Israel Will Not Run For Mayor

Contrary to mounting suspicion, and the expectations of some Ward 1 higher-up's, Dick Israel will not run for Mayor. I recently renewed my Capital subscription, which allows me to publish the following:

Alderman Richard Israel, D-Ward 1, has revealed that he will not run for
mayor in this fall's municipal elections.

Rather, Mr. Israel, 66, said he will seek another term as alderman.

Mr. Israel, who has been fighting Parkinson's disease, said his health
would prevent him from serving as a full-time mayor.

He touted that he has never missed a council meeting, and said he still
wants to focus on strengthening the city.

In deference to Alderman Israel's potential bid for mayor, the Ward 1 Residents Assn. has heretofore declined to invite potential mayoral candidates to speak, a practice that will likely end given this news.

I can say with some (although not total) confidence that this comes as a surprise. I have heard election chatter involving strategy to compete with the good Alderman. I would surmise that the threat of a heated primary campaign with opponents assailing his health was a formidable factor, in addition to the actual hardships of such a disease.

I disagree with Alderman Israel's policy towards bars, amongst other things, but I find him to be the most prepared and knowledgeable Alderman on the council. Every time he sponsors a bill, most of the other Alderman immediately ask to be named as co-sponsors, presumably because they can be assured that the bill is well researched and will probably be helpful to the city.

I wish him luck in his next campaign.

Fun With Wine

I am happy to bring you not one, but two wine-related stories as we head into this weekend. The first comes from the notorious 1st Ward, and Alderman Israel, who is proposing to change the permitted operating hours for wine bars in the MX zone, specifically to allow them to stay open until midnight 7 days a week.

The first thing that strikes me is that I only know of 1 wine bar in the MX district: The Purple Tooth. Catchy name, good cheese, old fire station, fine by me. I just don't like the specificity of the bill--instead of writing a bill for one constituent, how about relaxing the Ward 1 Superiority Doctrine and allowing the rest of the city to operate under the same rule. I think it's a bit of a stretch to compare this bill to Alderman Israel's stance on the 2 a.m. issue, but it's interesting to see how Alderman Israel is willing to extend the business hours for 1 wine bar in his district, yet favors reducing the business hours for the regular bars that comprise the majority of hospitality business in his ward.

The second wine story comes from a letter writer to The Capital. For the ever-increasing new readers of this blog, I enjoy having debates with these letter writers for 2 reasons:

1. These letters writers are either more fanatical, or less fanatical, than me.
2. They cannot debate back.

I have not done one of these in a while. A couple of months ago I cancelled my subscription to The Capital, the result of a joint collaboration of this blog's "save-the-blog-publisher-money" and "stick-it-to-the-man" initiatives. However, I have located a gem on the internet version.

The original text of the letter writer appears in bold, with my uncontested commentary in regular font.

Open letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley:

Since you could not be bothered to attend the Maryland State Wine Festival and present "The Governor's Cup" in person for the second year in a row, I can't be bothered to support you on slots, or for any re-election attempt you may make.

Sadly, I have never won the Governor's Cup. However, I have won the Mayor's Cup, a fictional award that my fictional social club has awarded itself for the past 20 years, in recognition of having the best float in the city's 4th of July parade.

By the way, what an insignificant reason to drop your support for someone!

Dear John McCain: In these troubling economic times with major world issues, I cannot support you on anything because when you had hair, you parted your hair to the right and I part mine to the lef. Dear Gov. O'Malley: I cannot support you, for many other reasons.

Wine production in Maryland is a growing and thriving business. As such it brings in an increasing amount of revenue to this state, which you say is much needed to make up for the shortfall that your tax increases did not bring in.

What O'Malley says about the budget shortfall cannot be believed. He spent us into a deficit by withdrawing $1 billion from the rainy day fund and increasing spending, then "solved" that problem with a special session that raised taxes AND ADDED $600 million or so in new spending, but now there is a deficit again, so O'Malley calls for cuts, but also doesn't call for cuts. Got it?

Many liberals do not understand that raising taxes can actually have a negative effect on total taxes collected, a relationship suggested by the Laffer curve. Not always, not immediately, but eventually. Raising taxes depresses total business output, and encourages businesses to move to lesser taxing jurisdictions (think India, offshore bank accounts, etc.), meaning that the government loses income and payroll taxes. The evidence is too vast for me to enumerate here (mainly because I have a doctor's appointment in an hour), but if commenters press me on the issue, I may be forced to comply.

However, I have noticed that you and your band can play every pub and bar in Baltimore.

Do they take requests?

So I can assume that you're not personally opposed to the sale or consumption of alcohol by adults, just opposed to supporting the entire state instead of just one city.

Have you ever considered a career in politics?

RHONDA RYAN
Gambrills

Dear Rhonda,

I live a maverick's life outside of Annapolis, which is near Gambrills. Please send the wine you set aside for Gov. O'Malley to "The Fourth Most Popular Political and Economic Blog In the General Vicinity of The Annapolis Mall, Annapolis, MD, 21401", so I can surprise Mrs. Politics with a fancy dinner.

Mayoral Candidates Compete To Lower Homestead Credit

When I first got in on this blogging game, I made a promise to myself: if ever I got 48 comments on a post before making another post, I would retire. The last post has 47 comments, so here we are.

Economic theory suggests that countries, or other sovereignties, may engage in a "race to the bottom", a phrase describing a phenomenon of continuous reduction in taxes and regulatory burden that is supposed to attract capital investment to the country that 'finishes first' and has the least burdensome business environment. Think Cayman Island and Swiss bank accounts.

Limitations of the race-to-the-bottom theory usually involve logistical costs. For example, a business or person wouldn't relocate from Annapolis to Annapolis Royal (Canada) for a tenth of a percent off of property taxes. However, a person has great financial incentive to move outside of the Annapolis city limits. I took advantage of this incentive, and I now write the leading "outsider" and the #7 "maverick" blog involving city of Annapolis politics from a non-resident.

The incentive is lower property taxes.

(Post intermission: Property taxes are asinine. So are income taxes, and many more. Consumption (sales) taxes are the most efficient and the most free-market/free-will way to go. I've always felt this way, but then I read the Fair Tax book by Neal Boortz, and now I really feel this way.)

As we know, there are 2 things that determine how much property tax you pay each year: the property tax rate (PTR) and the tax-assessed value (TAV) of your house. For you math lovers:

PTR x TAV = $$$$$$$ out of your pocket

The rate is the more straight-forward of the 2. The council sets the rate in their infinite wisdom and goes on their merry way. But, even if the rate doesn't change, we could still get screwed. Houses are assessed every 3 years. During real estate bubbles, some house values double over that time. Luckily, the government recognizes that people's incomes will almost never double in 3 years, and they offer protection in the form of the Homestead Credit. The state mandates that the assessed value of a property cannot increase by more than 10% each year. Local jurisdictions are free to lower that percentage, but they cannot raise it.

Anne Arundel County has further lowered the Credit to 2%. Race-to-the-bottom theory would suggest that the City of Annapolis might do the same; yet, true to form, the city has left its rate at 10%.

Three aldermen, in the form of 2 separate bills, have sought out to remedy this. Alderman Israel, a mayoral candidate, introduced O-31-08 which would drop the number to 5%. As required by the Republican National Committee, Alderman Cordle (another mayoral candidate) and Alderman Paone (a crafty and rather tall Ward 2 rep with a fan club on this blog) have sponsored O-34-08, which is the same thing except the number is 2%.

I have a hard time believing this is anything other than election strategy (but that doesn't make it bad). All of these people have had plenty of time to officer this ordinance in the past--they didn't, and it's not because they didn't know it was important. In the last mayoral election, Independent Gilbert Renault got like 2,700 votes and finished second to Moyer by only a few hundred--running a campaign that's only issue was lowering the Homestead Credit from 10% to 4%*.

(*"only issue" is a reach, but that was the main thing)

I don't care who passes it, but the lower, the better.