Brooks Schandelmeier
Candidate in Nov. 4 general election Democratic The Landings
Age: 35 on day of General Election (Nov. 4)
Occupation: Health Care Policy, American Hospital Association
Education: Bachelors Degree, St. Mary’s College
Previous political experience: Incumbent Alderman, 5 years
Why are you running for office?
My grandfather first came to Annapolis as part of the Naval Academy class of 1958. He was immediately charmed by this city, how could he not be? Annapolis is where my grandparents fell in love, where my parents went on dates by the waterfront, it’s where I rented my first apartment, met my wife, and bought my first home. I’m grateful for these opportunities. Unfortunately, chances like these are slipping further away for too many families in Ward 5 and Annapolis. I’m running for reelection to extend them. We can build homes that meet the needs and budgets of our working families. We can create good paying jobs. We can lower the cost of childcare. We will do this because we all do better when we create Opportunity for All.
What issues are important to your ward? How do you plan on addressing them?
Housing
There are not enough homes to meet the needs and budgets of our working families. This scarcity creates competition which leads to wealthier families pushing out less wealthy ones. We can adjust our code to legalize smaller more affordable starter homes that can give our teachers, firefighters, and workers choices on what can meet their needs.
Childcare
High childcare costs and lack of availability are hurting the future of our families. It’s why during this term I eliminated red tape making it easier to open a day care and hire staff so we can lower wait times and bring costs down. In the next term I want to offer tax credits for home-based day cares and continue expanding opportunities to lower costs for our working parents.
How do you see housing and public transportation development progressing in the next four years?
Housing policy and transportation policy are interconnected. Effective transit needs a development pattern that supports it, and effective transit allows for better development patterns to take place. One of the amazing aspects of our comprehensive plan is that it allows for redevelopment on our major corridors into mixed use developments that can support transit service more effectively. We can to amend the comp plan slightly to require more intensive developments to pay into our transit service so that we have effective transportation funding and can use our system to be an effective alternative to cars.
Are there decisions/legislation from the previous council that you want to readdress?
This was a very successful council around many issues but I am disappointed with the lack of progress around housing. Nearly 1 in 3 Annapolis residents are cost burdened by housing. This is NOT SUSTAINABLE. In the next term we need to take the housing crisis more seriously.
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