When Brooks Schandelmeier first moved to Annapolis, he was living in a less-than-legal accessory dwelling unit.
Since then, the alderman has worked to legalize the accessibility of small starter homes in the city, make child care more accessible and bring working-class issues to the forefront of the Annapolis City Council, and he plans to continue to do so if reelected in November.
“Opportunities have been slipping away for families in Ward 5 and in Annapolis,” Schandelmeier said. “You look at the cost of housing rapidly going up. You look at child-care costs and wait times that are going up. … Job opportunities are few and far between [that] people can make a good living at. … I care about making life easier for working families.”
Schandelmeier, a Democrat who will be 35 on Election Day, is running against Republican Jack Papaleonti, a real estate company owner, in the Nov. 4 election.
The candidate grew up in working-class towns in Maine, he said, before attending St. Mary’s College of Maryland for political science. He moved to the city when he was 22, getting jobs assisting political campaigns and in the Maryland General Assembly, he said. Schandelmeier was also working part time as a bartender and as a server at Medieval Times.
Schandelmeier said he has worked for the American Hospital Association since 2017, where he does health care policy and political work.
He was appointed to the Annapolis City Council in September 2020, to replace Marc Rodriguez, who resigned mid-term. Schandelmeier said he wanted to step into the race partially to help with the city’s response to COVID-19, given his experience in health policy.
The candidate’s three main policy priorities are housing, child care and jobs, he said.
On the City Council, Schandelmeier has sponsored legislation that allowed more day care centers to open in the city. He also championed a bill that passed that loosened restrictions on the number of children in-home day care centers may care for, as well as the number of nonresidential staff members they may employ, to be in line with state standards.
His aim with these bills, Schandelmeier said, was to address the long wait times and high costs of child care in the city. The alderman became interested in this policy area after he became a godfather to his best friend’s child.
“When they were looking for child care options after their paternity and maternity leave were coming up, they couldn’t find a day care with an opening for over a year,” Schandelmeier said. “The cost was as high as their mortgage. … That hurts a lot of opportunity for people. Child care is economic policy.”
If reelected, Schandelmeier said he plans to introduce legislation to give tax credits to in-home day care centers.
He sponsored a bill the council passed in 2021 to legalize accessory dwelling units, which he said are a way for young people to move to the city affordably and for people who live in the neighborhood to control additions to the housing stock.
Schandelmeier said the next council should look to legalize the construction of smaller, starter homes throughout the city. He wants to see smaller-scale projects, like duplex construction on existing lots, which he says can allow more gradual change that better works with the city’s needs.
The alderman is also prioritizing the creation of job-training programs in the city, such as the Marine Tech Apprenticeship Program that launched in September.
Schandelmeier also wants to reintroduce prevailing wage legislation, which he said would help bring in skilled local workers for public infrastructure projects and improve the quality of work done in public infrastructure projects. Prevailing wage legislation requires that a contractor use a set amount to pay labor costs for a project, which discourages contractors from hiring unskilled, cheaper labor.
In the city budget, Schandelmeier said he hopes to get the Annapolis Fire Department an additional medical unit. He also wants to obtain funding from housing developments on county property that rely on city first responders.
He does not support a 2% cap on assessment rate increases for property taxes but says he would like the council to bring taxes down eventually. Currently, Schandelmeier said, the city cannot decrease tax revenue because the city needs to be able to fund projects to improve the city’s infrastructure.
Mariah Davis, a Ward 5 resident who is a founding board member for Annapolis Pride, said she has noticed Schandelmeier’s work to make Annapolis more affordable.
“He’s somebody who will always go out of his way to see if you need help,” Davis said.
When asked what separates the two Ward 5 candidates, Papaleonti pointed out Schandelmeier’s fewer years living in the city, while Schandelmeier noted his own focus on working-class issues.
The current alderman salary is about $18,500, but the current City Council raised alderman salaries to $32,000, starting for the next council. Schandelmeier’s campaign has raised about $25,500 as of Oct. 5 from donors other than himself.
Have a news tip? Contact Katharine Wilson at kwilson@baltsun.com.
Annapolis candidates
The Capital Gazette will be profiling candidates for mayor and City Council in the coming weeks. Go to capitalgazette.com for more candidate profiles and to view a voters’ guide.
