By Steuart Pittman
Welcome to what would normally be a State of the County address, in the County Council Chambers before a live audience.
Instead I am delivering this address to a camera, from the Office of Emergency Management in Glen Burnie and airing it as our regular Tuesday Night with the County Executive.
2020 has challenged us. It has challenged our physical health, our mental health, and our economic health. It’s challenged families, communities, businesses, schools, and every department of local government.
Our institutions have been challenged at every level, as has the very legitimacy of our democracy.
To enter 2021 with a sense of apprehension, with great concern about our future, is understandable, regardless of your political affiliation.
I, however, am confident. I see common purpose, commitment, and creativity, from the Patuxent River to the Chesapeake Bay, and from Brooklyn Park to Wayson’s Corner.
I see it in our community leaders and our department heads, in our faith leaders and my executive staff, and most importantly I see it in the people who work in our grocery stores, teach in our schools, heal in our hospitals, and collectively make up the foundation of our economy and our community. We are resilient.
----------------
COVID-19 is real. It is killing well over 2,000 Americans every single day, and the death rate is growing. Our hospitals cannot accommodate the surge of COVID patients predicted by Johns Hopkins modeling in the coming weeks while also providing the health care services that our residents depend on.
As the son of a World War II United States Marine and Assistant Secretary of Defense, I can promise you that I will do everything in my power, regardless of political consequence, to save the lives of Anne Arundel County residents, regardless of their age, their race, or their economic status, as long as I remain in this office. We are human beings, and we value life.
It is for that reason that last week my administration acted upon the Governor’s directive to take whatever local actions are needed to slow the spread of this virus.
----------------------
COVID-19, and our shared failure as a nation, a state, and a county to stop its spread, have created an economic recession that is different from those of the past. Wealthy Americans, and the stock market that grows their assets, have done well this year.
It’s the low wage workers who are struggling, the third of our county that, according to United Way of Central Maryland, cannot afford the basic necessities of life.
But this is not about numbers. It’s about people. About families. About moms, and dads, and kids.
That’s why the public servants of Anne Arundel County stepped up. Even as county offices were closing, and adjustments were underway to working at home amidst grumpy spouses and school-deprived children, our people got to work, patching the holes in our safety net so that others could be fed, housed, and protected from financial ruin.
We created the state’s first eviction prevention and counseling program. We worked with churches, nonprofits, and the Anne Arundel County Food Bank to create a massive food distribution system that is accessible through interactive online maps and the now-famous phone line - 410-222-FOOD.
We opened a temporary homeless shelter with wraparound services in partnership with a non-profit organization and a struggling motel.
And more recently, we created the water bill assistance program, the debit card assistance, the COVID care coordination program, and the COVID grief counseling program.
On the economic front, I said we would Build Back Better, and we will.
We started with the $5 million Customer and Employee Protection grant program. Then came the $3 million Child Care Provider grant program, the $1 million artists program, the $1 million nonprofits grant program, and most recently the $10 million Restaurant and Food Service program.
Our Maryland Senators, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, had to fight hard for the 101 million in CARES Act dollars that funded these programs, against Senate leadership that opposed direct assistance to local governments. So, on behalf of a grateful county, I thank them.
I also thank our teams in budget, finance, purchasing, and law for working with my staff to invest these dollars quickly, responsibly, and in a transparent manner despite the bureaucratic obstacles that so often interfere with effective crisis management.
One year from now, thanks to the current planning underway by our Health Department, enough of our residents will be vaccinated that this pandemic will largely be over.
Our residents will then ask a very legitimate question. Has this administration simply managed a crisis, or has it fulfilled its promise of restoring trust in local government through community engagement, transparency, data-driven management, and a good return on the investment of tax dollars?
We will not blame the pandemic for any shortcomings. Instead, we will acknowledge that the pandemic created the challenges that made us think outside the box, focus on the immediate needs of our residents, utilize technology to create efficiencies in government operations, remove bureaucratic red tape that slowed service delivery, and most importantly, remember as a community that we are connected. We are connected in our health and in our values.
-----------------
Within the Department of Health, we are not waiting for COVID’s defeat before confronting longstanding public health challenges. It was during the pandemic that we stood up our Office of Health Equity and Racial Justice, convened our interagency Gun Violence Intervention Team, recreated our Opioid Intervention Team, and re-launched the Healthy Anne Arundel coalition, making us a national leader among counties in strategies to address the social determinants of health. We are eager to dig deeper into this work.
Our Mental Health Agency began the year knowing that the state funding for its crisis response system was drying up, as demand for services was increasing. I assured the teams that under no circumstances would our administration allow their staffing or their services to be cut, and despite pandemic-driven reductions in county revenue projections, the responsible budgeting of the previous year allowed us to fund their essential work, the work that earned them the title of 2020 Crisis Intervention Team of the Year by Crisis Intervention Team International. Our crisis response system will be the foundation of expanded mental health services in the coming years.
It’s hard to separate the work of our other human service agencies from the pandemic response, which I’ve already discussed. But the programs implemented this year by Department of Social Services, Workforce Development, Anne Arundel Community Development Services, our Housing Authority, Aging and Disabilities, and our Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families - the way that they have thought outside the box, engaged with one another, and focused with urgency and passion on the needs of the people they serve - while coordinating their work with the magnificent nonprofit organizations, churches and big-hearted volunteers who make up our diverse and caring communities - all of this creativity and service delivery has strengthened them, elevated them, and prepared them and us for our future challenges.
-------------
Policing - Law Enforcement - that fundamental responsibility of government, to protect and serve its people. For the public servants who are among us and amidst our residents 24 hours a day, seven days a week, what a year it’s been.
We have a good police department, a very good police department made up of men and women who chose to join a highly disciplined institution that requires every resident to be treated with respect, and that the laws passed by politicians be enforced, whether they agree with them or not. Like every department in county government, we must employ transparency, community engagement, training, and high standards. We must do these things to make us better.
We welcome Chief Amal Awad back to our county, and I personally look forward to working with her on creating our own body-worn camera program, our own community review board, and the best officer training anywhere.
But just as importantly, I anticipate collaboration between our police department and our social service agencies, health department, and school system to confront the social determinants of crime, educational outcomes, and health.
Another great pillar of public safety is our Fire Department. Whether it’s on the water, at the side of the road, or at home when symptoms of COVID require immediate hospitalization, the 911 call goes to the nearest station and a team of trained rescuers arrives.
That is why it’s unacceptable to fall short of the standards set by the Commission on Fire Accreditation for emergency call staffing, and that’s why Chief Wolford made an airtight fiscal and moral case for a full commitment of county resources to meet our obligations under the federal SAFER grant, guaranteeing that we deliver on the additional fire and rescue personnel that will bring our department to the service levels that our residents deserve in their moments of need.
Our first responders deliver for us, and we are committed to delivering for them.
----------------
We demonstrated clearly this year that the days of land use decision-making being driven by political contributions are over. Subdivision applications are granted or denied based on the consistent application of county law, and to the shock of some land speculators and developers, sometimes the answer is no.
Green notes and blue notes are now posted online, so that communities and developers understand how our land use departments will review applications and interpret the law, and pre-submittal community meetings are now conducted virtually, greatly expanding and recording community participation.
We are days away from the end of a stalemate with State Highways over traffic congestion and safety issues on Route 2 and Route 3. Our new fund for Permanent Public Improvements was the encouragement needed to finally get an agreement negotiated for a joint project to add lanes and signaling that will move cars at failing intersections.
We have strengthened erosion and sediment control standards, acquired open space for public use, improved recreation facilities in underserved communities, and invested in roads, sidewalks, trails, schools, libraries, stormwater management, and public safety infrastructure. And there is more to come.
But the big land use news of 2020 is the General Development Plan. Our long-range planners have set a new standard for community engagement through interactive mapping and the user-friendly Plan2040AtHome site, generating thousands of public comments on this critical work.
We will have tough conversations ahead of us, about impact fees, real estate transfer taxes, adequate public facilities, utilization of available school capacity, zoning, and housing affordability. What I can promise as we move forward is that all stakeholders will have a voice and that data will drive policy.
----------------
I want to talk about money. Budget season will begin in January, when each department of county government makes a case for the resources it needs to improve delivery of services to county residents. I will continue my administration’s tradition of going beyond the two legally required budget town halls, and do seven, one in each council district, in partnership with each of our County Council representatives. We are already working on using the tools of Zoom to make these sessions more accessible, educational, and interactive than they were (in person) last year.
It’s your money, and you have every right to tell me directly how you want it spent. I hope you’ll participate in our budget process.
----------
We are governing in an era where the institutions of government at every level are under public scrutiny. And that’s a good thing. Every government program must be justified. It must have a purpose, and it must deliver.
That’s why possibly our most important accomplishment this year is a little-known thing called Open Arundel, the new web site created by Arundel Stat.
We now have two brilliant statisticians who have created a public-facing tool that monitors the goals and the progress of each county department. It’s constantly updated, as new initiatives are added and metrics are reported.
Arundel Stat also operates as a data strike team. When we need numbers, they find them, because when we need to make difficult decisions, we need numbers.
There are many more triumphs and challenges that I want to share with you, but we can save them for other Tuesday nights, when I’m joined each week by county employees and community leaders for in-depth discussions of our work.
---------------
I will not, however, leave you tonight without imploring you, and even begging you, to look at the long view, to look back at our history and forward to our future, and to note that we are much more alike than we are different, but that we have in this county a history, a shameful history of economic exploitation designed to grow wealth among the few, upheld by government policies that were established by the beneficiaries of that system, that system of slavery followed by Jim Crow, followed by mass incarceration, followed by trickle down economic policy.
It’s not just Black folks who want opportunity, peace, and prosperity in this county. It’s also white folks, immigrant folks, rich folks, poor folks, and a whole lot of folks who are so fed up with politics that they don’t want to participate.
That’s why we changed our county slogan to The Best Place - For All.
That’s why we held a very important Hate Bias Forum back in February, and why (we) county staff are receiving training from the Racial Equity Institute, and why we will implement the recommendations of our new Interagency Diversity Council, and why I have brought to the County Council a bill to create a new executive-level position to coordinate this work across county government and in coordination with community leaders.
It’s also why county government has accepted responsibility for past failures to close the achievement gap in education outcomes. It’s an opportunity gap, driven by the social determinants of those outcomes that must be confronted not just by our schools, but by all of government and all of our residents.
Imagine a future in which all kids entered kindergarten ready to learn, from families in which parents earn livable wages, and for whom child care, decent housing, health care, and quality food are the norm.
This may sound like a dream, but ask a teacher how it would impact the classroom. It would change everything, for everyone.
We can’t afford to be divided anymore, between the haves and have-nots, the White and the Black, the recent immigrants from the less-recent immigrants, the Fox News watchers from the MSNBC watchers. And we can’t afford to give up on our future.
Whichever of these groups you identify with, I hope you will engage in the coming year with Your school system, Your first responders, Your county government... to fulfill the pledge that we advertise on the signs as you enter our county.
I hope you will work with us to make Anne Arundel County ... The Best Place - For All.