On Monday night, January 13, Mayor Buckley will submit to the City Council, Resolution R-3-25, regarding the City Dock Resiliency Plan. That sounds innocuous, except, we hear, Mayor Buckley will ask the Council for a rarely-used parliamentary tactic: “suspend the rules”, which requires unanimous consent of the council, so they can vote that night. Why the urgency? Because at 9 am Wednesday, January 15, the City will be in Circuit Court for the outcome of the “John Doe” Request for Judicial Review regarding the City’s several violations of procedure during 2024 Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) hearings.
The Resolution is being fast-tracked by the Mayor in a desperate attempt to demonstrate to the Court that the Council is in “full-support” of the need for the resiliency efforts at City Dock. We assume they are … as are most residents and business owners who have suffered through flooding in downtown Annapolis for decades. The theory is a judge will be swayed by the politics of the dispute. But politicizing the judicial process is bad politics and poor governance.
The Mayor continues to complain about people who are “trying to block the City Dock resiliency effort”. Where he gets this notion from is anyone’s guess: I don’t know of one person – Not One! – who doesn’t support a robust, effective resiliency project beginning at the foot of Prince George Street, at the USNA Gate Zero, and wrapping around “Ego Alley” to a terminus beyond the Waterfront Hotel at Compromise Street. Yet, citizen concerns have been ignored and scorned…