMillan, and I have determined that if the "former" is removed from title, that I may be able to take advantage of certain "good old boy" benefits, have no-bid business funnelled my way, etc. For this and other purposes, please read Herb's op-ed below:

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O'Malley Math

The public relations blitz to revive Democrat Governor Martin O’Malley’s 37% approval rating is in full swing. Last week, posturing as fiscal conservatives, Governor O’Malley and liberal legislators claimed to have slashed Maryland’s budget by $1.1 billion since July 2007. It’s undisputed that they’ve raised sales, income, and other taxes by $1.4 billion. But if O’Malley actually made $1.1 billion in real cuts in conjunction with his $1.4 billion tax increase, wouldn’t Maryland have eradicated its $1.7 billion deficit and project an $800 million surplus, even without slots? Yet unless slots pass, Maryland projects a $600 million structural deficit just five months after the biggest tax increase in Maryland history. How is that possible?

It isn’t the economy. That resulted in a $300 million reduction of revenue estimates, so we should still have a $500 million surplus, even without slots. It isn’t that we don’t tax enough. Maryland had the 9th highest total tax burden per person before O’Malley’s tax hike.

It’s O’Malley’s spending. O’Malley hasn’t cut the budget, or used the $1.4 billion tax increase to cover the deficit. Last year’s budget spent $30 billion. This year’s budget spends $31.2 billion. That’s a $1.2 billion (4%) increase. A budget that increases spending by $1.2 billion hasn’t been cut. If state spending increases 4% per year for the remainder of O’Malley’s term, it will grow 13%. How many of us have paychecks that will grow that fast?

When tax and spenders like O’Malley say they’ve “cut the budget” it means “we’re spending more, but not as much as we want.” Maryland’s General Fund budget is driven by formulas that mandate automatic annual spending increases, regardless of need or results. Liberals spin legislation reducing mandated increases into “ budget cuts”, even when they still result in higher spending. This year, state education funding increased by 4%, but not by as much as the Thornton formula required. Using O’Malley Math, the education budget was cut even though education spending increased by $185 million.

That’s just part of the O’Malley Math equation. During the Legislative Special Session called to “fix” O’Malley’s $1.7 billion deficit, spending on new or expanded programs nearly equaled spending reductions. Additionally, 40% of the $1.4 billion tax increase went to increased spending, not deficit reduction. Total spending wasn’t cut, it was redistributed and increased.

When the Special Session ended in November, Maryland still projected a $377 million deficit. This year, despite a record tax increase, the legislature had to raid the Transportation and Chesapeake Bay Trust Funds to balance the budget.

O’Malley Math attempts to put a fiscally conservative face on a liberal agenda that equates more government spending to a better quality of life for everyone. Unfortunately, putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it a prom queen. The budget formulas mandating increased spending also require the redistribution of your tax dollars to other counties. The state spends an average of $6,270 in education aid per pupil. Montgomery County receives only $3,789 per pupil, while Baltimore City receives $11,235 per pupil. Anne Arundel County receives $4,356 per pupil, the fourth lowest amount in Maryland.

You are paying more in state taxes, but they aren’t being used to improve your quality of life. Seventy-six cents of every state tax dollar collected in Anne Arundel County is spent in another county. More spending isn’t improving our test results either. Advocates for Children and Youth noted that Maryland’s scores on independent national tests had failed to improve, despite a $2.2 billion increase in education funding since 2002. Students have performed only marginally better on state tests.
George Santayana noted that fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you’ve forgotten your aims. Maryland’s budget has doubled, increasing by $15 billion in the last ten years. Yet test scores have shown little improvement, the Chesapeake Bay is no cleaner, and crime is worse. O’Malley’s solution is to…….spend more.

We cannot spend ourselves out of a deficit or tax and gamble ourselves into a better quality of life. To successfully resolve our problems, including the deficit, we must change the big government mindset that created them, not simply repackage spending increases as budget cuts.

With spending exceeding tax receipts, O’Malley plans to resolve his deficit with slots. That’s a tough sell. To many, Slots and cuts instead of higher taxes are arguably the lesser of two evils. Slots after a record tax and spending increase are just an additional evil.

As Maryland families struggle with higher taxes, rising gas prices, and sky-high BG&E bills, they’re going to feel what the numbers already show: O’Malley math doesn’t add up to a better quality of life.

Herb McMillan is President of the Maryland Taxpayers Association and served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2003-2007. Data used in this column was obtained from the Maryland Department of Legislative Services.

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City Council Meeting Preview: 5/19

The city council's "we don't work on holidays or in August" policy still carries full weight, and the public hearing that would normally be held on the 4th Monday has been moved up to tomorrow for Memorial-Day-related reasons. Hopefully I can make the meeting late, but I probably won't be on time--you may know that this is Commissioning Week, and the 3 million people who come to Annapolis need food, which I am happy to sell to them.

The full agenda can be seen HERE. For those of you who, like myself, enjoy the fiber optic entertainment package that is Verizon Fios, you can watch the meeting on channel 34! If you do so, here is what to watch for:

PUBLIC HEARINGS:

O-59-07- changing a the boundaries of a harbor line.

O-10-08- prohibiting the sale of lawn fertilizer that contains phosphorus. Here's what I know about phosphorus: it was crucial to the plot in the Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles. I'll tell you what--it's good enough for my yard. Predictably, this was sponsored by Mayor Moyer, who I'm convinced recently read the book "Second Term Mayors Sponsor Environmental Legislation", written by George Bush.

The city's justification for this is "whereas the city finds that regulating the amount of nutrients and contaminants, including phosphorus contained in fertilizer entering the bay will improve water quality as envisioned under the Clean Water Act and the Chesapeake 2000 agreement". Here's the thing--who knows if this is appropriate? (Answer: not me. Maybe someone.) But, in many cases the city is too quick to regulate when they "find" that a certain action should be taken. If the city did an effects of fertilizer phosphorus on Bay water study, I will give you a million dollars. Yet, they are about to place the burden on consumers and businesses. If this is really the solution, prove it before you mandate it.

The proposed per incident fines are $100 for a violating resident, $500 for a violating commercial entity, and $500 for a business that sells the phosphorus fertilizer improperly or without signage!

O-12-08- requiring fiscal impact notes for all ordinances, resolutions, and charter amendments (i.e. everything). This sounds great to me...the way it works now is that any alderman can request a fiscal impact note, but a lot of times they all think that someone else has already requested it, and by the time they realize they don't know how the proposed bill affects the budget, everyone is cranky and nobody wants to postpone the vote so they just vote on the bill without knowing how it affects the money!

That it for the public hearings. However, what they will do after that is the most important thing they will do all year! They will vote on the final version of the budget, along with capital projects and fees. They will also ratify a union contract that determines salaries and wages, which drive 85% of the budget! I don't know if there's anything that can be done at this point if there were objections to the budget, but that's what they'll be doing.

News Update

For those of you who would like an update on the issues of the day:

1. The budget is up almost 7%, again. This is because salaries and benefits are determined by union contracts, and this is what the city has negotiated. Also, the mayor keeps creating new departments and staffing them with expensive help. The property tax rate actually had to be increased to accommodate this, a somewhat rare occurrence as usually rising home values allow more money to be collected with the same or lower rate. Construction overruns and frivolous capital projects have caused our debt service costs to double, to like 8% of the operating budget. This is not good. Plus our water plant was built in the Mesozoic Era and we don't have money to fix it.

2. The market house is a total embarrassment.

3. Homicides are on a record pace for the 3rd year in a row.

4. The city is involved in at least 4 lawsuits that I know of.

5. I am running a mayoral campaign for Chris Fox, and he will win.

I Am Not Gone

Since Paul Foer continues to designate himself as the king of local politics, I have found it necessary to announce that I am not gone, and as my work* cycle begins to slow for the summer, I indeed plan to return to frequent posts shortly.

(*For those unfamiliar with work, it is a conglomeration of value-creating activities that people have to undertake when the government doesn't give them money, or when they have ambition. Since blogging only creates monetary value at the highest levels, occasionally blogs like this one have to take a back seat, so blog writers like me can earn enough money to pay the internet bill.)

Anyway, I am mainly writing this post to advise Paul that there are other people in the city with opinions that are well-thought-out, and just because you are the only person who currently has time to blog about city politics and get 30,000 yokels to view the site, does not mean that you are now being considered for the Pulitzer Prize.

(Post Intermission: This is quickly becoming a blogwar type post! Normally I would not bother with such endeavours, as I typically prefer to provide analysis of bills, something that (incredibly) you will not find on the 30,000-hit blog. However, I suffered a cheeky grease burn at work today, and I am feeling feisty. Plus, since I'm not going to post anything for another month, I might as well say whatever I want!)

(If anyone still thinks blogs aren't silly.....congratulations--I'll meet you at the Mayor's next inaugural ball.)

Paul loves to label all conservative bloggers as nasty, mean-spirited, etc., and I'm sure what I am about to say will convince him that he is correct, but I am about to state fact, not theory. I know many of the people who are politically active here in this city, and 90% of those people are so annoyed by Paul that they won't even speak with him. Why would this be the case? Because Paul does things like THIS, and THIS, and THIS.

And don't think for a minute that Paul is not nasty himself. For proof, read this post, where he shows no class when responding to someone who voiced opposition to a post, even going so far as to mock the commenter in the title of the post and make fun of a misspelling of a word.

Now, let's address some things that Paul says about me in the post linked at the top of this post. He says this:

The other came on strong and seemed both valuable and relevant until its
publisher started allowing all kinds of nasty and obnoxious comments and letters
to appear--and I might add anonymously.

And one of the above blogs posted that it was helping form yet another
blog, this one with an unabashedly and eponymously negative take on our city. It
made a few tiny and brief posts which basically asked for negative comments. A
few negative comments trickled in and then....it seems to have died. Curiously,
that blog had a most remarkable similarity to CP in terms of its template,
colors and fonts. How interesting. Well, I guess that imitation is the best form
of flattery.

Paul, NOBODY IS TRYING TO IMITATE YOU...YOU ARE NOT THAT IMPORTANT. For those of you who have to work and therefore cannot write a blog, allow me to inform you that Blogger.com offers about 11 different templates--8 of which are prohibitively obnoxious, so the chances that 2 blogs would have the same template, colors, and fonts is 100%.

Paul doesn't like that I allow negative comments, nor does he like anonymous comments. Frankly, why would you censor blog comments? IT'S A BLOG--NOT ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT--PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO SAY WHAT COMES TO THEIR MIND REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. And the anonymous thing is a joke. I invite all of you to leave a comment on this post. There is an option to write any name you want to identify your comment. ANY NAME! You could simply put a fake name and your anonymity would not be compromised. So, you can get into a guessing game trying to verify if people are really who they say they are, or you can just let people say whatever they want.

For any of you who happen to still be reading this post, here is what I don't like about Capital Punishment:

1. Self-Promotion. When the blog comes up, you are pitched for something called "Fast Foerwords", something called "Adventures Afloat", and even for a business called "Annapolis Assistance", which is apparently run by Paul's son. Blogs like ours are to supplement the local media, not to make money. You need to sell your business on its merits, not on your ability to publish inflammatory posts.

2. Lack of analysis of legislation details.

3. Desire for notoriety above content.

4. Combative attitude towards opponents despite professions of loathing towards that behavior when it comes from conservatives.

5. Failure to properly format certain posts, resulting in a painful read.

So, as I was saying, I am going to start posting soon.

Paul, feel free to respond in any way you deem necessary. I promise not to censor your comments as you have demanded I do of others.

5th Homicide Of 2008

Location: 80 West St.
Public Housing: Very close proximity.
Nature: Injuries from apparent robbery attempt.
Record homicides for 1 year: 9.
2007 homicides: 9.
2008 homicide pace: 18.


View Larger Map

April 8th, 2008

On April 8th, 2008 at 9:00 AM, the Office of
the Medical Examiner ruled the death of Russell Myers Lockett III as a homicide.
Specifically, the cause of death is listed as pneumonia, aggravated by blunt
force trauma. Mr. Lockett was 53 years old at the time of his death, which was
March 17th, 2008 at approximately 8:15 AM. A brother of his was located in
Edgewater. The brother reported that as far as he knew, Mr, Lockett was homeless
for about the last year of his life.

On March 15th, 2008, The Anne Arundel County Police responded to 1000 Bestgate Road for a report of an injured subject, who turned out to be Mr. Lockett. He was suffering from what paramedics diagnosed as a broken rib and a punctured lung. Mr. Lockett told officers that the night before, on March 14th at about 8:00 PM, he was attacked by an unknown suspect while he was near 80 West Street. He said that he was knocked down from behind and that he thought that the person went through his pockets before running away. He said that he had nothing of value to steal on him. He, as far as is known, did not report the attack to anyone nor seek any kind of
assistance. He made his way out to Bestgate Road on foot. Employees of a nearby
bank reported that several homeless people camp in the woods behind the bank.
Mr. Lockett was taken to Shock - Trauma for treatment, where his condition
worsened until he passed away.

When first notified of the incident, Annapolis officers checked the vicinity of 80 West Street for any indications of a crime scene. None were found. Even though the attack was said to have occurred the night before, the area was canvassed for witnesses, again, none were found.

This case is actively being investigated as a Homicide. Anyone with any information is asked to call police at 410-268-4141.

To view a picture of Mr. Lockett, please go to:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y50/hdalton/LockettRussell.jpg

FY 2009 Budget Preview: Just The Facts

The city budget for FY 2009 is now under consideration, and this will be my third year of "scrutinizing" the finances. I use that word in quotations, because the actual process involves being shocked by how much money is being spent, then immediately failing to understand everything about the budget.

The proposed version is HERE. In this post, I am going to enumerate the general facts and ideas you need to know about the budget process. I will make subsequent posts detailing a snapshot of each department's budget situation, based on the proceedings of the finance committee meetings in which department heads come to explain their requests.*

(*I went to the first such meeting this past Wednesday, covering fire, police, and public works. The meeting started at 7:30 AM, and by 11:30 I was fantasizing a return to the use of wampum and deer pelts in lieu of greenbacks, because then at least then the spending of taxpayer money would be interesting.)

Everyone pay attention! The budget is arguably the most important thing the council does, and there are many chances for error. Here is what you need to know about the budget in general, and a bit about this year's budget.

1. There are actually 2 budgets: the operating budget and the capital budget.

2. The operating budget is for day to day stuff and is funded by property taxes and money from other governmental authorities (like the county or state). The operating budget must be balanced because the city cannot print its own money; however, I looked over the city code and the charter for like 2 and half minutes and could not find a legal requirement for a balanced budget. Even so, it is always balanced (or at least such is the plan).

2. (a) The operating budget is divided into the general fund and enterprise funds. Enterprise funds are basically the fees that are collected (water, dock, transportation, parking, sewer, etc.), and the general fund is everything else. The enterprise funds are supposed to be self-sustaining but in practice they are not--some run surpluses and some run deficits.

3. The capital budget is for big stuff like replacing the bulkhead or building a parking garage. This budget is funded by bonds, and not necessarily in the year of their inclusion in the budget. The taxpayers do not fund this budget directly, but there is a "debt service" item in the operating budget that denotes the paying of the bonds. If you do a search on this site you can find a better description of the bond process.

4. This year's operating budget is $81.3 million dollars (!!!!!), up from $75.1 million last year, which is an 8.3% increase (!!!!). You all will be interested to know that my prediction for the budget was $81.7 million, validating my intensely accurate economic forecasting skills. You will also be interested to know that under the Dean Johnson administration, which was only like 7 years ago, the budget was in the $30 million range.

5. The budget affects you via the property tax. You need to worry about the property tax rate, and the assessed value of your house. When you multiply those 2 things, you get your annual property tax bill.

6. The assessed value of your house is determined every 3 years by the State Dept. of Assessments and Taxation. They tell the city how much your house is worth, and the city bases their taxation on that.

7. There is something called the Homestead Tax Credit, which limits the annual growth of the assessed value of your house. So, let's say that the housing market heats up, and your house is assessed for double (100% more) what it was worth 3 years ago. The city cannot tax you for that total value. The state places a 10% annual maximum increase on assessed property values. Anne Arundel County has further reduced this to 2%. The city has naturally left theirs at 10%.

8. The property tax rate is proposed each year by the mayor in collusion with the Finance Director, Tim Elliot. This year's proposed rate is.............unknown. Unknown!!! How can you have a budget where the main source of revenue is property taxes and you don't even publish the property tax rate?????????????????????????????????? The 2008 rate is $.53 per $100 of assessed value. Our only clue to the proposed 2009 rate comes from the Mayor's state of the city address:

Meeting the needs of these essential programs will require finding new revenue
sources or adding 1½¢ to the current 53 cent tax rate.

9. The single biggest expense for the city is labor: salaries and benefits. Together they comprise 84% of the general fund expenditures. Therefore, negotiating union contracts (or ending union contracts) is of critical importance.

10. There is a useful tool given to taxpayers by the state called the constant-yield tax rate. Once the state figures out the total assessments for a given year, they figure out what property tax rate would result in the same amount of dollars in tax revenue for that year. Since assessments always go up, the constant-yield tax rate is always lower than the tax rate from the year before. If the city wants to establish a property tax rate that is higher than the constant-yield rate, they are required by law to have a public hearing on the matter.

11. The budget that is passed is the best case scenario. Once the budget is passed, there are untold chances throughout the fiscal year to transfer money and use it for things that were not originally funded. To catch these changes and understand them requires a level of access to the process that only the aldermen enjoy, and a surplus of time that only Democrats enjoy (because Republicans have jobs!**)

(**Just kidding.***)

(***Not really.)

Ok, those are the facts, at least the important ones. The next post will be an opinion piece outlining my analysis of the budget, and thereby creating a party platform of sorts for normal people concerned with being involved in the budget process. Stay tuned.

RAPS Police Chief

During election cycles, I sometimes see letters to the editor from candidates thanking the people who voted for them. The titles assigned to those letters are always "RAPS __(candidate's name)__". At least that's what I remember them being. What the heck does RAPS mean? Even google doesn't know. Anyway, I believe that today's article in The Capital is RAPSing the police chief. Let's examine it.

The Peerless Rens Club in Eastport holds some special memories for Chief Joseph S. Johnson who retires in June.

Most of my "special memories" involve some sort of chemical compound and at least 1 trip to the emergency room.

In 1994, he was meeting with then-Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins when he got the mayor's nod to become chief of the Annapolis Police Department. It was also the site of his wedding reception 37 years ago.

I know that I haven't been posting regularly, so let me take this chance to hit on one of my biggest issues: the use of the middle initial when publishing someone's name. DOES ANYBODY NOT KNOW WHO MAYOR ALFRED HOPKINS IS? WERE THERE MORE THAN 1 MAYOR AL HOPKINS'? NO. This blog's official position is that there are only 2 instances where publishing the middle initial is acceptable:

George W. Bush
Michael J. Fox

And last night, Chief Johnson returned to the club where community members and local officials said their goodbyes to the chief.

"We love you, we respect you, and we appreciate your leadership," said Carl O. Snowden, the Maryland attorney general's director of civil rights who served as emcee for the evening.

Well, at least Carl Snowden is earning his paycheck.

Chief Johnson announced in February that he will retire after 14 years with the department and more than 40 years of service in public safety.

About 100 people, including elected officials, attended the event last night. "Since he's been here, (the department has) run like a Swiss watch," said Sen. John Astle, D-Annapolis.

Goodness gracious. As Roger Clemems would say, I believe Senator Astle misremembers. Even if certain things were not the chief's fault, the department has been far from a swiss watch. As we speak, I believe they only have 1 cell. 1 cell! And, if someone happens to be arrested, the arresting officer has to spend hours in the booking procedure. On any given night, 5 people are arrested. And since each patrol shift has only a dozen or so officers, on any given night 40% of the patrols are not patrolling but rather are booking suspects. The ratio of supervisors to patrol officers is like 1:1, the homicide investigation unit is comparatively understaffed, and the proportion of vacant positions is 500% higher than in the county. But other than that, Swiss precision.

Chief Johnson has been known throughout his tenure as a man who spoke his mind, which sometimes drew criticism, but also garnered admiration from some.

True!

County Councilman Josh Cohen, D-Annapolis, said he could always count on the chief to speak at community meetings or events. "I knew I could always count on Chief Johnson to say what he thought," he said.

I suppose that decorum requires a recitation of platitudes in a situation like this, but if I were the chief, I would much prefer praise for my accomplishments rather than my bluntness.

Several city council members who attended the event told Chief Johnson they'd like to take him out to lunch."We need to learn from you," said Alderman Sam Shropshire, D-Ward 7.

I do believe that if the issue of the day were what color I should paint my basement, Alderman Shropshire would manage get his name and his opinion on the matter in the paper. Furthermore, he would choose beige.

Col. James Teare, chief of the county Police Department, said he looked to Chief Johnson as a friendly face when he took over the county post in January 2007.

"You look for stable ground, and friendship. I found all of those things in Joseph Johnson," he said.

Chief Johnson is credited with gaining national accreditation for the Annapolis police force in 2003. Only about 10 percent of the nation's police departments, including the county's, tout that ranking.

The only reason why such an accreditation would be important is if there was a proven correlation between accreditation and crime fighting. Good luck finding one.

Sheriff Ron Bateman said it's the sign of a good leader when he has the support of those beneath him. "His troops have the utmost respect for Chief Johnson," he said.

I wish that it was appropriate to call employees "troops" in every industry.

Chief Johnson said the he prides himself that the department has had no major scandals on his watch and has had a good working relationship with neighboring jurisdictions.

The claim that we have a good working relationship with neighboring jurisdictions is insane. I would define neighboring jurisdictions as the Anne Arundel County police, since Annapolis is located in Anne Arundel County. The city doesn't have it's own police academy. No problem, you say, we can just have our friendly county neighbor train our cadets in their academy. Wrong!! The county expresses its "good working relationship" by hiring away the officers that we send to their academy--so much so that now we have to send our cadets to Montgomery and Howard counties. The more accurate quote would be "We have a good working relationship with all neighboring jurisdictions except the one that neighbors us on all sides."

I don't know about the scandal claim--I suppose there are no major scandals that I can remember.

"I leave you a quality, professional police department," he said. And, he said, there are several captains and lieutenants who would be able to be chief someday.

"I suggest not looking too far outside" Annapolis to find a new chief, he said. "I hope the citizens insist on getting someone committed to the 36,000 residents that reside in this city."

I suspect that this comes from the mayor. She has declared that she finds no need for a nationwide police chief search, which is unacceptable. The Mayor's current Director of Neighborhood and Environmental Programs previously worked for the city of Newport, but apparently the city needs not to even consider an outsider for the charge of running its most important department.

Chief Johnson spent 24 years with the Baltimore Police Department before he came to Annapolis in 1991 as a major, and eventually became the city's first African-American police chief.

Born in Birdsville.....

Birdsville?

....a tiny south county community near Davidsonville, Chief Johnson grew up in Parole and Eastport, so returning to Annapolis was an easy decision. "It wasn't just an issue of providing public safety. I was home among friends," he told the crowd last night.

Chief Johnson underwent heart bypass surgery last June and took a short leave from the department. He cited health concerns as a reason for his retirement.

Doctors advised him not to return to his job. Following discussions with his family, including his wife, Margaret, and his three adult children, Chief Johnson determined it was time to step down.

He earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from the University of Baltimore, and also received management training at the FBI Academy before his stint with the Baltimore police.

He left the Baltimore force as commander of the 1,800 officer patrol division, the agency's largest.

So, there you go.

New Blog

A good friend of mine and overall regular guy has solicited my help in starting a blog of his own, called What's Wrong With Annapolis. I believe that it is his intention to open the posting to anyone, thereby creating a true forum for citizens to air their grievances.

Andrew is currently on a golf trip in Georgia right now, satisfying the requirement of the International Association of Bloggers that all potential blog authors must have a schedule that allows them to take time off work at a time when everyone else is very busy.

The URL is http://www.whatswrongwithannapolis.blogspot.com/

Homicide

The fourth murder in the city this year took place late last night in Robinwood, a public housing community. Continuing at the current pace, the city would see 13 or 14 homicides this year, which would easily shatter the record of 9.


View Larger Map

Released on March 17th, 2008 at 7:00 AM
HOMICIDE

On March 16th, 2008 at 11:21 PM, Annapolis Police Dispatch received several calls for shots fired in the 1300 block of Tyler Avenue. A male victim was found lying on
the ground near 1368 Tyler Avenue suffering from gunshot wounds. Paramedics
pronounced him as deceased. He was identified as a local 17 year old, but not a
resident of the immediate neighborhood. (Robinwood). His identity is being
withheld pending suitable time for family notifications. 1368 Tyler Avenue
has no known association with this crime except as a point of reference as being
the nearest physical address to where the victim was found. There is no known
motive or suspects at this time, and investigators are still seeking witnesses
or other people with knowledge of the circumstances.

This is the fourth homicide in the City of Annapolis in 2008.