adopted does not mean accomplished
The First Ninety Days
The PEACE Plan is an alignment strategy. It comprises five high-touch areas that residents feel first: (1) how Town priorities are decided and communicated, (2) what the Town publishes, (3) how we build on what we have, (4) how we care for the land, and (5) how financial resources are committed. Each one reveals the same gap showing up in different ways. The first ninety days of the new Administration re-establish that alignment by putting the Comprehensive Plan back in the driver's seat. Governing and budgeting according to the adopted Plan becomes the foundation for the next four years and beyond.
North Beach adopted its Comprehensive Plan in 2012, and the Town's budget is in good order. What has been missing is the connection between them. The Plan's own Policy EC.7 asks that the Planning Commission be heard on the capital budget each year, and the Town's FY2026 capital project sheets each carry the same designation, Priority 1. When every project is ranked first, the real order of work is decided somewhere other than the budget, and residents have no published record showing where any one of them stands.
Community confidence is built on resident voters trusting the decisions Town stewards make on their behalf.
Understanding where the Comprehensive Plan policy is vulnerable; how the budgetary gaps affect stakeholders: residents, investors, etc.; what the record shows; and where records are located is a top priority.
ADMINISTRATION
Evidence
Town of North Beach Beach & Boardwalk rules; the Town parking page; the Municipal & Financial Services Group water and sewer rate study.
Enabling transparency builds on the progress the current Administration has made.
The Administration carries three things forward: decisions already on the books, what prioritizes which actions take precedent over another, and which records stakeholders can review. Enabling transparency is what brings these into one place.
ADMINISTRATION
Evidence
Town of North Beach Charter; Comprehensive Plan, Implementation chapter, Table IM-1; FY2027 Adopted Operating and Capital Budget; Maryland Open Meetings Act; Maryland Land Use Article § 3-301
This Town's character supports our livelihood, and protecting that character is an economic strategy.
The strategy rests on three things the Town already holds: markers that document how we grew, a working partnership with the Bayside History Museum, and design standards so the new buildings fit the street it's built on.
ADMINISTRATION
Evidence
Town Code Chapter 62; the 1998 Architectural Survey and Historic District Evaluation; Architectural Design Guidelines & Standards; the Comprehensive Plan; the Maryland Historical Trust Certified Local Government program; the Calvert County historic preservation tax credit; the Calvert County Zoning Ordinance.
Rain and rising tides are the Town's largest capital exposure.
Sound finances matter most where the work is largest, and what the largest work depends on most is a single chairperson. Engineers studied the runoff and the shoreline and documented what they found. What they found reaches past what the adopted plan prioritizes today. Beyond the Flood Committee's charter, the slopes are eroding and we are losing marshland where the road at the north entrance to Town restricts the water's natural flow.
ADMINISTRATION
Evidence
Compound Flood Action Plan; the Army Corps of Engineers study of the north end marsh; the authorized federal shoreline protection and wetland restoration project; the Town's listing of boards, commissions and volunteer committees; the Town Zoning Ordinance and the Comprehensive Plan environmental policies; the Town's Critical Area program; the Town's Sustainable Maryland certification report.
The Town's finances are stronger than they were ten years ago.
A decade of responsible budgeting and clean audits leaves the next Administration a stable government and real capacity to act. That capacity is the precondition for resilience. Responsibility asks, “Did we live within our means this year, and is the money accounted for?” Resilience asks, “Can the Town absorb what’s coming and keep going?” It asks us to practice frugality in how we use limited resources, innovation in how we solve emerging challenges, and effectiveness in turning those resources and ideas into results. Answering that question begins in these six areas.
ADMINISTRATION
Evidence
Town Charter; FY2027 Adopted Operating and Capital Budget; FY2027 Adopted Fee Schedule; FY2025 Independent Audit; Comprehensive Plan, Implementation chapter, Table IM-1; Comprehensive Plan, Policy EC.7; 2023 North Beach Compound Flood Action Plan; Resolution 23-08