Public hearing on new Annapolis forest law

There will be a public hearing on the City Council’s proposed Forest Conservation ordinance (and a number of other important ordinances & resolutions – read on for those) tomorrow night at 7pm. I have details and recommended testimony on the Forest Conservation ordinance below.

Report detailing violations delivered to City Council

When I testified to the City Council last week, I promised them that I would submit a report that details the violations I mentioned in my testimony. Here is that document for public use. I hope it helps to brings some change in the City, so they stop violating public transparency and stop approving projects that violate the Forest Conservation Act. It’s not too late to bring these projects into compliance with the law and ensure our priority forests are adequately protected.

The report has an executive summary with a number of recommendations to the Council, as well as a detailed analysis of how the City and developments have not followed the law. Fixing these issues is in everyone’s interest.

You can download the document with this link: CityFCAviolations.pdf

Next steps

Many of you have asked about next steps and what you can do to help bring change to Annapolis or to support me; here are a few things. I told the council that I would provide them with a report detailing the violations I’m alleging the City committed, as well as the individual project violations. I am aiming to submit that to the Council next week. I believe the City Council’s Environmental Matters Committee will be investigating the violations as well (some information on that below).

1.) Contact your alderman. Be sure to copy the Mayor (mayor@annapolis.gov), City manager (tcandrews@annapolis.gov), and City Attorney (mgleahy@annapolis.gov).

2.) Write a letter to the newspaper (capletts@capgaznews.com).

3.) Contact the Department of Natural Resources:

Marian Honeczy (head of the urban forestry program)
Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Tawes State Office Building E-1
580 Taylor Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401
410-260-8511.
E-Mail: MHoneczy@dnr.state.md.us

4.) Support Ordinance O-32-14, which would go a long way to fixing the violations faced by the City. It is being sponsored by  Alderman Jared Littman, Alderman Ross Arnett, and Mayor Pantelides. At some point I’ll post more details about this legislation, pros and cons.

5.) Offer supporting testimony to the City Council at their February 9th meeting.

6.) The Environmental Matters Committee is holding a meeting on this topic on February 12th. It doesn’t sound like the public will be able to testify, but these are usually televised and otherwise open to the public.