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The current County Council has only two more meetings scheduled in their term. They take a break for the election and traditionally do not convene again until the next council is sworn in on December 7.
They have a lot of bills to consider at these meetings, and any that don’t pass will expire. Their sponsors may or may not be serving on the next Council.
It’s been interesting to watch various interests trying to predict whether the next Council will be more or less sympathetic to their agendas, particularly on the bill I wrote about last week, the zoning code update. Even after over a year of stakeholder engagement, some, most notably the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, have asked the council to reject the bill before it and begin a new process next year. Growth Action Network, a coalition of community associations, has said the opposite. They want this council to pass this bill, even though, like most stakeholders, there are things in the zoning code that they would like to see changed. Other stakeholders appear to be switching from opponent to supporter as they win amendments that address their top concerns and recognize that other things that they’d like to change in the code will fare better in future stand-alone bills under the new council.
One thing nobody can deny is that 61-26, whether it passes or fails, will not be the final word on zoning in our county. My priority is to get 61-26 with its 400 fixes done so that our code becomes a little more clear, better defined, and consistent, so that residents and businesses that don’t have money to hire expensive land use attorneys can get clearer answers about what they can and can’t do on their land.
I ended last week on a panel with the County Executives of Frederick, Howard, and Baltimore Counties - at the Maryland Association of Chambers of Commerce Executives 75th Anniversary Conference. I do love sparring with my peers, particularly Howard County CE Calvin Ball, about who has the best county, but I also love talking to chambers. I didn’t think I would when I took office, because I’d always heard that they only care about cutting taxes and removing regulations, both of which I love doing, but only if it’s in the public interest, which is only sometimes.
What I learned after COVID, when the workforce shortage was most acute, was that chambers and their members want transportation, housing, child care and good schools. The smaller ones serve as community associations, bringing neighbors together when nobody else does. Chambers of Commerce are great allies in government, when the lines of communication are strong. So I was very happy to be talking with them about challenges and opportunities.
On Saturday, I got to practice my Spanish, in front of hundreds of Spanish speakers. They’re always impressed at first, until I run out of words that I know, and then I switch to English.
It was the Annual Hispanic Health Festival, organized by community leaders and partially funded by the county, since 2002. It brings direct health services, like vaccines, screenings, exams, vision and hearing testing, behavioral health orientation, and first aid education to families who are often uninsured and limited by language. It’s a very nonpolitical event, but it struck me that the event survived and thrived under mostly Republican county administrations. I hope that we can get back to a time when supporting our immigrant neighbors is no longer politicized.
I’ve been pretty vocal about my support for a thing that came out of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future called Community Schools. It provides some staff resources in schools with the highest concentrations of kids eligible for Free and Reduced Meals (FARM) to connect not just with the students, but also with their families and the communities where they live. It’s an old-fashioned concept that schools are community hubs, and the data in Anne Arundel has been extraordinary. Our community schools have had a jump in math proficiency in grades 3-8 from 9.6% to 16.1% and ELA proficiency from 23.2% to 33.5%, while chronic absenteeism has dropped from 33.7% to 26.3%.
I mention all of this because I got to attend the AACPS Community Schools Showcase, titled Impact In Motion: From Promise to Proof. What a team of brilliant doers we have in that program. The room was packed with them.
Right after that, I went to Annapolis High School to speak and to chat in small groups with students at their Election Fair. They had polling machines set up on the stage, organizations tabling, and the students actually voted - but nobody would tell anyone else what was on the ballots. It was a big secret, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the same stuff that just came in my mail a few days ago from the County Board of Elections.
Some students came up and asked me some very basic questions to fill out a form that was an assignment, and then walked away quickly to get to the next station. I guess they were working the system to get the grade. Others stuck around and asked me bigger questions, and responded to my questions of them. They were curious. I don’t think one group was any smarter than the other, but I know which was actually learning stuff that they’ll remember. If only we could put the curiosity ingredient into candy.
Yesterday, I did a Business Appreciation Week visit to Haas and Sons in Millersville, one of sixty that Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation organized this week for County staff to visit local businesses. This company caters to private homes who need a certified electrician to do whatever needs doing, so their staff are trained to communicate their complex work to regular people, and they have their own warehouse of parts and seven fully equipped vans operating. They’re really into educating folks about how their systems work, so we talked about getting on the agenda for community associations, especially in older communities where systems are outdated. Check them out.
And finally, I joined a huge group of Anne Arundel County Food Bank supporters in their crumbling building at Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park to launch their capital campaign to build the new Food Bank facility at another location on campus, as envisioned in the Crownsville Master Plan. This will get done with both public and private money, and be a symbol of progress for both the campus and the county, reminding all of us that taking care of one another is what we do.
Until next week…