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Greetings from the Cambridge Association of Neighborhoods (CAN)

Cambridge City Council will be considering and/or acting upon several issues during its meeting this week (on Monday, May 13, at 6:00 pm in the Council Chambers at 305 Gay Street) that have been of great interest to CAN members. These include:
• The Property Tax Increase for FY2020
• The FY2020 City Budget
• The Rezoning of the Mill Street School Property

Although CAN has not taken a formal position on these issues, we strongly encourage CAN members to attend the upcoming City Council meeting and make their views known to the Council. Discussion at the May 9 CAN meeting focused on the following, which you may want to consider in framing your comments to the Council.

• Overall, the proposed property tax increase appears to be necessary, but —

o How can the Council vote on a tax increase when there is no approved budget or even a clearly articulated budget proposal?
o One significant cost driver appears to be the increase in insurance for City employees: Were bids solicited to obtain better insurance rates?

• The budget process this year has been very confusing for many citizens and the format this year is very different from the format used last year.

o Why was the approach changed?
o The current budget worksheet format, with no explanatory narrative, obscures what funds are actually to be used for (e.g., specific goals and outcomes, employee headcounts for each department).
o The budget worksheet approach, with no explanatory narrative, fails to communicate any vision for the future
o There are no ongoing, out-year budget projections for reasonably anticipated needs, such as capital expenditures, IT updates, etc.
o Why are we paying for health insurance for City Council members (at a cost of $21,754) when there is no Charter provision for this benefit?

• The proposed rezoning of the Mill Street School property appears to be opposed by many Mill Street and Choptank Avenue residents, who believe that (a) the proposed density is too high, and (b) the school should be demolished and replaced with single family houses.

o Has the Council fully considered these alternate views?
o Perhaps the Council vote should be delayed until a poll can be conducted to determine whether Cambridge residents prefer the school be demolished or repurposed (“CAN” or “Operation: Destination Cambridge” could do this).

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• Agenda: http://www.choosecambridge.com/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_05132019-607

• Ordinance 1148 to establish the Annual Tax Levy for Real Property for the coming fiscal year:
https://www.choosecambridge.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=94

• Ordinance 1150 to establish the City Budget for the coming fiscal year
FY2020 Budget Worksheets: https://www.choosecambridge.com/DocumentCenter/View/1734/FY-2020-Budget-Worksheet?bidId
FY 2019 Proposed Budget: https://www.choosecambridge.com/DocumentCenter/View/1542/Proposed-2019-Budget1?bidId

• Ordinances 1143 & 1144 to establish an NC3 Overlay District and rezone the property at 201 Mill St:
https://www.choosecambridge.com/DocumentCenter/View/1713/Ordinance-No-1143—NC-3-Overlay-District-Final

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TWO MEETINGS THIS THURSDAY – MAY 9th

First, City Council meets at 5:00 at 305 Gay Street
Proposed Property Tax Hike

Second, CAN meets at 7:00 at 516 Race Street
Proposed Tax Hike, City Budget, and Proposed Charter Change

Keep up with developments and let your voice be heard!

* * * * * * * *
Dear CAN Members —

Cambridge is facing some “interesting” issues in the coming weeks, and the CAN Board would like to get your input about them.

The first issue concerns the City budget, which is facing some formidable challenges.

• There have been very large increases in workers’ compensation costs for job-related injuries, and overall employee healthcare costs are also rising significantly.
• There is also a great need to raise police officers’ salaries, which are as much as $16,000 below what other Eastern shore communities are paying. As a result, Cambridge is spending large sums of money to train new police officers, only to have them move at the earliest opportunity to neighboring towns and cities where the pay is higher and the workload is lighter.
• Cambridge also needs to purchase a new ladder truck for our volunteer Fire Department, which the City has been postponing for years.

The City’s probably response will be to (a) cut the budget dramatically wherever possible, and (b) increase property taxes by ten cents, which would result in roughly a 12% increase.

A second issue is a proposal by Commissioners Foster, Sydnor, and Cannon to change the City Charter as it pertains to the City Manager’s personnel authority. The proposal would give the City Council much greater involvement in decision making in personnel matters. There are a lot of factors to be considered relative to this proposal, and we should all be well aware of these factors and their consequences before voting on the City Charter changes that his proposal would require.

So there’s a lot going on and a lot to discuss.

Please come join us at our meeting on Thursday evening, May 9th, at 7:00 pm in the WHCP meeting room, 516 Race St.

Chuck McFadden,
President, Cambridge Association of Neighborhoods (CAN)

I thank you CAN for your continued support of the men and women of the Cambridge Police Department. The PowerPoint Presentation is attached.

Mark K. Lewis, NA 233
Chief of Police
Cambridge Police Department
8 Washington Street
Cambridge, Maryland 21613
410-228-3333 Dept.
410-901-8444 Office
410-330-8294 Cell
mlewis@cambridgepd.org

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Please see Odie Wheeler’s email below along with the attachment for more information about the High Street repairs.

Sent: Fri, Apr 12, 2019 4:29 pm

Afternoon everyone;

First and foremost I would like to thank everyone for their understanding and patience’s as we have worked towards completion of the High St. rehabilitation project. The contractor has been very good in keeping at least one lane of traffic open during the day, and the entire street open in the evening and weekends. They have worked diligently to accomplish this and I think their effort has proven successful as we have not received any complaints, and to the best of my knowledge neither has City Hall and/or Council.

On Monday the brick layers will begin to lay the street pavers, which is going shut down the west side of High St. from Popular up to and including the west side of the Church St./High St. intersection, and will remain closed 24 hrs.

In consideration of this DPW and the contractor has been working to explore what would work best in trying to keep traffic flowing most effectively while the bricks are being laid.

Please see the map below indicating what traffic changes will take place beginning Monday morning.

The contractor has developed a signage package to assist directing motorist around the area. Brandon has sent this information and map to business owners earlier today, posted it on the City webpage as a traffic alert and news item which both get sent to individuals that have opted to receive those alerts, and he’s posted it on Facebook and Twitter.

At this time we are not certain how long it will take to install the pavers on this side of High St., but anticipate it to be three or more weeks. Once they have had a couple of days so we can gauge the progress, we should be able to calculate an approx. time line, as we all know weather will play a big factor in this as well.

If you have any groups, organizations etc. that you email public announcements please don’t hesitate to forward this as well.

Thank you and hope you have a great weekend.

Odie

Listen to the WHCP Cambridge Community Radio segment on CAN’s goals and activities: https://soundcloud.com/whcp-radio/sets/can-cambridge-association-of-neighborhoods-1