Annapolis City Council Aldermanic Candidate Profile: Brooks Schandelmeier, Ward 5
My long term vision for Annapolis is a city that provides opportunities for families to live, work, and play comfortably and with dignity. That means opportunities for homes they can afford, pursue good payings jobs, and have a city they can proudly call home regardless of income.
Our City Dock is facing an uncertain future with an unpredictable federal government. As of the time of this writing (09/15/2025) our Public Works director says we are on track to receive the FEMA grant. While I believe him in the moment, not having a back up plan is reckless. If the grant is cut we need to scale back portions of the plan, focusing on resiliency. That means raise the dock, build the pumps, and converting the parking lot into a park so that there is better stormwater management than what is there now. We can then revisit and add more at a later time based on what resources are available and what needs are emerging.
The new park space will need things to anchor the area and bring families around. An empty green space will handle storm water better but it won’t attract as many people as we are hoping. We need shops, activities, businesses, and things for children to do so that families, both locals and visitors, come and use our new park.
What are the three most important issues facing Annapolis residents, and how will you prioritize them?
The top 3 issues in no particular order are:
Housing
There are not enough homes to meet the needs and budgets of our working families. This creates competition that favors wealthier individuals and drives out those with less money. As a result we are losing the people who grew up here, along with teachers, firefighters, and workers. We need to address this by legalizing smaller starter homes such as duplexes, triplex, rowhomes, and cottages in more areas of the city to allow more choices at more price points for families.
Jobs
Annapolis’ overreliance on tourism and service jobs makes us vulnerable to system shocks. It’s why I’ve pushed to diversify our job market and economy. I launched the innovative Economic Gardening program, where we invested in our local maritime businesses to help them grow into new markets. It’s why I created a budget amendment to invest $100,000 into creating apprenticeships with the Marine Trades Association of Maryland for Annapolis residents. It’s why I connected our reentry program with local unions so that individuals returning from prison can get paid to learn a skilled trade and get back on their feet. In the next term I want to introduce prevailing wage and local hiring legislation so that when the city builds public infrastructure projects we prioritize hiring local residents and give them a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
Childcare
High childcare costs and long wait times are crippling working families, forcing too many to choose between the needs of their child, and the success of their careers. During this term I cosponsored budget amendments to provide childcare financial assistance. I passed legislation to cut outdated red tape that prevented childcare centers from being built in the majority of our commercial districts, and eliminated burdensome regulations that prevented in-home daycares from hiring the staff that they needed to care for more children. These bills will reduce wait times and bring costs down. In the next term we will look for more ways to reduce times and costs for our working families.
If elected/re-elected, what would you aim to achieve in your first six months on the council?
The Maryland General Assembly passed a law at the end of the 2025 session to allow local jurisdictions to provide in-home childcare facilities a tax credits in an effort to encourage more facilities to be opened and bring down costs. There was not enough time to enact this legislation during this term, but when reelected it will be my first bill.
Another priority bill is prevailing wage and local hiring preferences for public works projects. Prevailing wage on public infrastructure projects guarantees a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. It also reduces pay disparities between along racial and gender lines and reduces workplace accidents. Local hiring preferences along with these practices can get more local residents involved in skilled trades careers and provide opportunities for generating wealth.
How will you improve the quality of life for residents and their families?
I am focused on how Annapolis can bring the cost of living down for working families. We have a shortage of homes that meet the budgets of Annapolis’ families. By allowing more starter homes we can address that shortage and bring housing costs down. We have hemorrhaged childcare facilities since COVID. By making it easier to open, operate, and expand childcare facilities we can address that shortage, allow more children to receive care and bring costs down. These drive our cost of living crisis in Annapolis, if we can reduce the scarcity of them we can bring costs down for everyone.
How will you prioritize improving the quality of life for marginalized communities?
Investing in infrastructure like parks and transit while making it easier for families to get good jobs or start a business can help create more opportunities for families. In addition providing housing opportunities that do not cost burden communities allow social mobility for families and create better community dynamics.
What action will you take to address concerns related to repairitive justice and creating an Office of Freedmen Affairs?
While the city does not have the resources to create a new office we can take significant steps through our current government structure. Our Office of Community Services has managed fantastic programs such as rental assistance and childcare assistance for our city’s vulnerable citizens. We also need to launch a joint task force with the county and state to make right the sins of urban renewal in the Old Fourth Ward. Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, and Maryland share responsibility for the generational trauma of tearing down a neighborhood to build a parking garage. No one government can or should solve the problem alone and no one government should duck its responsibility.
What are your solutions for housing affordability, including homeownership, rental costs, and workforce housing?
As stated many times earlier there are not enough homes to meet the needs and budgets of our working families. Because of that shortage it creates competition where wealthier individuals can drive out less wealthy ones. This means that our firefighters, teachers, retail workers, nurses, and other essential people cannot afford to live in Annapolis.
We can address this by changing our code to legalize smaller starter homes like duplex’s, triplexes, row homes, cottages, and small apartments in more areas of the city so that families can have a pathway to success with a home they can afford to rent or buy. By taking the pressure off market rate housing we can then allow our subsidies to go further for families that need subsidized housing. In a normal market, teachers should not need rental assistance, right now they do. As a result our rental assistance fund dries up in less than five months. By allowing lower cost market homes to be built we can then make subsidies go further for families that fall below the poverty line since there will be less competition for dwindling resources.
Given traffic congestion and limited parking, how will you improve public transportation and address downtown parking issues?
We need to modify our planned development code so that when large developments are approved we can receive investments that can be lockboxed for transportation funding along with cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. By providing safe alternatives to vehicles we can reduce car dependency.
What is your philosophy on public safety, and how will you address growing crime and concerns with police transparency and accountability, while also promoting community well-being?
The best way to address crime is to address poverty. Annapolis has concentrated poverty into specific neighborhoods and failed to invest in them. By investing in infrastructure to help families get around, making it easy to start a business or get a good paying job we can create opportunities for social mobility. This prevents crime from taking root. During this term we partnered our re-entry program with local unions so that individuals returning from prison could get paid to learn a skilled trade by the union and get back on their feet.
By stopping the majority of crimes from taking root we can then focus on going after the violent criminals who want to cause harm and need to be taken off the street.
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