Our Say: Annapolis study of combining services with Anne Arundel deflates the issue for election season

When John Hammond, the former Annapolis alderman and longtime budget officer for Anne Arundel County, first raised the subject of merging city and county services a few months back, he predicted it would a big factor in this fall’s city elections. Alderman Sheila Finlayson, long an advocate for city employees, may have just put a huge crimp in that forecast. Monday night, after a marathon City Council session, a majority of aldermen and alderwomen voted to approve Mayor Gavin Buckley’s $152 million budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.