October News From Alderman Sam

Alderman Shropshire's October newsletter made its way to my inbox this morning, and some of my comments regarding its contents will make their way to these pages right now.

Never has it been so difficult for the American family. It's like we're besieged from every direction.


Today our family loyalties are divided as never before.


Perhaps this is just a pet peeve of mine and it's not as important as I might make it out to be, but enough with the superlatives. Let's take the American family of 200 years ago...they didn't have electricity. Or cars. Or bathrooms! That situation would have been more difficult--less complex--but more difficult.

Every time someone tries to sell you a bill of goods, they use superlatives, and I hate it:

"It has never been so difficult for the American family."
"Mortgage rates have never been higher."
"There has never been a better time to buy."

I would be much happier with the advertisement: "This is a reasonably good time to buy, provided you can afford it, and if the product is useful for you." Ahh, how nice. Nonetheless, Alderman Sam's letter advocates more family time, which is surely a good thing.

The letter continues to pursue support for Mr. Shropshire's bill to ban plastic bags, and this visual was used as persuasion:

A bit sensational if you ask me. Alarmingly, Alderman Sam claims broad support for his proposed ban:

The legislation has strong support from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Alice Ferguson Foundation, the Sierra Club of Anne Arundel County, the Alliance for Sustainable Communities, EarthEcho (the Cousteau family), the Audubon Society, Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and other environmental organizations.

But here is evidence to the contrary. The last I heard, these organizations praise the motive, but advise other ways to focus our efforts that are more effective:

Sierra Club of A.A. County: "This is not a solution; the best solution is reusable bags."

Alice Ferguson Foundation: "Plastic bags are not the most important problem...we should focus on education."

Progressive Bag Alliance: "Paper bags are worse for the environment. Plastic bags are 100% recyclable. We need to increase focus on recycling."

Maryland Retailers Association: "This legislation goes too far and doesn't achieve what he (Alderman Shropshire) wants. Plastic bags don't litter--people litter! Citizen education is more important, and we need to enforce the litter laws that we already have."

Restaurant Association of Maryland: "Behavior is the culprit here."

Sveinn Storm: "In 3 decades of working downtown, I have never seen a citation issued for littering. But there are plenty of paid city employees who clean up the trash."

On a positive note, Alderman Sam favors strengthening nuisance laws:

Also, I requested a City Council study session with the Annapolis Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. I will be requesting stricter enforcement of laws and stiffer penalties for serving underage drinkers and for over-serving other restaurant/bar patrons.

If underage drinkers, late night hooligans, and law-ignoring bars were all dealt with appropriately, maybe the law-abiding bars could have some reasonable privileges.

The political debates will certainly be interesting.

Party Affiliation and Extending the Olive Branch

I would like to take this time to make the following observation: life is crazy.

Mine is a 12 person company, 13 including myself, and from amongst us we are dealing with the following concurrent problems:

-an employee’s father who had a heart attack and was diagnosed with cancer around the heart.
-an employee in a lawsuit with a former business partner AND involved in a police sting to recover his stolen cell phone.
-an employee hospitalized (under worker’s comp) with back problems.
-a different employee missing time for body soreness.
-an employee hospitalized with vertigo.
-an employee hospitalized with a severely broken hand—after having his dog die, his girlfriend break up with him, and losing the apartment that he and his girlfriend were going to lease together.
-an employee hospitalized from a concussion after the cab he was riding in got into an accident.
-an employee missing days for court for an improper penalty imposed upon her.
-an employee missing time as a result of his daughter’s suspension from school.
-a car in the shop for the second time in 2 weeks for the same problem on 2 different tires.

(I would ask 2 favors of this blog’s loyal readers: pray for the families dealing with these problems, and forgive me for not posting as frequently as might be desired.)

And if that wasn’t enough, AP has been co-mingling with Democrats!

Yes, it’s true. At the city council meeting on Monday, Alderman Shropshire said he had read this, and assured me of his sincerity to host myself and/or the entirety of the Central Committee for a dinner at his house. In appreciation of his devotion to reading this blog, and in recognition of the enjoyment I get from eating food that I did not have to make, I may indeed dine with Alderman Sam. I suppose we shall see.

I did say DemocratS (plural), and I was referring to former HACA President and rumored mayoral candidate Trudy McFall. She had some very nice compliments, and remarked that Mrs. Politics must be very supportive, since she is willing to put up with the distraction that comes from writing the 118th most popular political blog in Ward 5, as I do.

Perhaps the most useful point that I can make with this post comes from one of Mrs. McFall’s comments. She said something to the effect of:

I never knew I would agree so much with a Republican! I think that your influence on individual responsibility is well placed, and I find it very interesting.

Folks, party affiliation doesn’t matter a whole heck of a lot on the local level. You can certainly have big government vs small government debates, but that’s about it. Most people even agree on taxes, since at the local level the only real tax we are concerned with is the property tax. And I would challenge any Annapolitan, Republican or Democrat, to justify a 10% increase in assessments every year.

This is the reason I enjoy local politics. You can interact with the people who influence you lives on a regular basis. Most of us will never meet President Bush, but you can see Dick Israel every Saturday at 49 West. We will probably never be able to have a one-on-one with the Governor, but if you show up at the Sly Fox on the right Thursday night, you can talk to Sam Shropshire. You can email your alderman and they will respond!

Party affiliation is a way to solve an information problem. We can never know everything about the people who are running for president, senator, or governor. The best way to know if they are the candidate that best represents our viewpoints is party affiliation.

If you support increased government social welfare programs, but you don’t know anything about candidates who are running, you can vote for a Democrat and be relatively certain that this is the course of action that is most likely to agree with your viewpoint.

Having a party affiliation saves voters the time of doing research that they could not possibly do on every candidate by signaling the proclivities of that candidate. Party affiliation, therefore, is a signaling characteristic whereby voters increase their efficiency of time by using a small, easily obtainable bit of information to discriminate for or against a candidate—a discrimination that is perfectly appropriate.

But locally, we don’t have to do this. We don’t need signals—we can evaluate the candidates ourselves. And so continues my quest to do so.

A Message From Uncle...err, Alderman Sam

Alderman Sam Shropshire sent out a rhetoric-laced 'newsletter' today......and I quote:



Somewhere in the northern Pacific floats a non-biodegradable petrochemical blob that's twice the size of Texas. Much of this deadly mess originated when someone innocently took home their shopping in a plastic bag.





In the U.S. alone, we throw away 100 billion plastic bags each year -- the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil. Yikes!




Think globally! Act locally! Let's do our part to make a small change in our bahavior (sic) to help preserve the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries for future generations. Let's put a stop to retail distribution of plastic checkout bags.



I don't know if it was on purpose, but notice that there aren't any people in that picture of a plastic bag. I can tell you with a high level of certainty that the plastic bag in question did not grow wings and get there on its own. I am confident that a homo-sapien acquired the bag and failed to dispose of this properly.

If we want act responsibly about the environment, there are better places to start. In the opinion of this blog, efforts to increase recycling at businesses, as well as actually putting recycling bins downtown, would be much more appropriate first steps.

2162 Words on Sam Shropshire

I enjoy commenting on letters published by our elected officials, such as this guest column from Ward 7 Alderman Sam Shropshire, because I can try to figure out what they actually mean using only what they say! (The two are never the same.)

No more preamble, let's do this thing.

In 2005, I was elected by the citizens of Ward 7 to serve as their alderman on the Annapolis City Council.

You are off to a fair start, nobody can disagree with you here.

My campaign platform addressed not only crime and public safety, but a spectrum of challenges facing our city: public transportation, smart growth, the environment, affordable housing, education, and other quality-of-life issues. In keeping with the covenant I made with the citizens of Annapolis, I have been fighting hard on all fronts.

I like the word covenant. It makes me think of God and Alderman Sam at the same time. My top 4 covenants in history:

1. The Davidic Covenant.
2. George H.W. Bush's promise of no new taxes.
3. Bill Clinton's oath of office.
4. Alderman Sam's promise to the people.

Good leaders must be able to multitask — to make sound decisions and provide solid answers on a variety of issues important to our community.

Much like good bloggers must provide solid insights on a variety of issues important to their readers. Take note--Alderman Sam qualifies his statement with 'important to our community'.

Concerned about traffic congestion and urban sprawl, I co-sponsored, with then-Alderman Josh Cohen, D-Ward 8, legislation that implemented a moratorium on new development in Annapolis until sound growth practices are in place. I also co-sponsored with Mr. Cohen legislation that has significantly reduced the density of any future condominium or apartment developments along outer West Street.

This does not mean anything. Let me shed some light on the co-sponsorship process.

Step 1: An alderman gets an idea for a bill.
Step 2: That alderman sponsors a bill at a city council meeting, perhaps having done some research on the bill.
Step 3: Any other alderman says the following: "Madam Mayor, I would like to be added as a co-sponsor to this bill."

That's it. You could co-sponsor every bill if you wanted to. Co-sponsoring is in no way a representation of how hard the co-sponsor-er worked on the bill; it is a political process by which aldermen can choose to attach or not attach their name to a particular side of an issue.

I continue to work for a comprehensive growth plan that envisions rail links among Annapolis, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and a possible tram service down West Street to the Historic District.

Great. So you will work to "envision" such a plan. You will not work to "implement" the plan? I suppose that merely imagining a solution is just as good as actually solving the problem. Let's say for a minute that are are planning on building rail links to Baltimore and DC. Where would they go? Is there any place within the city limits that could accommodate such a rail system?

In February 2006, I was the first elected official in Maryland to speak out against the unfair rate increases of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and Constellation Energy. I have been active in campaigning for re-regulation of BGE and Constellation.

Speaking out against something is not a measure of accomplishment. Every politician spoke out against the BG&E rate hike--"a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", as they say.

And if you think re-regulation is the answer, you are out of your mind. Regulation is what got us into the problem in the first place. Why will we be so much more successful re-regulating the industry than we were when we regulated it the first time?

I sponsored a City Council resolution in support of the state’s Clean Air Act, and I spoke at state legislative hearings in support of that bill. It passed in 2006.

Remember earlier in your letter, when you said that "Good leaders must be able to.....make sound decisions and provide solid answers on a variety of issues important to our community"? Well, this resolution was not important to the city of Annapolis community. So what happened---the city council sent a letter to the state that said "Dear Maryland, we support you. Sincerely, Annapolis"???? What a waste of time. I commend Sam the citizen for speaking at these hearings, but it has no relevance to the duties of Alderman Sam.

Last summer, while visiting a slavery museum in Gambia, I saw a prominently displayed advertisement from The Maryland Gazette of Sept. 29, 1767. It proclaimed the arrival of The Lord Ligonier, a slave ship carrying 97 African men, women and children to be auctioned at the Annapolis City Dock. I determined to lead the Annapolis city government in publicly apologizing for its involvement and support of 150 years of slavery and nearly 100 years of segregation.

Does anyone feel better now that the city of Annapolis has apologized for slavery? Did it change the way any of you live your lives? Or was it another waste of time?

The City Council proudly approved the resolution in a 7-0 bipartisan vote, making Annapolis the first American slave port to do so. And just recently the City of London followed our lead!

No comment.

Just kidding!! What would this blog be if it didn't make comments?!

I would be willing to bet that the mayor of London doesn't even know that Annapolis exists. This article specifically mentions Liverpool as a possible example for the London mayor, which would make sense since Liverpool is actually on the same continent and in the same country as London.

And furthermore, for those of you who saw no harm in the slavery apology, listen to this quote from the London article:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson praised the statement, saying Livingstone broke important ground with his remarks. The civil rights leader said apologies should lead to reparations.

Every time the government says it was wrong, especially publicly, people will try and sue to get money for the suffering they have endured. Or the government just gives them money before this even happens. Buckle up--it won't be long before the reparations bandwagon stops in Annapolis.

I work for racial reconciliation in our community as well as radical changes in public housing that will guarantee all residents some semblance of hope and a future.

So you're saying that a good future is currently a hopeless pursuit for public housing tenants? Ultimately, everyone is responsible for their own well being--there is always hope.

As often as possible, I sit down with public housing residents in their homes, sometimes taking along local pastors and thus encouraging faith groups to be more actively involved in serving the needs of these residents.

I can't help but think that everything Alderman Sam does is a publicity stunt. What is the purpose of such visits, other than face time? And what is the point of telling us about it? Don't say you are fact-finding, or trying to determine the needs of the people--you know what they are already.

I have been a driving force to provide smoke-free workplaces for Annapolis restaurant and bar employees. That ordinance, which I first put before the Annapolis City Council, encouraged Baltimore city to pass similar legislation. As I joined concerned citizens in speaking before various state committees, the entire state went smoke-free.

Most people would agree that the state smoke free legislation was assured passage after the city of Baltimore passed the legislation--they were not following Annapolis' lead. And as much as I do not enjoy smoke or the smell thereof, I also do not enjoy government telling private enterprise how to run their businesses.

Take the case of bars. Government tells them when they have to close, what type of alcohol they can serve, and if you can or can't smoke. They tell you what temperature the food has to be cooked to, what temperature your refrigerators have to be, and what type of thermometer to buy so you can take the temperatures! They tell you what type of tables you have to buy, and how many inches off the ground you have to store cleaning chemicals. Best of all, they require you to pay to get certified about all these things.

My point is: where does it stop? What's next...no trans fat? No hamburgers? No coca-cola?

Public safety is of great concern to all members of the City Council. When possible, I ride at night with our police in their patrol cars so I can better understand their work.

All well and good. But let's see some commitment to doing something about it.

Aldermen Sheila Finlayson, D-Ward 4; Ross Arnett, D-Ward 8; Classie Hoyle, D-Ward 3; Dick Israel, D-Ward 1, and I have been working on affordable housing for our police. This ad hoc committee has met several times over the past four months, and we will continue to work until all vacant police positions are filled and our new police officers can afford to live inside the city, with police cars parked in their driveways (a definite deterrent to crime).

Ok, good.

I serve on the city’s Finance Committee and Environmental Matters Committee and am an ad hoc member of the Annapolis Maritime Commission and the Severn River Commission.

The Worldwide Authority on English Grammar and Linguistic Usage mandates that the term ad hoc may only be used once per 1000 words. Oh, and all aldermen are on a committee--it comes with the job.

I try to use my influence as an alderman to help in various environmental and nonprofit causes, working with the Annapolis Maritime Museum, Back Creek Nature Park, The Bay Theatre, The Lighthouse Shelter, HAVEN, the ARC of Central Maryland, and the Naval Academy Midshipmen Sponsorship Program. I’m a proud “sponsor dad” of four very dedicated midshipmen.

Sponsoring a midshipman has nothing to do with being an alderman in the city of Annapolis. The United States Naval Academy, as you may know from your recent resolutions regarding Midshipman Owens, is property of the United States and is not in the city's jurisdiction. You may also know this because it is not called "The Annapolis Naval Academy".

Recently I concentrated some of my time on prohibiting the retail distribution of plastic checkout bags. These bags do great harm to the environment and our quality of life. This issue has, surprisingly, gotten a lot of national and international media attention, because people around the world are fed up with overconsumption and its adverse effects on the environment.

Some of your time was spend on banning plastic bags and the rest of your time was coordinating the media coverage of what you spent that time doing. The last word to describe the national media attention this proposal received is "surprising".

And, to quote a Capital editorial (June 14), “Mr. Shropshire’s proposal could start a debate on littering, recycling and how certain routine shopping decisions affect the environment. In that respect, it could do a lot of good.” And that discussion is already under way—some stores, including Whole Foods, have already stopped using plastic checkout bags.

The discussion goes something like this:

"Should we ban plastic bags?"

"No, we should focus on reusable bags, place recycling bins downtown, and do other things that will have a greater effect."

When my Ward 7 constituents put me in office, they didn’t get an alderman who would simply fill potholes and solve neighborhood parking problems. They got someone who does that and more—someone who cares about their community and will lobby for their causes at every level of government: local, county, state and, if need be, federal.

This is crazy. Alderman Sam is not the world liaison for Ward 7; he is on the city council. Those other things are good, but they are not his job.

I firmly believe that being an alderman means sacrificially serving my Ward 7 constituents and all the people of Annapolis — to improve and protect our quality of life. That remains my focus and my commitment.

I like Alderman Sam on a personal level--I have spent time with him, spoke about issues, and he has on several occasions invited the Republican Central Committee to his house for kielbasa and sour kraut (although probably with the expectation that we would decline.)

However, this letter has done nothing to show any real progress that Mr. Shropshire has made on actual city issues. The smoking thing matters, but I think it is fair to say that at best Alderman Sam gave a gentle nudge to a stampeding boulder.

The rest of the stuff is frills, decorations, and publicity if you ask me. And if Mr. Shropshire has genuine concern for the duties of his office, and for the citizens, he should find more relevant issues, and more productive solutions.

Shropshir-isms

In today's Capital, the Honorable Ward 7 Alderman writes a guest column that tries to persuade us that he has been focusing on a lot of things and not just plastic bags.

(Yesterday I posted on how plastic bags would be coming back, and here they are!!)

The column is fairly long, so I will have to post a comprehensive analysis of its content at a later time, as I do not wish to disrupt my schedule.

For the time being, two quotes jumped out at me:

Recently I concentrated some of my time on prohibiting the retail distribution of plastic checkout bags....This issue has, surprisingly, gotten a lot of national and international media attention.

The word surprisingly should make everyone reading it roll their eyes and want to back-slap Alderman Sam for treating us like we have been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the last 6 months in lieu of paying attention.

I firmly believe that being an alderman means sacrificially serving my Ward 7 constituents and all the people of Annapolis--to improve and protect our quality of life.

If you can prove how apologizing for slavery meets YOUR OWN CRITERIA that you just laid out, then you have just won yourself another supporter.

More on Alderman Sam upcoming.

Capital Punisment: No More Plastic Bags, Sam?

This letter to the editor, which appeared on July 8, is from Ward 7 Alderman Sam Shropshire himself, concerning his proposed legislation to ban plastic bags from the city of Annapolis. Here we go:

Your editorial headlined "Paper-or-plastic issue not as simple as alderman thinks" cast doubt on my legislation to rid Annapolis neighborhoods and waterways, and the Chesapeake Bay, of plastic retail checkout bags.

If true, The Capital can claim a rare success in actually encouraging open thought. To read more about how paper bags are at least the same or WORSE than plastic bags, click here, or here, or here, or here.

You said my "view that shoppers can do without plastic bags makes us wonder how much grocery shopping he has done recently. Has he tried transporting ice cream in a paper bag?"

To prevent this problem, try making your own ice cream.

That makes me wonder just how often Capital writers shop! I shop almost daily. I use reusable shopping bags. And a lot of U.S. supermarkets offer insulated, leak-proof recycled paper bags for transporting ice cream.


OK! Here is our first breach of logic. You claim to use a reusable bag, which is environmentally friendly. But, your legislation does not promote this, it merely bans plastic bags. This will only encourage paper bags. Maybe some people fear paper cuts and will switch to reusable, but you are not really promoting your own solution. Also, I have NEVER seen this insulated, reusable ice cream bag you speak of, and I was not born yesterday.

Plastic checkout bags litter Annapolis streets and waterways. They often fill with silt, acting like sandbags, clogging storm drains and creeks.

Fair enough, but is this really a big problem? Maybe so. Anyway, before we go banning things or telling people how to live their lives, let's try and enforce the littering laws that already exist. Whadda ya think?

Thousands eventually make their way into the bay and out to sea, and some all the way across the Atlantic. En route they often look like jellyfish, and when they are ingested, birds, whales, seals, and turtles die.

I actually found some evidence that this is true, even all the way across the Atlantic. Careful though, this is a classic scare technique designed to make you ignore the facts and support a particular position based on your emotions alone, regardless of fact, logic, or reason. Besides, who really needs turtles, except Terrapins, because they are awesome.

And no matter how much money we spend trying to clean them up, we don't get them all. They just don't go away.

Partly true. We can't get them all, but they do go away eventually.

By most counts, only 1 percent of the 20 billion plastic checkout bags distributed annually in America are being recycled. That leaves 99 percent of these billions to contaminate our waterways or be trucked to dumps, where they will slowly exude toxins over several hundred years.

I don't like the smell of these numbers. I would bet you could argue these facts, if not disprove them. Nonetheless, how about an effort to increase recycling? Rather than banning? Whadda ya think?

My legislation would prohibit the distribution of plastic checkout bags by Annapolis retailers. While this may seem to some like firing a BB at the polluting giant of over consumption, for nervous international polyethylene profiteers it will certainly be a shot heard round the world.
SAM SHROPSHIRE, Alderman Ward 7, Annapolis


I'm surprised he waited this long. Here is my theory on how this legislation came to be: Alderman Sam is sitting at home one day and thinks to himself, "How can I use the phrase 'shot heard round the world' in a public forum?". He then concocts this elaborate scheme, which draws criticism, which requires a letter refuting the criticism, and here we are. I mean, this last paragraph is a fantastically absurd bit of rhetoric. You are not in a movie, Sam.

Also, I did some research. By 2010 the global demand for polyethylene will be 87 million tons. At the current price of about $.55 per pound, this means that by 2010 the international polyethylene market will gross $95,700,000,000--that's 95.7 billion dollars. I doubt that the international polyethylene profiteers are worried about the city of Annapolis banning plastic bags.

Have you ever heard the saying necessity breeds invention? Well, it does. I believe that the microchip was developed because NASA needed to make things smaller to fit on a rocket. This is what economists call a positive externality (and human beings call a good side-effect). If the world, somehow, banned plastic bags, all research concerning plastic bags, their production, distribution, etc. will stop. Any positive externalities that would have occurred along the way will no longer occur.

On the other hand, let's say you let businesses offer whatever the hell types of bags they want, but offer an incentive for recycling plastic bags. So businesses, in their desire to make money, figure out a good way to recycle plastic bags. Maybe their method of recycling also applies to paper bags, and recycling of paper bags increases too! This is called capitalism, and is why America is the richest country, because we are the most capitalist country.

(I would bet that if you calculated the correlation between capitalism and per capita gdp, you would find that the most capitalist countries are the richest. I now offer my apologies, because I do not have the research tools nor the expertise to produce a chart for you in a timely fashion.)

But the thing is, Sam, you don't have to offer businesses an incentive--THEY WILL DO IT THEMSELVES. Businesses have to pay, let's say $.01 each, for their plastic bags. If they figure out a way to recycle, they will have to buy fewer bags and will MAKE MORE MONEY. SO THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING AND THE PROCESS WILL WORK.

Note to readers: the following is a bit geeky, but relevant. Normally the free market process works almost perfectly (at least in the long-run). But, in the case of environmental economics, pollution is an EXTERNALITY of production and not a COST of production. Businesses, therefore, do not consider pollution in their strategic decisions or consider it at a discounted rate. The government has a role here, as protection of the environment is a public good.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS: BANNING PLASTIC BAGS IN ANNAPOLIS WILL NOT DECREASE THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT. IT DISCOURAGES ONE PARTICULAR PROBLEM AND DOES NOT ENCOURAGE ANY COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION.