The Mayor Strikes Back

Confronted with Alderman Dick Israel's charter amendment to strip the mayorship of some of its power over the City Administrator, the Mayor has decided to take the argument to the court of public opinion. Today's Sun has an editorial by Mayor Moyer decrying the move as "an assault on representative government."

In the piece, Moyer begins by comparing Mr. Israel to Oliver Cromwell, the 17th century British parliamentarian who helped lead a revolution against King Charles I, an advocate of the Divine Right of Kings.

She then cites a litany of projects that have been undertaken under her watch since 2002: "improvements to Edgewood Road, Forest Drive sidewalks, beginning the restoration of the Historic Maynard-Burgess House, rebuilding the Annapolis Police Department." I don't know enough about the road and sidewalk projects to say whether they've been a success, but to my knowledge, after six years, the Maynard-Burgess House still remains uncompleted and the Police Station project is mired in legal problems. The Market House "restoration" was noticeably absent from her list.

Ms. Moyer may have a point, that stripping the already weak Mayorship of its bureaucratic oversight capacity is a bad idea, but with her ongoing track record of misadministration, it's not clear she's the best situated to convincingly make that case.