If you missed the NAC sponsored open house on August 19, you can read the questions from the NACs and my answers here:
QUESTION:
What do you propose to do to keep businesses in Frederick, not only in Downtown Frederick but also along the Golden Mile and East Street Corridors? What is your vision for Frederick revitalization for the next four years?
ANSWER:
1. Support partnerships/creation of more job incubators like Frederick Innovative Technology Center Inc. (FITCI)
2. Support relationships with groups like Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Frederick Partnership.
3. Collaborate with local/state governments to grow entrepreneurship.
4. Support/expand Department of Economic Development.
5. Obtain grants that provide small businesses support like training and mentoring.
Our revitalization efforts should embrace preservation, renewal, and repurposing of existing development, as well as designing and building new mixed-use neighborhoods. This means using Smart Growth principles:
- Create a variety of housing options
- Build walkable neighborhoods
- Promote stakeholder collaboration
- Build distinctive with a strong “sense of place”
- Make fair and cost effective development decisions
- Mix commercial and residential land uses
- Preserve green spaces and areas of natural beauty/environmental importance
- Provide options for transportation
- Utilize existing infrastructure and strengthen existing communities
- Maximize on compact building design.
Growth using Small Area Plans that incorporate mixed uses of shops, offices, restaurants, and green space will compliment and enhance the unique “sense of place” that makes Frederick so desirable. The Route 40 corridor, East Street Gateway, and other areas are ripe for this type of walkable, sustainable development that uses existing infrastructure.
QUESTION:
Increased crime, gang/drug activity, loitering, unruly and/or unsupervised gatherings are safety concerns to residents in all of Frederick’s neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods have been particularly hard hit (e.g., Hillcrest, Amber Meadows, North Market Street). How do you propose to address these issues given severe budget constraints?
ANSWER:
The potential for increased gang activity is our most urgent and challenging crime issue. Frederick has been able to keep major infiltrations from surrounding cities at bay, but we must continue to use strategies in collaboration with other jurisdictions to effectively combat gang related crimes. Appropriate funding for our police department is not optional. It is one of government’s most critical missions, and must take a front seat at the budget table. I will vehemently support our public safety initiatives. I will depend on our law enforcement leadership to implement strategies such as:
1. Expanding access to and use of technology such as nationwide databases that track gang activity;
2. Providing adequate staffing so manpower resources can be allocated most effectively;
3. Acquiring enhanced training for officers to maximize use of gang intelligence and dissemination of information;
4. Encouraging participation in public education programs to raise awareness, and provide instruction on recognizing gang activity.
QUESTION:
What is your vision for the future of the Neighborhood Advisory Councils? Should they be strengthened? Disbanded? Reorganized? Would you support an Aldermanic NAC rotation schedule so that the Aldermen stay in touch with the communities?
ANSWER:
We must actively facilitate an environment where government works in partnership with residents. The Neighborhood Advisory Councils (NACs) should be more fully utilized as a conduit for information exchange. Elected officials must support them, and efforts made to re-energize them. Assigning an Alderman as liaison to the NACs will provide accountability/validity to the NAC mission.
Attendance at occasional NAC meetings by all the Aldermen and the Mayor, as part of their regular job duties, is not optional in my opinion. In addition, reinstituting a city education program such as “Frederick 101″ can provide citizens with an overview of the city’s departments; what they do, how they collaborate on projects, and how a citizen can be involved in decisions. Informed citizens working together with government make us all more effective.
QUESTION:
Many residents believe overcrowding, vacant and derelict properties, commercial vehicles in residential neighborhoods, etc., are chipping away at the quality of life in their neighborhoods and are lowering property values. How do you propose to tackle these issues? What role, if any, would code enforcement and rental licensing play?
ANSWER:
In a dual role as the Special Vehicle Coordinator for the Frederick Police Department and an appointed NAC Coordinator, I wrote a draft ordinance that deals with parking of oversized vehicles, trailers, etc. on city streets. It also sets restrictions for parking on yards. It was presented and discussed at a Mayor and Board workshop. After a revision with further input from Code Enforcement and the Frederick Police Department, it was resubmitted and discussed again at a second workshop. This administration has been unable to come to agreement on the restrictions, and so the proposal has yet to be approved. I plan to bring that legislation forward as soon as practical.
The city has adopted the International Property Management Code as the governing ordinances for dealing with property livability, including inhabitant space and amenity requirements. Our Code Enforcement (CE) staff is responsible for enforcing those laws. We should explore allocating our CE officers’ hours across days of the week, and hours in the day. Many issues occur during non-working hours, and a Monday-Friday dayshift crew cannot address that effectively. I support some form of rental registration/licensing to implement an effective, legally defensible tool for inspection and enforcement, which we currently lack.
QUESTION:
Recognizing the necessity of balancing growth with adequate infrastructure, and also the anticipated pressures to move forward on development projects as the economy recovers, will you support tools such as the APFO to ensure that neighborhood concerns about appropriate infrastructure (schools, water, traffic, etc) are considered in the decision-making process?
ANSWER:
The Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) is law, and therefore its requirements are not optional. I am a firm believer in developing and following processes, and holding everyone accountable to the laws equally. I would like to explore adding a provision to the APFO requiring developers to provide funding/support for adequate public safety resources like police and code enforcement.
New development is crucial to growing our tax base. I would like to see this growth focus on infill development and revitalization of existing properties. We can build our tax base and revenue, and accommodate many new development projects through commercial growth within our existing borders. I support Smart Growth that incorporates mixed uses of shops, offices, restaurants, and green space; walkable, sustainable developments that use existing infrastructure. Future annexations will also demand cost/benefit analysis and justification, as well as the requirement that the developers pay for new infrastructure.
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