Annapolis mayoral candidate Jared Littmann (D), left, speaks with a supporter at a house party last week. Photo by Josh Kurtz.
On a beautiful late summer evening on a deck overlooking an undeveloped section of Spa Creek in Annapolis, it was hard not to think about the natural environment. And that’s what two dozen or so environmentalists and neighbors came together to discuss with a local business owner named Jared Littmann, who is running for mayor.
“This is the perfect place for a gathering of environmentally minded people,” said Annapolis Alderman Rob Savidge (D), a Littmann supporter, as a Dragon Boat with 22 rowers glided past.
More than 13 months before the municipal elections in Maryland’s capital city, this kind of gathering has become commonplace for Littmann. A former city alderman, Littmann declared his candidacy for mayor way back in January, an unusually early start.
For months, he had the field to himself. But that just changed.
Alderwoman Rhonda Pindell Charles (D), who has served on the city council since 2009, formally announced her intention on Monday evening to run for the seat of outgoing Mayor Gavin Buckley (D), with an impressive display of political muscle — a gathering that drew more than 250 supporters to St. Philip’s Episcopal Church off Bestgate Road.
Littmann and his team welcome the competition.
“It’s hard to run against yourself,” said Laura Richards, an Annapolis business consultant and former restaurateur who is Littmann’s deputy campaign manager.
Littmann said he anticipated a large field all along. The last time there was an Annapolis mayoral election without an incumbent on the ballot, in 2009, a dozen candidates ran. Annapolis is one of three municipalities in Maryland — Baltimore and Frederick are the others — that hold partisan elections. The Democratic primary isn’t until Sept. 16, 2025, and the filing deadline for candidates is next July.
“If Kamala Harris can run for president in 100 days, someone can run for mayor of Annapolis in 30 days,” Littmann said.
Still, starting so early gives Littmann undeniable advantages, and he’s campaigning full time.
“I knew, before I needed to ask people to join as volunteers, that I needed to study up on the issues, and I knew I needed to raise money,” he said. “I’ve got such a packed campaign schedule every day.”
Through June 30, Littmann had raised $104,000, a healthy sum for a campaign in a city of 41,000. He figured it would be harder to raise money later in the year, as voters’ focus turned toward school board and federal elections.
“I’m glad I’m not in the position of having to beg for money now,” he said. “We’ll start again in 2025.”
Littmann has been able to lock up some important initial endorsements, from Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman (D), former Mayor Ellen Moyer (D) and a host of current and former local elected officials.
“I have watched Jared as an alderman, Jared as a businessman, Jared as a father and husband, Jared as a member of the Annapolis and Anne Arundel Resilience Authority, and Jared as a candidate for mayor,” Pittman said. “In all of them, he listens, he hears, and he acts.”
Most important, from Littmann’s point of view, the early start has enabled him to dive into local issues and meet with community leaders, to help him develop a campaign platform. Littmann has tried to avoid the endless succession of coffees that often define a fledgling candidate’s early days on the campaign trail. Instead, he has tried to meet people for walks in local parks.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
“I’ve never seen a more organized campaign for local office like this,” said Bob Gallagher, a retired attorney and environmental leader who hosted the meet-and-greet for Littmann at his home the other night.
Gallagher said he has been trying to get Littmann to run for mayor for about a dozen years. After serving on the city council for five years, with his term ending in 2013, Littmann has long thought about running for mayor. But he wanted to wait first until his kids — who are now sophomores in college and high school, respectively — got older. He also wanted to focus on running K&B True Value, a hardware store on Forest Drive in Annapolis that has been in his wife’s family for half a century.
“He said yes [to running for mayor], but in his ever thoughtful way, he said he had some goals for his business and for his family, and let’s keep in touch,” Gallagher recalled.
Littmann also spent several years serving on the national True Value Hardware board, which he describes as an enormous learning experience that has provided a valuable private sector view into budgeting and best management practices for the chain’s 4,500 stores. He’s vowed to govern, if elected, with “a customer-focused approach.”
But that’s just part of Littmann’s resume. He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering and then got a law degree. He spent time as an assistant county attorney in Montgomery County. During his five years on the city council, Littmann focused on fiscal and environmental issues, including sponsoring a forest conservation law that has become a model for state and local leaders throughout Maryland.
“I learned what it was to be an alderman from Jared,” said Savidge, who succeeded Littmann on the city council. “He’s had a bird’s-eye view of what it takes to make a good mayor. He is so focused on process and good government … He has a reputation for being respected because he cares.”
Buckley, a unique character in Maryland politics, a former sailor and restaurant owner from Australia, has been a consequential mayor, a firehose of innovative ideas, but without the capacity to always bring them to fruition. Littmann says if he winds up as Buckley’s successor, he sees part of his role as making sure the outgoing mayor’s vision is realized, emphasizing efficiency and community input.
But Pindell Charles is also preaching continuity. In her announcement speech Monday, she pledged to retain all of Buckley’s senior managers.
Pindell Charles is a retired prosecutor and former state official who was hailed by 10 different speakers from different aspects of her life Monday night as an energetic and responsive representative of her council ward, but with contacts at every level of government to serve the entire city. She is bidding to become the first elected Black mayor in Annapolis — Alderman John Thomas Chambers Jr. (R) served on an interim basis for two months in 1981, following the suicide of Mayor Gustav Akerland (R).
Annapolis Alderwoman Rhonda Pindell Charles (second from left) discusses the program for her mayoral announcement with Sandra Anez Powell. At right is Phebe Duff, a friend of Pindell Charles’ since junior high school. Photo by Josh Kurtz.
“Rhonda has a lot of attributes — and we can talk forever about her attributes,” said Leslie Stanton, a retired Anne Arundel County Public Schools administrator who attended high school with Pindell Charles.
After a long discussion about her family history in the region, dating to an indentured servant who was brought to Bowie in the early 18th century, Pindell Charles pledged to run the most activist and inclusive administration in city history and is using as her slogan the phrase “Annapolis: Spreading the Love…”
“The three dots after ‘love’ gives every business and every citizen in this city the chance to fill in the blank, to finish the sentence,” she explained.
Pindell Charles also said she would forgo the mayor’s annual salary of $98,000 and would govern instead on an alderman’s $18,000 salary for her first two years in office.
“I think we can all agree that that extra $160,000 can be used for good,” she said.
Some Pindell Charles supporters seemed unaware or unconcerned about the candidate’s potential opponents.
“She demands results,” said Todd Scott, a former official with the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, who worked with Pindell Charles after a tornado ripped through Annapolis in 2021. “I don’t know who’s running against her, but it doesn’t matter. She can get the cast [of leaders] out” to serve the city.
In the wake of that storm and a constant surge of environmental threats, Littmann is placing a premium on the concept of resilience, which means different things in different parts of the capital city. In his view, it means ensuring that the city government is able to respond quickly to and recover from a range of challenges. He wants to focus on public safety, creating more affordable housing and infrastructure, and fortifying the city against the impacts of climate change — all with an emphasis on equity and environmental justice.
“My vision is a united, thriving and healthy Annapolis, for all of us,” Littmann said.
After so much time on the campaign trail already, he’s got 49 more weeks, at least, to make his case.