Like many Annapolitans, I was dismayed to read about the administration’s lack of transparency with respect to the police-involved death of Renardo Green, which was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner on Sept. 20.

Adjudicating whether a police-involved death is a homicide is a difficult process that requires trust from all parties. Law enforcement must trust that the process will fairly consider facts that may justify their actions. The family of the deceased must trust that the process will objectively evaluate whether law enforcement crossed the bounds of reasonableness, the law, or societal ethics.

While the administration purportedly wants to increase trust and transparency in policing, its handling of this matter has had the opposite effect. Not just the public, but also the City Council, was kept unaware of the medical examiner’s ruling for three months. The police department made statements suggesting an independent investigation was taking place only to recently clarify that it was investigating Green’s death

One of the core functions of the City Council is to act as a check and balance to the administration. It is critically important that it carries out this function by investigating what administration officials knew and when they knew it.

Depending on when the medical examiner informed the department and administration, it is possible that information was withheld from the City Council at the same time it was deliberating and – at the request of department and administration officials - tabling proposed police reform legislation.

Independence and transparency must be the bedrock on which police accountability measures are built if we are to move forward better. In this instance, the administration fell very short. Only a full and public investigation by the City Council will allow us to learn from this event and build policy guardrails to prevent it from reoccurring.

I have been at the forefront of many land-use battles to block imprudent development. The largest began with the 2010 plan for Crystal Spring Farm at Forest Drive and Spa Road. Along with thousands of others, I vigorously opposed a Connecticut developer’s plan to build a major shopping center, an 80-room hotel, and 500 residences, destroying 40 acres of forest.

Thanks to the decade-long effort led ably by former State Sen. Gerald Winegrad, the development has become a model for future projects in Annapolis and statewide.

How did he convince developers, the property owner, and the City of Annapolis to downsize their ambitions for the sake of preserving a forest? How did he get dozens of environmental and civic leaders to withdraw diverse objections if he could negotiate substantial protections?

He achieved what many years ago we dared to dream of for the last large forest on the peninsula. 124 acres of forest on the 176-acre site will be preserved in perpetuity. For every square foot of forest removed during construction, a square foot of forest will be replanted onsite. This forest will live on forever!

Stormwater runoff will be captured by 79 rain gardens, and a big, old nasty drain that has been polluting Crab Creek will be restored as a proper stream. Three hundred and fifty residential units will be clustered on 15 acres, a fabulous minimization of impervious surface that is the source of so much pollution of the Chesapeake Bay. The future runoff will be like a normal, mature forest, not a chaotic flood.

You won’t see the new buildings as they will be hidden from view by a 200-foot forest buffer around Forest Drive. Extensive changes, including better turning lanes and a connector road from Spa Rd to the Safeway, will greatly improve traffic flow. And there’s no retail to attract more cars.

Most remarkably, with some minor exceptions, there will be no future development in this beautiful forest.

Bravo Senator Winegrad, an unrelenting, tough negotiator and a visionary leader! I urge him to reveal his skills and secrets in a memoir of his victorious fight for Crystal Spring.

Elon Musk is now Time magazine’s Man of the Year as well as the world’s richest man, worth $300 billion. Is it time to pause and wonder how that came to be.

The majority of Tesla’s profits come from selling tax credit subsidies to other car makers. Profits from car sales as a percentage of income have been increasing, but these sales are also subsidized by tax credits. So it is safe to say the American taxpayers are responsible for his considerable fortune or as President Obama would say, “You did not build those cars.”

Perhaps Mr. Musk can be persuaded to keep $1 billion for himself and turn the remaining $299 billion back to the American taxpayers.

In the Capital on Dec. 19, Glen C. Somes suggested that Republican state legislatures were trying to preserve our democracy, not destroy it, by enacting various voter ‘safeguards’ because there is widespread cheating, especially in “Democrat controlled cities”.

Well, according to the Heritage Foundation, that of the 159,633,396 ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election, there were only 1,334 proven instances of voter fraud. That is hardly ‘widespread’ fraud. No votes were changed by ‘laser beams’ or ‘Italian satellites’ or ‘microchips’ embedded in paper ballots. In fact, state and federal judges - some appointed by Trump - dismissed more than 50 lawsuits brought by Trump or his allies alleging election fraud and other irregularities.

Also, Attorney General William Barr authorized U.S. attorneys across the country to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities, but he said they found no evidence of fraud that would have affected the outcome.

Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of Homeland Security, said that 2020 was the safest and most secure election in history. On Nov. 17 last year, Krebs said in a tweet that, “59 election security experts all agree, in every case of which we are aware, these claims [of fraud] have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.” Mr. Krebs, if you recall, was fired by Trump because he exposed the lie.

So, what are these ‘democracy saving safeguards’ that Mr. Somes is referring to? Are they the laws that shorten the time frame to request a mail ballot or by limiting the number of drop boxes? Perhaps he means laws that will deter election officials and other people who assist voters, such as charging with a crime those handing out water or snacks to voters waiting in line to vote. Or, is Mr. Somes referring to omnibus legislation that disproportionately burdens Latino, Black, and Asian voters and makes it harder for those who face language access barriers to get help casting their ballots or laws that constrains election workers’ ability to stop harassment by poll watchers.

Indeed, Herr Goebbels is looking up and admiring the Republican march to authoritarian rule.

I wanted to respond to last Sundays letter from Glen Somes, who claims to be concerned about voter fraud. We should all be concerned about that. But the examples he cites are not where the problems lie.

Mailed ballots are proven just as reliable as in-person votes. Collecting ballots to mail is what a post box does; so why is collecting them from neighbors any different? Eligibility is still verified before the votes are counted. It also improves voter turnout, the very thing the GOP fears.

In fact, the voter rules we should all fear are the new rules in 19 states that will let unelected, partisan individuals overrule the voting public to declare the winner they prefer. I warrant Mr. Somes and I are voting for different candidates, butneither one of us wants our vote tossed to allow the losing candidate to be declared the winner by fiat. That is the issue The Capital was addressing. That is the problem of the current hyper-political climate. That is the problem so many like Mr. Somes refuse to see, because to them voter fraud is only committed by Democrats,, especially those with darker skin.

Letting people vote, as many as possible, is not a partisan act. It’s an act of democracy.

Would concrete-embedded steel poles or cement barriers in front of ATMs prevent vehicles crashing into them? Also, why not use exploding red dye packets in them if the machines incur serious jolting or movement?