If you think that changing your city or county charter can help improve the functioning of your local government, give it a try. It is challenging work. It is detailed work. It takes time and lots of research. Over the time that you work on your effort there will be highs and lows that provide you with great hope and sometimes despair. 

In the final analysis, with the right support, whether you are successful or not, you will positively impact your community and make its citizens understand how important good government is and how important it is to have good candidates for elective office.

In Maryland, cities can change their charters either by action of their city council or by the referendum process that requires obtaining enough signatures of registered voters to put the matter on the ballot for the citizens to vote for or against. I participated in the successful effort to change the charter of the City of Cambridge to establish a city manager form of government. That happened by a vote of the City Council. While there have been challenges in transitioning from one city manager to another and transitioning from one city council to the next, the improvement in the functioning of government and the resources that have come to Cambridge in part because of our having professional management have been significant. 

When we hired our first city manager, a national developer by the name of Charlie Fairchild saw promise here that has resulted in the redevelopment of what is now called Cambridge Marketplace with the Shore Regional Health Emergency Room and medical offices, new businesses, and some fast-food restaurants. In addition, he redeveloped a portion of nearby Dorchester Square for additional businesses, government offices, and fast-food restaurants. He is now developing up to three hundred homes on the Hyatt property all of which helps to improve the tax base and the quality of life for the city and county. 

Other development has followed with the recently opened Philips Packing House Building F and the Sailwinds property that is now looking for developers for the various parcels of property there for businesses and residential and other property uses.

With counties, the charter change process is different in that the only way to change a county charter is by referendum after obtaining signatures of 20% of the registered voters. Not only is the process different, it is also more difficult. While we are in the midst of that effort at this point, we can already see change happening.

With primary elections coming in July and then the final vote in November, the two issues that the Dorchester Citizens for Better Government have raised have grabbed the attention of registered voters, the candidates for the positions on County Council, and last Tuesday evening the current County Council.

One of our issues has been the lack of transparency by the current council. Despite requests of the citizens, the County Council by 3-2 votes previously refused to show their meetings on CATV or the internet despite the challenges of Covid-19. During the campaign process, the Dorchester Chamber of Commerce was able to hold candidate forums that included questions on the two issues that the Dorchester Citizens for Better Government had been advocating for in its petitions. All the candidates that participated in the forums, except one incumbent, supported in one way or another the basic issues that we raised.

This past Tuesday evening the County Council reversed itself on the issue of holding the meetings on CATV or the internet and voted to do just that. Because I had to listen in on the phone; the audio for the meeting was poor; and microphones were either not available or poorly placed, I am not sure if the vote was 4-0 or 5-0, but it passed. Now all we need our County Council to do on this issue, at this point, is to vote to provide the non-confidential documents for each meeting to the public electronically by placing them on the County website for anyone interested to review. While we need to have the charter changed on this and the issue of allowing the county manager to actually manage the day-to-day operations of staff, they will have to wait. What we want is to ensure that future County Councils are not able to be less transparent as they have been. The other night was a good first step that would not have happened without the work of the Dorchester Citizens for Better Government.

More on these issues will be coming as things progress.

Thanks for Reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities.

Last week I wrote a piece on legislation and how the community can help inform one another about what is happening in your city or county council. This week I am following up on a related but broader topic, which is the gun safety, mental health, and red flag proposal being considered in Congress.

While understanding that it will not be a final and totally satisfactory solution, we also need to understand that it can and will create complexities within states and between states that will have to be considered if they have not already been identified and solved by existing state laws and practice. We can see one complexity already with the Senate in how to define “boyfriend”. When states were trying to address domestic violence issues and who they would apply to and what court they would be heard in, the Virginia legislature and Attorney General had their challenges with defining who it would apply to and under what circumstances, so the challenge that the Senate has with that particular issue is not unexpected.

As I read the general proposals of the federal legislation, some of it will impact the entire country. Some of it will provide funding for mental health resources within the states that the states will then have to decide where that funding will go – large communities or cities where there are multiple shootings or rural communities that have multiple needs because of minimal existing resources – and how much will go where. Some of it will allow for review of juvenile court records but retrieving them could be a significant challenge if the 18–21-year old’s have lived in multiple states and multiple jurisdictions within different states. 

Another challenge could be in those jurisdictions that border neighboring states where the two states have different requirements for the purchase of weapons. I am not saying that these challenges are not solvable or exist everywhere, but where they do exist the solutions will take time to work out and they will certainly not be uniform.

Another challenge that I see is changing how the country views mental health. With this new legislation, will people be more or less willing to admit that they need help? What mental health issues will rise to a level of needing to be reported for the purposes of deciding if a person should have access to a gun? Will the mental health professionals treating individuals that obtain a weapon be subject to more lawsuits for an alleged misdiagnosis or a failure to diagnose a problem that is claimed to be the cause for a lawsuit by the victim or family of a victim of gun violence? These are the kinds of collateral consequences that are often not fully thought out. With the rush to put this legislation in place, all of the possibilities will not be thought through so additional federal or state legislation might be required. I can just hear the objections of those who oppose reasonable gun safety legislation that claim that any modification of what is being done now is simply new and greater interference with 2nd Amendment rights. So, while it is important to get something done, Congress needs to be sure that they are clear about what they intend to include so that the Supreme Court will not have to interfere with the implementation of whatever is developed.

If the courts are to be the arbiters of the red flag laws or the domestic partners buying guns for persons convicted of domestic violence, different states may have different courts hearing those case types. Would the juvenile and family court hear some and the district court hear others? To the point that I raised last week, will there be more cases filed in these courts as a result of these proposed laws, and are some of these court’s dockets so filled with cases already that they will need additional judicial resources to manage the caseload? What criteria will state legislatures use to determine if a county or city needs more judges? Will these cases be entitled to being heard more quickly by the court than others thus causing delay in other important matters under the jurisdiction of the court?

I would submit that these and other issues need to be taken into consideration as part of this process and that the members of Congress need to be talking with their state court leaders, their state legislative leaders, and their state mental health professionals to fully understand the impact or potential impact of the proposed federal legislation on and within states.

Thanks for reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities. He can be reached at [email protected]   

The Administrative Office of the Virginia Supreme Court, and I would suspect the Administrative Office of any state court system, is usually concerned when the legislature is in session. There is always the normal and natural concern about the funding that the legislature makes available to run the court system, the number of judicial positions in the different communities that the legislature would create to do the work of the courts, and, in some states, the retention of current judges or appointment of new judges for the available judicial positions.

Virginia does not have public election of judges. The judiciary is elected or appointed by the legislature for terms established by the law. In some states such as Maryland, however, once the governor appoints a Circuit Judge, he or she is then subject to a retention election within a prescribed period of time.

The other area of concern that court systems have is what laws will the legislature pass and what impact will they have on the functioning of the court system. Will a new law create more litigation or establish programs or services that will divert cases from the court system? An example of a law that should reduce case filings in Maryland addresses juvenile delinquency matters of a less serious nature that will be diverted from court filings to services for pre-teens that are found to need them.

While such legislation has the potential to reduce the number of cases being filed in court, it also has the potential to increase the caseload of the state child serving agencies that will impact their budgets, staffing, and available resources. It also has the potential to send children and families to state and local agencies that are not currently working collaboratively or are not interested in working collaboratively. That may create more challenges than solutions. This is particularly important on the Eastern Shore where too many services and resources are already limited and collaboration among state agencies, nonprofits, and local services could be improved. I learned at a recent online seminar that there are no shelter care (unlocked) facilities for youth on the Eastern Shore, and they are needed as some foster parents are reluctant to take some youth into their homes.

Many of the laws that legislatures enact and governors sign have gone through a review process and consideration by panels of experts who have done the homework required to ensure that many, if not all, of the concerns of cost, staffing, efficiency and effectiveness have been evaluated. There are some laws, however, that we found in Virginia came because of an incident that happened in a community where the person involved knew the legislator who had sufficient influence to pass a law that would impact how the court system in the entire state would work. As a result it created confusion among the different courts on how to address both the issue presented but also how the court needed to respond to the new law.

The one example that comes to mind is a law that required that the Clerks of Court could not provide legal advice to citizens that came to any of the courts for assistance. On the surface it would appear obvious that non-lawyers should not give legal advice. The challenge for the Clerks of Court in each jurisdiction was that there was no uniform definition or understanding of what “legal advice” was. Would giving a citizen a form to file a claim and describing how to fill it out be legal advice or helping with the efficient administration of the court system? The law did not say. The clerks of court did not have direction.

The issue had arisen in a small jurisdiction that had only the one complaint to the local legislator but resulted in impacting the entire court system as the Administrative Office of the Courts had to create solutions, rules of court, and pages on court websites that helped the community understand what the clerk’s office was able to do and what it could not do.

I realize that we elect our state delegates and senators and members of our county and city councils trusting that they will be vigilant in their work and advocate for reasonable and rational legislation. We cannot be watching everything that is being considered by the legislature. Our representatives, if they have staff, are the people that we rely on; but even they can be overwhelmed by the mountain of bills that are presented each year. 

There are lobbyists representing interest groups including citizens. To do nothing is not the answer. At the state level, Maryland Matters https://www.marylandmatters.org/ works for all of us. Depending on where you live and the community and personal resources that are available where you live, think about what you or some group in your community might do. 

Start locally where you might have the most impact. With your city and county council, are there members who can provide reports to you and your local paper about what happened at the last meeting? Does your local paper cover those meetings for the community?

Do you have to wait until the meeting minutes are approved to know what happened? That can easily take weeks and more likely months to accomplish if you wait on city or county staff to prepare those minutes. If no representative is available to help, can you form a group to do it for your community or are you involved with a neighborhood group that might do it? Does your community allow for the meeting to be shown on TV or the Internet so that you can watch what is happening or review the recorded program?

Start by doing something and see what impact it might have in your community. Build a small group to find out what is going on and share it with your community. That is the way that your city or county council will recognize the value of you and your neighbors.

Thanks for Reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities.

When I started to practice law on my own, much of my early income came from being a court appointed attorney in criminal matters in the local state and federal courts. I was fortunate to be in a building filled with solo practitioners and small firms, where everyone helped everyone else. I was also fortunate after a few years that the City Attorney needed someone to prosecute the traffic and city misdemeanor cases, and I jumped at the opportunity. It was some of the best training I had because I was trying cases and making plea agreements every morning.

When I had a question involving the law or how to present a case, I could look in books, pick up a phone, or knock on the door of the lawyer down the hall to learn what he or she thought. Knowing the local lawyers who appeared before the local judges was helpful to me in learning how to be a better lawyer.

Local does not mean that they only practice before one court or judge but rather that they know the courts, judges, magistrates, and clerks of court in nearby jurisdictions. In some situations, knowing the clerk of court and his or her staff is more important than knowing the judge, as the clerk’s office is the doorway to the court.

In Alexandria, the judge who heard most of the traffic cases also heard criminal matters, if the chief judge assigned them to him on a certain day. The other judge, Judge Colby, primarily did the traffic docket, but when he had the criminal docket, he was known to have any number of what we called “Colby” deals. They usually involved drug charges or shoplifting charges.

With drug felony cases that were before him for preliminary hearings, he would often allow the defendant to plead guilty to a misdemeanor drug charge with a suspended jail sentence under the condition that he or she receive drug treatment and not obtain any new charges. With shoplifting cases that were a first offense, he would give the defendant a suspended finding of guilt and ultimate dismissal conditioned on his or her uniform good behavior for a year.

A lawyer who did not practice often in our jurisdiction might not have known of the “Colby” deals and in the process not obtain the best outcome for his or her client. The lawyer’s knowledge both of the law and the court in which the case is pending are important considerations.

Telling the lawyer the truth from the outset is also important. When I was a young lawyer, a veteran attorney told me to listen closely to my client’s story the first time, as it often never got any better. His suggestion to me held true many times.

In deciding about a lawyer to hire in either a criminal or civil matter listen to the advice of others but also make sure that you are comfortable with your decision. Ask questions to be sure you want to hire the person to whom you are talking.

If you are without funds to hire an attorney in a criminal matter, you will receive a public defender. They can have a heavy caseload themselves so be prepared when you meet with them to be forthcoming about what happened, because sending them down a road that is filled with bad or misleading information will not help you in the long run.

Thanks for reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities. He can be reached at [email protected]

We see and hear “Hate” all around us these days. We see its results most recently in Buffalo, NY. Hate abounds in social media, at Congressional hearings, on 24/7 news. Years ago I watched a neighbor appear before a Congressional Committee and be verbally abused by Congressmen who appeared to know little or nothing about the issue before the committee. They gave speeches and asked confusing and incomplete questions and then did not give my neighbor the opportunity to answer their questions. How she maintained her composure during over four hours of their questioning and posturing was amazing. Despite their efforts, she provided them with the information they needed that was supported by data but was not what they wanted to hear.

In the family law arena, hate is often a common denominator. Judges see it in cases of domestic violence, custody disputes, protective orders, fights between youth at school or in the community, and divorce cases. It is, unfortunately, the thing that impacts not only the spouses or parents who are in court but also their children, other family members, and, in some cases, the community. The causes for the hatred are too numerous to list or explain here, but they are not rational or helpful in solving the problem that brought the matter to court but can give the parties the opportunity to resolve some issues by themselves or have them decided by the judge.

As a lawyer, I had people ready to litigate over every knife and fork in a divorce case even though the cost to them would have far exceeded the value of what they were seeking. My solution there was to set my fee for the trial and insist that it be paid well in advance of the hearing. I learned early in my career that the ability to be paid what I was owed became more difficult very quickly after the trial and the judge’s decision, whether my client won or lost. If they lost, it just became more difficult even more quickly.

With family court, when surveys are done with the litigants, the reasonable expectation for a judge is to have 50% of them happy with what decisions are made. Sometimes no one is happy. That is why mediation, family counseling, and therapy are much better places for families who are separating or divorcing or engage in criminal conduct to put their usually limited resources, especially if children are involved.

After years of hearing contested custody cases, I decided that I would become a mediator in my retirement. I took the training and learned all of the ways to help people through the process to allow them to make their own decisions. My first mediation case, however, taught me that I was not able to be the impartial person that I needed to be. 

In that first case, I saw in the husband and his demands on the wife what I had seen too often in court. Hatred, control, disrespect, and the list goes on. He was a bully that showed all of the characteristics of someone who had tried to control his wife during their marriage and was trying to do it even as they ended it. Rather than allowing him to browbeat her into submission, my judicial instincts took over, and I ended the session and ended my mediator career. Those who do mediation have to be special people who keep their focus on their goal, which is a peaceful resolution of the issues.

What happens when hatred wins the day in custody cases is a parent who wants to be loved by his or her children but who often loses that relationship unless he or she is able to move past the hatred and receive help. While Mediation may not get the couple everything that each of them wants, it can result in a decision that they make themselves rather than one that a judge imposes on them.

That is why most judges will encourage divorcing couples or parents in custody matters to go to mediation. The decision that the judge makes is often not one that makes either parent happy. One custody trial I recall was held a few months after a hearing where I made a temporary decision on custody and visitation. After the all-day trial was completed and I made my decision, the father of the child asked me if I would go back and reinstate my earlier temporary decision because he liked that one better. That did not happen.

We have a particularly good mediation program in the Mid Shore area for Talbot, Dorchester, and Caroline Counties. It is the Mid Shore Community Mediation Center. It needs volunteer mediators to help with this important work and provides the training. It provides a service to anyone in the community that has a dispute or disagreement with someone else that, in most cases, can be accomplished at no or limited cost to the parties.

Think about it. Hate can be all consuming and exhausting. It can ruin your life and your relationship with other people who are neighbors or that you care for and that you want to care for you. As we have seen over the past few years, it can cost lives of innocent people.

Thanks for Reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities. He can be reached at [email protected]   

How to ask a child questions in court is not something that I found lawyers knew much about. I was never trained about it in law school or through continuing legal education as a practicing lawyer. 

There have been books and articles written on the subject that take into consideration many things, including whether children should be called as a witness at all, due to the psychological damage that being a witness might cause. When a child is the victim of a crime, many states allow the child to testify out of the presence of the accused while allowing the accused to watch the testimony from another room or cell outside of the courtroom. 

Even what a child understands when he or she takes the oath to “tell the truth” might not be known unless he or she is old enough. As a judge, with a child witness depending on his/her age, I would ask a series of simple questions to be sure that they understood what telling the truth was and that they knew how important it was for them to tell the truth.

Just letting them into the courtroom prior to the court day to see what it looks like helps. That allows them to become comfortable with where they will sit and where the other people in the courtroom will be located. We often opened our courtrooms to allow for that kind of an inspection by a young witness. They were allowed to sit in the judge’s chair as well to help with their level of comfort.

Some lawyers consider children as “little adults”, which they are not. While lawyers are trained to never ask a question for which they do not know what the answer will be, children often can surprise the questioner and the court simply because of how the question is asked.

Two of the most important things that must be taken into consideration are the age and maturity of the child. For instance, is the child old enough to understand what time means? I recall being told by a professional who was knowledgeable in child development that a child needs to be at least 10 years of age to have a good understanding of time. Do you recall driving somewhere and having your child ask multiple times how long it would be before you would arrive at where you were going? Depending on their age at the time, asking someone “Do you remember what you were doing at 6:00 p.m. on the day in question, may get you an answer that might be meaningless or incorrect because the child is not old enough to understand time.

How complex the question is can also have a bearing on what the child’s answer might be. While an adult might be able to discern that part of the question is not relevant to what answer is being sought, a child might not be. As a result the answer may be correct and logical from a child’s point of view but mean the direct opposite of what the questioner was hoping would be the response.

Judges dealing in cases where children will be testifying or talking with them outside of the courtroom often receive training in this area of child development. That can provide them with a better understanding of both the question that is ask and what the child probably means by his or her answer.

Preparing the child both with the anticipated questions and what the courtroom is like is particularly important. Also important for a lawyer is being sure that they do not appear to be a bully by how they question the child. Too often in custody cases, I saw lawyers representing a parent push too hard to ask questions of the children that the children did not want to answer because they loved both parents.

The fact that the question was asked may not endear the lawyer who asked it or his or her client to the judge who is being asked to make the decision. It can tell the judge something about the parent and/or the lawyer that may be the one piece of information that can cause a decision to be made one way or another. 

Thanks for reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities. Steve can be reached at [email protected].

Cambridge is looking forward to the arrival of its new City Manager who began working for the city this week. Thomas Carroll of Silverton, Ohio was selected for the position by the City Council on a unanimous vote.

Silverton, while a small town, is a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. From newspaper reports and comments by current city leadership, he is the right person with the right skills at the right time for the many things that are happening here or need to happen. Mr. Carroll is the third city manager for Cambridge.

In 2014 the City Council voted to change the Charter, after two and half years of research and drafting of the Charter changes by a citizens group that established a City Manager form of government. After hundreds of years of elected officials running the city, it was anticipated that the change to this new form of government and its acceptance by elected leadership would take time. It has.

After the City Council voted 4-1 to change the Charter, citizens sought a referendum to overturn that decision. That effort failed as they were not able to collect the required number of signatures of registered voters to cause the matter to be put to a vote.

The resistance to the new form of government, however, was still present as those used to the old way of doing things did not like the change. Despite that resistance, the city, under this new form of government prospered thanks to the excellent leadership of our first City Manager, Sandra Tripp-Jones, and our second one, Patrick Comiskey.

The resistance, however, continued after the election of a new City Council in late 2020. None of the new City Council members had ever been elected to be a mayor or a member of a City Council. During their campaigns all but one committed to continuing and supporting the City Manager form of government.

When the Charter was changed in 2014, there was one particular section that we intentionally included as part of our citizen effort to make this important change. That language in Charter Section 3-39 (e) reads as follows:

(e) Non-interference with appointments or removals. Except for the purpose of inquiry, the mayor and city commissioners shall deal with the administration of the city solely through the city manager and neither the mayor, nor any city commissioner, shall give orders to any subordinates of the city manager, either publicly or privately.

In plain language, that means that the elected officials need to let the City Manager do his or her job and not interfere by going behind the City Manager to the city employees “either publicly or privately”. That was not the case with our most recent City Manager and was one of the primary reasons that he declined to renew his contract to continue his service here.
When this language is mentioned, some might say that those are just words and don’t mean anything in the day-to-day operations of the city or that some elected officials can simply decide that they will not comply with that part of the Charter for whatever reason they choose.

The Charter for a city is like the Constitution for our State or the United States. It is the controlling document for how the elected officials and staff are to run the city. These words in the Charter do mean something, and it is not up to elected officials to decide that they can ignore them or interpret them differently than what is the clear language of the Charter. If they want to change the words, they have every right to do so in a public forum after due notice to the public and the opportunity for public input. If they decide to make changes, then the public has the right to seek enough signatures to have the public vote on what the City Council decided.

So with the arrival of Mr. Carroll and what appear to be the many skills that he has and that we need here, I would urge the members of City Council and any mayor that might be elected, even for just the remainder of this term, to comply with what is the clear written language of the Charter unless you are able to change that language in compliance with the law.

Do not forget to make the “inquiry” as allowed so that you know and understand what he is doing and why. That is your responsibility. In that way you, Mr. Carroll, and city staff will be able to succeed in helping the city to improve even more, and he will stay here working for many years.

Thanks for reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities. He can be reached at [email protected]