Dear CAN Members (and Potential 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 probable response will be to (a) cut the budget dramatically, 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 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, CAN