Alderman Arnett Meets With Public, Hints Of New Police Chief

As you may know, the honorable Ward 8 Alderman took time out of his duties Thursday night to meet with 40 people or so who cared to come to the Eastport Fire Station to discuss the issues du jour.

Despite the fact that I do not live in a ward that is numbered 1 or 8, I was allowed to express my opinions on the aforementioned issues.

I have to say that I was reasonably pleased with what Mr. Arnett had to say, which is saying nothing in response to the accusations of constituents that he had been unreachable to say anything. He is laid back, pleasant, intelligent, and a retired economist*.

(Being an economist is an automatic +9267 on the 10,000-point awesome scale. However, being a Democrat is an automatic -3190. So to analogize, ceteris paribus, he's a Honda Accord--not an Aston Martin, but not a Prius.)

Alderman Arnett spent much of his time (or at least much of the time that I was there), talking about crime. He expressed frustration that even as a member of the Public Safety Committee, he is limited in his power to affect change in the police department. He informs that said committee is taking a more proactive approach than ever before, soliciting independent audits of techniques and technologies employed by our law enforcement unit.

Alderman Arnett suggested that the results of the audit will serve as a blueprint for the new police chief, but refrained from calling for Chief Johnson's resignation, stating only the most obvious caveat: that a new chief will come "eventually".

He also spent some time talking about the idea of a city manager, which would effectively (depending on the language of any proposed charter amendment) transfer authority from the mayor to the city council. Mr. Arnett pointed out that the mayor currently has 3 roles:

1. Vote on the City Council, over-seer of the legislative agenda.
2. CEO of $77 million city 'corporation'.
3. Ribbon-cutting, baby-kissing, Annapolis ambassador to the world.

This is a lot to do, and is a lot of power concentrated in one place. So much so that the city council can't do their job, even when they agree that a problem needs to be fixed (i.e. police recruiting).

A city manager form of government addresses this problem. A city manager is (ideally) hired by the city council, and serves at their whim. He (or she!) can hire and fire city personnel, and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the city (the corporation).

The city manager is accountable to the citizens via the aldermen--not the mayor. Citizens put pressure on their aldermen to fix a problem. The city council can then legislate--which they can do now--but they can also put pressure on the city manager by saying "If you don't shape up XXX department, we will egg your house at night", etc.

I think this is a good idea, and so does Mr. Arnett. He claims to be well along in a bill co-written with Alderman Isreal, the recognized guru of governmental procedures, that will introduce some type of city manager provisions into the charter.

The question is: exactly what do they propose to do? From the small bit that I heard, it sounds like the provisions might be focused on changing the job description of the city administrator. The currently city administrator is appointed by the mayor, and basically does whatever the mayor doesn't want to do...for a salary of $120,000. What this has amounted to thus far is merely the supervision of our sister city program, or so I've heard.

The current city administrator position is not a division of power--just a waste of money. All the power is through the mayor, and the city council can't really do anything about it.

I am happily surprised that this idea is preempting the 2010 charter review, and if the proposed city manger has hiring/firing power and is accountable to the council (i.e. not the mayor), it is a step in the right direction.

Ferries

I read the story in The Capital yesterday about a 42-page feasibility study that was given to the Governor by a committee of people who studied the viability of passenger ferries as a way to alleviate traffic woes locally.

The group suggested a trial period for the ferries to see how the private market responds to ferry service. If successful, the ferries could be implemented permanently.

But even by the committee's own admission, this is not much of a solution:

Passenger ferries will not address the need for moving large numbers of automobiles or trucks across or up and down the bay but can be used on the margins of the problem.

My question is this: the trial period is set to cost almost $2 million. If it is deemed successful, we can expect to continue to pay multiple millions of dollars for this service. Should we be spending this money on the margins of the problem?

Less importantly, the committee engaged in one of my most hated pet peeves:

The citizen-drafted plans suggests future avenues of discussion, including a collaboration with Virginia.

Any committee that recommends forming another committee, task force, or feasibility study should be penalized 1000 awesome points*, because what were they doing there in the first place? Does anyone not know that we should keep talking about issues to see if we can do something better? And how many meetings did it take to realize that Maryland and its neighboring states share vested interests in common waterways?

(*The awesomeness point scale goes up to 10,000, and the full 10,000 points have only been achieved by one person, this guy, who cut off his own arm after being trapped by a boulder--and survived. That is freekin' super-awesome--that he could do that, not that he lost his arm.)

Maybe it's just me, but it just seems like a big waste of time for a committee to recommend forming another committee.

Anyway, one guy who was part of the committee had his name removed from the report, citing its failure to explore vehicle ferries. He went on to say that passenger ferries are one of the least viable solutions to the traffic problem.

Let's see what the governor thinks.