The Annapolis City Council held its regular meeting on Monday, July 14, 2025, at 6:00 PM in City Council Chambers. The meeting included a closed session, ceremonial citations, the mayor's update, committee reports, public comments, multiple public hearings, and legislative action on several ordinances and resolutions. The meeting adjourned at 8:52 PM.
The regular meeting of the Annapolis City Council on Monday, July 14th, 2025, will be called to order at 6 p.m. This time, please join us for the invocation given by Alderman Huntley, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. I've chosen an invocation today that's uh not quite as long as some of Alderman Gay's, but probably a little on the longer side. Uh it is from a speech by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. He said, I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes to the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America. The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence is the in the future has supported everything else, public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children will be better than our own. Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself, but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past. Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. And yet we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence nor purpose. The symptoms of this Americ the this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth, and it is a warning. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers. Clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual. What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. And then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge for this generation of Americans. As one of the visitors to Camp David last week in 1979, put it. It is a certain route to failure. All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path. The path of common purpose and restoration of American values. Yes, sir. Mayor Buckley. Alderman O'Neill. Present. Alderwoman Pendel Charles. Alderman. Present. Alderman Santa Meyer. Alderman Gay. Here. Alderman Savage. Present.