‘Safe streets’ or unsafe for landlords?

I guess they are going to keep trying until they get it right.

Salisbury City Council members Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen are hosting their third public meeting to solicit public comment on the ‘Safe Streets’ initiative at the Government Office Building in downtown Salisbury tomorrow evening at 6:30 p.m. Despite two packed previous hearings, the legislation is stalled in Salisbury City Council.

In a press release, Campbell and Cohen bill this Neighborhood Legislative Package as a public safety initiative:

“Just today, I discussed the “Three Strikes, You’re Out” proposal with a city resident and what reducing the high-repeat call load from certain properties can mean for making better use of our police resources,” said Cohen.  “It’s astounding when you see statistics like 59 properties in just one neighborhood generating 1,800 calls for service to police in three years.”

Campbell said that the previous two meetings, both with overflow attendance, yielded useful feedback on possible changes to the legislation.  “This legislation could provide substantial benefit to the public and contribute to the overall Safe Streets initiative already under way, thanks to our law enforcement agencies in partnership with the community,” Campbell explained.

In reading the seven portions of the proposed legislation, I fail to see how many of the new laws will reduce crime. It seems like much of the legislation instead is a broadbased effort to both wipe out many of what the city considers ‘nonconforming uses’ which have been around for years or even decades and in the process make a little bit more money in licensing fees and fines from landlords.

There’s no question there are landlords who don’t do their due diligence, instead succumbing to the allure of the almighty buck. Yet they are in the minority, and the proposed laws are akin to taking a sledgehammer to an ant hill. Those who live in houses adapted decades ago or who bought a property intending to become an entrepreneur and landlord may find themselves facing the prospect of extensive and expensive repairs if they can’t convince a judge that the use predates an arbitrary deadline. Obviously they will be stuck with a property which has lost its appeal and value to prospective buyers and face financial ruin.

Like it or not, Salisbury will be a rental haven for years to come due to a combination of a growing university where demand for housing outstrips on-campus availability and a crashing housing market which forces former homeowners to become renters. Soon the largest group of new homeowners may be financial institutions, and certainly they’re not going to be interested in following these regulations – instead, houses may sit empty and become tempting targets for crime. That defeats the purpose of the bill!

This bill, which is strongly backed by Mayor Jim Ireton, can’t move forward because Council President Louise Smith won’t put it on the Council’s legislative agenda for a vote. Likely this is because the bill as written has little chance of passage – Smith and fellow City Council members Gary Comegys and Shanie Shields seem to be immovably against the bill. With just one City Council meeting remaining on the docket this year, all are marking time until bill co-sponsor Terry Cohen (along with Smith and Comegys) have their seats come up for election next spring. After the holidays, the city’s campaign season will begin in earnest as the filing deadline is January 18.

While Cohen and Campbell may be trying a TEA Party-style tactic by holding frequent public meetings to denounce the lack of progress, the political reality is that this change isn’t desired by a large percentage of Salisbury residents. They want real, tangible answers for crime, and picking on landlords won’t make a difference in the perception that Salisbury is a drug and gang haven. It’s no wonder people flee to the county the first chance they get.

Setting the table

I wanted to make sure I had a “serious” article today before I did FNV (which should be a killer edition since it’s the 50th episode and will be all music.)

We all know that 2012 is a Presidential year, and the obvious questions become who will be the Republican standardbearer and whether he or she will face Barack Obama or some insurgent challenger. (Bonus question is whether Barack Obama claims, “I’ll whip her ass.”)

But there will be other races on our local ballot to pay attention to.

First off, there is a municipal election in Salisbury coming up next spring that will decide whether Mayor Jim Ireton gets more friends or foes on City Council. Considering the blogosphere’s interest in that race (as longtime readers may recall, it was a rare period of agreement among the key bloggers of the time that the best ticket was Louise Smith, Terry Cohen, and Tim Spies – we got two of the three but Gary Comegys knocked off Spies) I would imagine that the slightly revised and expanded list of blogging stars will have its own set of favorites. I’m already aware of one previous candidate who’s challenging for sure and rumor has it another may join those ranks.

If something interesting develops on the Eastern Shore of Virginia where state elections will be held I certainly will mention that too. Who knows, my friend Melody Scalley might decide to try again for state office.

Once we get through that, it will be a long slog to the Presidential election two years hence; however, that monotony will be broken up by our state’s primary election early in 2012. I don’t think it will be quite as early as it was in 2008, but a best guess is that Maryland may again pair up with other states in the region to try and create a compelling primary – if only for the sake of making it difficult for a challenge to be put forth to Barack Obama and/or diminish the TEA Party influence on the GOP side.

But an early primary also creates other headaches – for example, it certainly means that redistricting will have to be finished in this year’s General Assembly session and any court battles over it expedited. That probably hurts Republican chances to some extent, although it’s likely they’ll get a body blow in the first place because Democrats will be drawing whatever lines they can cook to their advantage. (It wouldn’t surprise me now to see Andy Harris lose some or all of the lower Eastern Shore and the First District moved deep into Baltimore City. They will see to it he’s a one-termer like Frank Kratovil was, unless the GOP finds some stones and a great legal team.)

It also hurts terribly GOP chances of finding a well-known challenger to Senator Ben Cardin; certainly a TEA Party member would find himself underfunded in the primary unless he or she starts yesterday. The little upside is that the one-on-one campaigning period would be much more lengthy and if Republicans can avoid a Wayne Gilchrest 2008 situation they could get some traction against the first-term Senator but career politician.

So it’s not like political blogging will go away, but this interregnum between elections and over the holidays will give me a chance to look at some national issues and do a little bit of fun stuff, too. In other words, don’t look for the candidate links to return anytime too soon but return they will when the time comes. I’m holding off on the ‘Campaign 2012’ category for a little while as well. 

As the song goes, there ain’t no rest for the wicked.

Something to watch for

It doesn’t seen possible, but shortly after the holidays we will once again be subjected to what I call the “90 Days of Terror,” better known to most as the Maryland General Assembly session. While Governor O’Malley pledged the budget would be “balanced without tax increases” that doesn’t mean he won’t be hunting for new sources of revenue. And even if he doesn’t, municipalities which have felt the pain for the last few years won’t be spared from the budget axe.

That’s where this comes in.

You’ll notice that O’Malley is being cagey. Perhaps he won’t increase taxes, but I’m sure he’d quickly sign this enabling legislation. The Maryland Municipal League (MML) was also making sure they had the votes rounded up.

This didn’t come up in any forum I attended but I’m sure the MML is buttonholing election survivors to see if this is doable.

So cities and towns are crying poverty. But what such enabling legislation would do is place those who live in municipalities in situations where they are quite possibly triple-taxed by the state, county, and city. Of course, eventually that drives people and businesses out of the cities and into unincorporated areas of counties.

Why is this important here in the Salisbury area? Because our City Council approved a Resolution over the summer expressing its support. Here is Resolution No. 1977.

It was approved on a 3-0 vote: Cohen, Shields, and Smith in favor. Campbell and Comegys did not vote.

While this resolution was approved a few months back, there’s little possibility of the actual legislation being enacted by the Maryland General Assembly before the next City Council election next spring. Therefore, this Resolution can and should signal the willingness of those who approved it to raise taxes on Salisbury residents who are already being slammed with several consecutive years of property tax and water/sewer rate increases.

Of course, the MML states the case of cities and towns who are scrambling to make their budgets stretch out through the fiscal year. But this resolution received little attention in the midst of a state election campaign and it may belie the rhetoric of those who would otherwise claim to be taxpayer-friendly budget hawks.

In 2011, the seats of Terry Cohen and Louise Smith will be up (along with Gary Comegys’ seat), and chances are both will seek re-election (Shanie Shields is in office until 2013.) Their willingness to support the mechanism for a tax increase should be a campaign issue and a legitimate question to be asked of others seeking those City Council posts.

Can the Grinch steal a Salisbury City Council seat?

Well, this post (since taken down) oughta stir up some interest and get the local blogosphere going. Jonathan Taylor is best known as the host of a website which points out the faults and foibles of another local political gadfly, Joe Albero. (In Taylor’s defense he has toned down the Albero criticism somewhat in recent months – still, they don’t like each other.)

Needless to say any discussion of local Salisbury politics will sit on the back burner until the 2010 election cycle is completed in November, but Taylor would enter the District 2 field at a time when three of five City Council seats are up. With one incumbent battling cancer, the presumption would be that at least one seat of the three at stake next year would be freed up.

The personality conflicts are inevitable because Salisbury politics seems to be full of them. The last three years have been a story of 3-2 votes, with Debbie Campbell (re-elected in 2009) and Terry Cohen (up in 2011) almost always voting as the minority. One would presume the acrimony between Taylor, Cohen, and Campbell (as an extension of Jon’s dislike of C+C ally Albero) would make City Council meetings quite interesting – but would anything get done?

Of course, there’s still the filing and actual campaign to go through, but Taylor could add a little pizzazz to an offyear municipal election and provide a reality check for the power of blogs to influence the political process.