Decatur Council President Ladner won't seek reelection as District 5 councilman
Ladner said he has known for a while that he would not run and felt it was time, with the June 10 beginning of the qualifying period for the municipal election approaching, to make his announcement.
"I wanted to give potential candidates time to consider whether they want to run knowing that there's an open seat," Ladner said. "Hopefully, this will get more people interested."
So far, there haven't been any formal public announcements from potential candidates for District 5, located mainly between Beltline Road Southwest and Gordon Terry Parkway.
Ladner said several factors went into his decision not to run again. The 39-year-old has three young, active children. He is also chief executive officer of Thirdmark Capital, a commercial finance company that's 3 years old and growing.
He said former Councilman Greg Reeves gave him some advice in 2020 when he was considering running.
"Greg talked about having the mentality if I won that I was not going to run again," Ladner said. "He said that would really free you up, so you don't have to worry about whether you're making the right decisions just to get reelected."
Despite this mentality, he said it wasn't always definite that he would just serve one term.
Mayor Tab Bowling, who has had an occasionally rocky relationship with Ladner, said he's "disappointed (with the decision) but I understand."
The mayor complimented Ladner, saying he "has a good mind for business," but that working as council president takes a lot of time away from his family and company.
"I know people see what goes on during Monday's council meetings, but they don't see all of the other work that goes on," Bowling said. "They don't see us working with developers or making plans for other types of quality-of-life projects."
As president, Ladner has led the council during the almost 20 months of controversy following the Sept. 29, 2023, shooting death of Steve Perkins by a Decatur police officer.
The controversy included criticism of Ladner by Bowling and others for continuing the often loud and rowdy public comment periods at council meetings because some felt the sessions were having a negative impact on the city.
"No, that had no bearing on my decision on whether to run again or not," Ladner said.
Ladner and the council majority also pushed out Todd Pinion as police chief and hired Torry Mack, who starts June 2.
Sharonda Acklin, of Standing In Power, a social justice group group that has led many protests related to Perkins' death, said she's surprised that Ladner isn't running again.
"We wish him the best of luck on his future endeavors," Acklin said. "I think he did the best he could with the way he knew how to do it. He was open to hearing what the community had to say regarding the state of the city, whether or not that was put into action or taken outside of the words he heard."
Most recently, Ladner was criticized for pausing public comment at two council meetings and changing the public comment rules after a chaotic meeting that led to the arrest of six people in attendance. Bowling also banned the six from City Hall.
"I think he did the best he knew how with everything that's going on," Acklin said. "I believe making change to the public comment was to appease his higher-ups."
While he's not running again, Ladner said serving on the council for the last four and a half years "has been one of the greatest honors of my life," and he's "incredibly proud" of the accomplishments during this term.
He said he is proud of how aggressive this City Council has been. He mentioned the $98 million 3M Co. lawsuit settlement, which led to the ongoing construction of the new Wilson Morgan Recreation Center and multiple recreation facilities.
Bowling said he thinks the 3M settlement was the biggest accomplishment of Ladner's term. He said this set in motion Ladner's goal of making Decatur a leader in recreation again with the construction of the new sports facilities.
Ladner is council liaison to Decatur Utilities, and the utility is working on ending sanitary sewer overflows with a $165 million rate increase. Previously a problem that led to state fines, the city hasn't had a rain-induced sewer overflow in more than two years.
The city also made public infrastructure improvements like the new Morgan County-Decatur Farmers Market and a new downtown parking deck. The council built the deck as an incentive for a new Fairfield Inn by Marriott hotel.
The council under Ladner's leadership agreed to an incentive package that is bringing GreenPoint Ag's headquarters to Lee Street Northeast.
Ladner is also proud of the renewed focus on residential development.
"This led to more housing growth this term than in recent memory. People are choosing to make Decatur home — an encouraging sign of the city's momentum," he said.
He said that when he ran, he "wanted to change the attitude of waiting for things to happen. I hope this is a good thing, but I wanted to make things happen and change how aggressive we are."
Ladner said he hopes the next administration stays aggressive in adding quality-of-life attractions to the city.
"I hope it doesn't just sit around worrying about mowing the grass and paving the roads," Ladner said. "Those things need to occur, but I want them to make things happen."
He said several important projects are underway and will continue beyond his term. These include the Sixth Avenue streetscape, drainage improvements at Princeton Place, widening of Modaus Road and Bunny Lane, the planned $30 million Ingalls Harbor commercial and residential development and a hoped for additional Tennessee River bridge.
City leadership will change when the four-year term begins Nov. 3. Bowling is not seeking a third term. In addition to Ladner's decision, Councilman Billy Jackson is running for mayor after almost 29 years on the council. He has three announced opponents for mayor so far.
District 2 Councilman Kyle Pike is running again while Councilmen Carlton McMasters (District 3) and Hunter Pepper (District 4) have not announced their decisions. District 4 has two announced candidates, Pam Werstler and Angie Thom, and District 1 has one announced candidate, Terrance Adkins.
Qualifying for the municipal election is June 10-25 at the City Clerk's office. The registration fee is $50. The election is Aug. 26, with the runoff, if necessary, on Sept. 23.
— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432
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Moore's historic mass pardons were intended to right the wrong of a policy that criminalized the possession and use of marijuana and disproportionately impacted communities of color, because no one should continue to suffer the ill effects of a conviction for conduct that is no longer a crime in the State of Maryland,' Elliott said in a separate statement. On Juneteenth of this year, Moore's office announced an additional 6,938 pardons that were mistakenly omitted from the original pardons. But a Maryland Judiciary spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether those simple cannabis possession charges should have been expunged under the 2023 law or if they'll be expunged now. The governor's office said they will be hidden from the court's public online database under this year's new law. Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), who is vice chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee and helped author the Expungement Reform Act, said the intent of that bill was to include all pardoned convictions. 'If for some reason there was an error in the drafting, the legislature will unquestionably come back and remedy that error with emergency legislation that would take effect immediately,' Waldstreicher said. 'But what we should not do is allow the complicated processes between three branches of government to obscure the moral act that the governor took.' Adrian Rocha, policy director for the Last Prisoner Project advocacy group seeking to end the harmful impacts of those convicted for offenses that are now legal, said governors often use their pardon powers only in lame duck periods. 'Here we have a first-term governor who has front loaded pardons,' said Rocha, who worked with Moore's office on securing the pardons. 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Maryland legalized medical cannabis in 2014 and Maryland voters approved the legalization of recreational use in a 2022 ballot referendum, paving the way for lawmakers to pass the Maryland Cannabis Reform Act in 2023 — which Moore signed into law. Along the way, lawmakers prioritized the purging of court records for cannabis-related criminal charges through expungement, meaning someone with such a conviction could submit a petition to the courts requesting the permanent obliteration of all related records. An expungement is the most effective tool for clearing someone's criminal record, guaranteeing it will be purged from the three places documentation of it exists: the courthouse, the Maryland Judiciary case search database and the state's central repository, which is what gets tapped during criminal background checks. But the expungement process is also burdensome and expensive for those seeking relief, often requiring the help of a lawyer. 'These systems are complicated, they're cumbersome, there's paperwork,' said Heather Warnken, executive director of the Center for Criminal Justice Reform at the University of Baltimore School of Law. 'People who have been held back and marginalized by their convictions are facing even greater barriers to be able to engage with these systems.' Advocates have championed laws that mandate automatic expungement of certain charges. It's the only way to truly give people a clean slate and second chance, said Del. David Moon (D-Montgomery), one such advocate. Auto-expungement was a key component of the Maryland Cannabis Reform Act of 2023, which, in part, ordered the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to purge misdemeanor cannabis charges from the central repository. But officials from the Maryland judiciary have told lawmakers that auto-expungement is a financial and resource burden, prompting the General Assembly to instead use a method called 'shielding' in reform laws. Shielding hides criminal records from the public-facing Maryland Judiciary Case Search database — a form of relief that is simpler to achieve. But it does not include the destruction of records at the courthouse or from the central repository. Waldstreicher expressed frustration with the Maryland Judiciary for its reticence to commit to auto-expungement policies. 'The judiciary continues to plead poverty when it comes to their ability to expunge records,' Waldstreicher said. The governor's office said in a statement that administration officials chose to shield the charges the governor pardoned rather than expunging them because shielding 'provides many of the same benefits of an expungement, and does so without requiring that the individual take any action.' The governor's office added that auto-shielding was done 'using existing state resources' and 'without flooding courthouses with expungement petitions.' To completely purge their charges, those who were pardoned will still need to apply for expungement. Of the 100,000 people Moore pardoned, just 700 have taken that extra step, the judiciary said. It's not clear if those expungement applications were for the cannabis possession or paraphernalia charges. But the gap highlights the legal and administrative hurdles faced by people hoping for a clean slate in a state that disproportionately arrests and imprisons Black people Officials in Moore's office and criminal justice reform advocates said they've known since the June 2024 pardons that clemency was just the first step in a multipart plan to bring relief to those charged with acts that are no longer crimes in Maryland. Since then, the administration has worked to bring additional relief. The Maryland Expungement Reform Act expands expungement eligibility to three additional misdemeanor criminal charges: driving without a license, cashing a bad check and possession of a stolen credit card. Additional charges that were written into the original bill but later killed by lawmakers included resisting arrest, making a false statement to an officer and counterfeiting drug prescriptions, the latter of which would have given expungement eligibility to those who became addicted to opioids often originally prescribed by doctors. Most important to advocates, the new law overturns a 2022 Appellate Court of Maryland ruling that barred expungement for anyone who had violated their probation, even if the underlying charge was eligible under state law. The appeals decision originated with the case of a man, called Abhishek I. in court documents, who had pleaded guilty to low-level theft and was sentenced to probation. But he violated that probation when he was later arrested for marijuana possession, serving four days in jail. When he applied to have his theft conviction expunged a decade later, a judge denied his request, ruling that Abhishek's probation violation meant he had not satisfied the terms of his sentence and, therefore, was not eligible for expungement. Abhishek's attorneys unsuccessfully appealed the decision, with the Maryland appeals court ruling that the state's expungement laws at the time did not clearly address probation violations. The Expungement Reform Act provides that clarity by defining the satisfaction of a sentence as 'the time when a sentence has expired, including any period of probation, parole, or mandatory supervision.' Under that part of the law, which goes into effect in October of this year, a probation violation cannot automatically undermine an expungement application. Warnken called the governor's support for the Expungement Reform Act a 'game changer' that helped the Abhishek reform succeed. Aside from the Expungement Reform Act, all other expungement proposals died in committee during the most recent legislative session. Among other changes, those bills sought to make all criminal charges eligible for expungement and auto-expunge certain charges. When asked about his pardons and follow-up legislation earlier this year, Moore told reporters that he believes it is the 'responsibility' of the government to 'make sure that we're not just putting in laws that make sense in theory, but then we're also putting the supports in place to make people actually believe that redemption and efficient governance can be a reality for them as well.' 'Sometimes when you pass a really important piece of legislation or do things that I think are good, important, you still have to come back and make adjustments to make sure that it's being done correctly and being implemented properly,' the governor said. Warnken said the next frontier of cannabis reform in Maryland should include expanding relief — through pardons and legislation — for those with low-level, nonviolent criminal charges related to marijuana. 'The power of the pardon and the forgiveness is so profound and absolute, but it's not going to wipe it away from the record searches,' she said. 'These are all just steps and we have to keep going. We can't just take victory laps.' Katie Shepherd and Erin Cox contributed to this report.
