The Capital Gazette Commentary offered by Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman in support of the Annapolis City Dock Plan is a bit astonishing and should be read by all citizens in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. In sum, Pittman explains that the City Dock Plan costs City residents nothing, the $20 million Marine Welcome Center is an affordable housing plan for boaters, naysayers writing into the newspapers are wedges, and Pittman and Mayor Gavin Buckley got lots of votes, so anything they want to do should not be questioned.
Pittman presents several questionable statements that illustrate why sensible people of good will need to be concerned about the currently proposed CDP and speak out now. The plan is full of fuzzy math on costs and betrays basic resiliency principles by building an extravagant Marine Welcome Center (MWC) directly on the water in a treacherous flood zone with multiple unnecessary functions and clear commercial purposes. Even the Co-Chair of the original City Dock Committee, Annapolis resident and civic leader Bill Kardash questions the plan, though that Committee died in the dark years ago. What happened to the goal of resiliency and a simple nice park replacing a parking lot?
Pittman says no worries, the whole plan is at “no cost,” to taxpayers which is not true. The City has issued bonds and gotten some grants but is still short on funding the entire project. City officials finally admitted the project is $92 million after attempting to say it was less. It will likely be well over $100 million. The FEMA grant process is not even completed so cannot be called a done deal yet but the real issue is the MWC and park amenities that cost far more than the $33 million FEMA funded resiliency effort, like at least $59 million more but probably even more than that wild number.
For the park amenities or the MWC there is no current budget room for maintaining these new resort like items not to mention important work that has delayed funding for many things including failing bulkheads and boardwalks on coves in Spa Creek if water access is important. Taxes will no doubt go up but Pittman who lives on a bucolic farm in Davidsonville will not be paying those taxes. His commentary fails to note the opportunity cost in not focusing on more compelling city issues but he looks forward to doing cartwheels in the 50 foot diameter multi-million dollar splash fountain with his grandchildren. That’s nice. How much money is Anne Arundel County donating, granting or giving to the plan? Pittman does not say. Downtown businesses that benefit do not seem to be contributing either.
Incredibly, Pittman says the MWC will “serve the people who arrive from all over the world by boat-many of whom live aboard because they cannot afford housing…” So, now the MWC, which looks like a yacht club and that Mayor Buckley said will have spa quality bathrooms -albeit below grade in a basement- is a modern Ellis Island? If Pittman can sell this tall tale we must all be asleep. The affluent boaters mooring in the City harbor do not need spa quality bathrooms or showers from the City but we all know that. And, Alderman Arnett gave a different and equally confusing rationale for the MWC in his recent Op-Ed explaining the city needs an office building on the water. The Harbor Master has not asked for a water’s edge building so what is the data on that alleged critical need and how is that premise reconciled with Buckley’s comments that the MWC will be City conference center, oyster bar, commercial kayak operation, and still have room for commercial enterprises. When the script elected officials are playing from is this confused and misleading, there is a big problem.
Pittman complains that anyone who disagrees or questions the CDP is afraid of change and just trying to be a wedge by writing into the newspapers. Such thought policing from a guy who trashed the smart decent folks in Hillsmere and with the West River Federation when they rightly called baloney on his incalculably foolish and cynical plan to put a huge modern office building in Quiet Waters Park, 75 feet from the water in the name of “conservation education.” Before slinking away and canceling that sketchy deal, Pittman called these heroic civic minded citizens fear mongers too but he did not have the courage to personally take their questions. Neither apparently do City officials on the City Dock Plan.
The current City Dock Plan has lost its way on sensibly addressing resiliency and giving the citizens a simple nice park in place of a parking lot. These elected officials are now running scared and saying many contradictory things to justify the grandiosity of the plan. Nothing new or innovative here, just Old Annapolis ways.
Though the City Dock Plan is presented as done deal that will brook no dissent, let’s try to make a big change and bring these elected officials back to earth. Contact your elected officials and look out for future opportunities to share your questions and concerns with neighbors and our elected representatives.
–Katie McDermott, Ward 1
