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I wasn’t enthusiastic when I showed up Saturday morning for the Annapolis Pride Parade. It was raining, and the forecast was rain all day.
But my co-workers showed up, a light but enthusiastic crowd cheered us down West Street, and the festival area was filling quickly as the morning passed.
I’m a big fan of the people who organize the event, Jake and Val, Joe and Jeremy before them, and the whole Annapolis Pride team. The message from the stage was inspiring, especially from the keynote speaker, Ryan Cassata. He described what it was like to be on Larry King Live as a 16 year old transgender boy in 2009, and how he used the platform to connect with isolated kids like himself. It wasn’t just about being transgender. It was about finding connection in the world as a human being, and I’m glad I was there to hear the story.
This week on my tour of “lasts” was my quarterly meeting with Growth Action Network, a coalition of community associations focused on management of the county’s growth. We reviewed eight years of progress and work not yet done, including some areas where we’ve never agreed. But I thanked them for the essential role that they have played in an area of policy historically dominated by real estate developers.
Transportation infrastructure - roads, trails, sidewalks, and public transit - have been at the forefront of the GAN agenda, so being grilled on that topic early on Monday prepared me well to transfer the energy upwards to the state later in the day at the Maryland Department of Transportation Annual Consolidated Transportation Plan Roadshow. It’s where the MDOT leadership briefs me and the County Council on funded and studied projects in our county, and we and our residents make the case for our needs.
It’s really easy to focus on how long it takes to get these projects built, and I did in my comments, but when you break down the work and the steps required by law before and during construction, especially where the federal government is engaged (think Key Bridge rebuild), it’s extraordinary that talented people stick with it and get the work done. The bottom line is that, because of our decision to partially fund our top priority state projects, they have moved forward ahead of those in other counties - but don’t tell the other counties. Traffic on Route 3, Route 2, 97, 214, 665, and 198 will improve when the projects are completed, hopefully by the end of this decade.
I attended my last Fire Academy Graduation on Tuesday night, for a class of 33 recruits who’ve been training since January. My message at these is always to thank the graduates for choosing the career and choosing our county to serve, but it’s also to their families, assuring them that we care about their loved ones.
In this case, it was important to tell them just how much we’ve invested in recent years to make the Anne Arundel County Fire Department a top tier operation, and when I looked up the data, I found the kind of big, round numbers that make for big applause lines.
Since I took office eight years ago, we have grown from 853 to 953 firefighter positions, including the 26 that we added in this year’s budget. That’s exactly 100 new firefighters protecting and serving our residents. But the money we invested also included higher pay and better equipment. That’s why our county general funds directed to the Fire Department grew from $113 million to $227 million. We literally doubled the investment. It’s almost embarrassing, but it’s not, because it was needed.
The graduation was at Maryland Hall, and on the way out, I popped into the Earl Gallery to see what was on display. It was two rooms full of black and white photos, each of a single person with a short essay below it. The exhibit was titled Roots and Wings, and each piece was done by a student at New Village Academy, the new “High School Done Differently” at Annapolis Mall.
As a first project, the students were asked to find a person - relative or otherwise - whose life had made an impact on theirs, to do a portrait, and to write about them. Reading the essays turned on a lightbulb in my head. This project was about identity, about connecting with something that is both who we are and who we want to be. It told me that this is the spark where we all start when we finally discover it. I hope that the students behind the work are finding that spark and carefully growing it into a fire.
But what if those students never learned to use the tools that our ancestors created for us to communicate with one another? What if those students never learned how to read and write well enough to participate fully in the world where they live? Will they have the air that it takes to turn a spark to fire?
Three of my favorite people came to my office this week to interview me on that topic for a newsletter for a locally grown organization called Start the Adventure in Reading (STAIR) on its 20th anniversary. Their 200 volunteers work one-on-one with first and second graders in 17 schools to help them catch up on reading and writing. They asked probing questions about my history, about how it felt to fall behind in second grade, to repeat that grade and finally catch up, and how I devoured every horse book in the library, and then every book about dogs.
My interviewers became interviewees when I peppered them with questions about the program. Many of the STAIR volunteers are retired, they said. They are seniors who find purpose in the work, and the connection between young children and elderly folks is instantaneous and powerful. Trust comes easily. Learning follows.
We all feel that deeply human drive to serve our community. I’ll be looking for my own opportunities when I’m done as County Executive, and I hope that you are looking for yours. STAIR can put you to work whenever you’re ready. Check them out here.
Until next week…