WORA Issues

These are the issues that we are working on: both positive initiatives that residents and business owners would like to see happen, and there are negative issues - pending decisions or trends that we feel are detrimental to the Quality of Life of both residents and visitors. As an organization of 100's of people, we may not agree on everything, but you are invited to join in the discussion and take action on those issues you feel strongly about. If you would like to contact us to add your concerns, or to volunteer time or information, click HERE to email us.

Issues discussed below:

Quality of Life - Creating a sustainable residential / business / tourist city with essential services to residents.

Fire Prevention - Protecting our 340+ historic structures.

Public Safety - Safe streets, filling police vacancies, feet-on-street.

2:00 am Liquor Licenses

Noise and Speeding - Duke of Gloucester Street

Roof Top Dining

Grauls Site

Underground Utilities - Fleet and Cornhill Streets

Ward One's Positive Agenda

Quality of Life - Livability of Annapolis

There is growing concern among many residents and business owners that some of our elected officials have miss-placed priorities. We want tto see public safety and livability given a much higher priority. We are concerned that Annapolis is drifting too far toward the side of un-controlled development, larger and larger events, expansion of drinking hours, while ignoring the concerns of the residents who live here and pay taxes to support this city.

One of Ward One's Positive initiatives will be to improve the Quality of Life of Annapolis. Tops on our list is a safe city, where we can all feel comfortable walking streets, shopping and enjoying all the public spaces. Quality of Life also translates into a sustainable business client, with a good mix of different retail establishments, office buildings, and services that support local residents. For example, we would like to see a downtown grocery store that residents can walk to, a bakery, a pharmacy, and farmers' market. We want to encourage and support local entertainment, historic sites we can visit, businesses that enable residents and visitors to enjoy the historic and maritime culture of Annapolis. We do not need, for example, more 2 am bars.

Fire Prevention

Annapolis is unique - we are a national treasure - a National Historic City, with over 340 historic buildings (commercial buildings and residences) of the 18, 19th and 20th century. Many of these structures do not have adequate fire pretection. Imagine a fire getting started on Main Street with a strong wind blowing up from City Dock. We could lose many buildings and homes, including the State House. We support Alderman Israel's initiative to require (and help pay for) the installation of fire suppression equipment.

Public Safety

We want our streets to be safe - no one would argue with that. However, we ned to add manpower to our Police force. We have open vacancies, and we will lose more of our fine officers through retirement and natural attrition. This has to be a top priority of our City managers and Police force to recruit and train good people and get more officers on foot - on the streets. If you want to help us in this effort, please click HERE to email us.

The Not-so-positive issues

More 2:00 am Liquor Licenses

There is pending legislaion that will come before City Council in September that will remove the cap on 2:00 AM liquor licenses. Today, in Ward One, we have 28 bars that were 'grandfathered' with 2 AM licenses. If that cap is removed, there is a potential fo 50-60 2 AM bars. If you have ever been on Main Street between midnight and 2 AM, you know that nothnig good happens between midnight and 2 AM. Vandalism increases; the police are called out for street fights, assaults and plenty of drunk driving incidents. Ward One does not need any more 2 AM bars.

Noise and Speeding on Duke of Gloucester

Residents on and near Duke of Gloucester face an increasing problem of excessive speeding down Duke of Gloucester, and a very serious of noise - especially from motorcycles with straight-pipe exhausts. The city has a noise ordinance (and obviously a speed limit) but enforcement is a problem. Board Member Ron Duncan is chairing a citizens group to make people aware of this problem and to get the city to take action. If you want to get invloved, we can use more help on the Noise problem. click HERE to email us.

Roof top dining

Some months ago, Jerry's restaurant - near City Dock - wanted to offer roof-top dining. This is not allowed by City ordinance, but for reason, the Board of Appeals approved this variance. Your Ward One Association went to court to oppose Rooftop dining, and we prevailed. There is another appeal in process, so this issue may come back again. We can use our help by contributing to the Ward One Legal fund. If you want more info, click HERE to email us.

Other Issues we are following:

Grauls' Site development

Stay tuned - we will have more information on plans for the Grauls' Site.

Fleet Street & Cornhill - Underground Utilities

Plans are underway to place the utilities under ground on both Fleet Street and Cornhill. Initial plans did not meet with HPC guidelines and a number of residents objected to the choice of street paving materials, and questions were raised - why are we not re-using the historic pavers and curbs. A new plan will be presented to HPC this fall.