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Lots of events this weekend. Earlier today I ran from Charles Village to Mount Vernon and passed through the expanded Artscape. North Avenue has not looked that alive (in a good way) in years. I usually see so few people on the streets and today I saw so many young people starting at 29th street walking to Artscape related events. If only all of those people voted! Sunday is the Jessamy Fire Burns gathering at the farmers' market under the JFX starting at 9AM and lasting at least until 10AM. Anna will be near the Saratoga street entrance to the market across from Sonar. I just got late word that there may be a few surprise observers there. I will be there covering the event and maybe I will get a chance to meet a few of my loyal readers in person. It will be a great chance for those of you who want to to talk to Anna to have some words with her. More information can be found here. A few people have brought up that Patricia Jessamy is being let off the hook for all this by focusing too much attention on Margaret Burns. The words were Burns but the lack of action has to be attributed to Jessamy. Over at the Ron Smith show page there are some great clips of Jim Kraft expressing his views on the Margaret Burns situation. There also is a poll there where 71% of the people responding say Burns should be fired immediately. I give credit to Jim Kraft for expressing his opinion. I also give credit to Bill Cole and Bill Henry for taking time to respond. Those are the only three local public officials to say anything. I did hear a rumor that Belinda Conaway was asked a surprise question in reference to the Burns controversy on the C4 show on WBAL by a person calling in. C4 deflected the question. Anna clearly has some very loyal supporters. Keep on emailing your local leaders. It does maker a difference! Here is a link to email addresses of house of delegates and state senate reps from Baltimore City. They should also be contacted since Margaret Burns is a state employee. Have a great weekend and try to make a difference. |
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Categories:
City Council ,
Jim Kraft ,
Bill Henry ,
Patricia Jessamy ,
Margaret Burns ,
Bill Cole ,
Belinda Conaway
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A lot of media outlets have started to cover this story again in the last 24 hours. Here are some links to the stories:
This story is dominating Baltimore related blogs and message boards! I decided that we needed to hear more from our public officials so I sent out the following emails:
I am sure our public officials would like to hear from you also so feel free to send emails to all of the email addresses listed above. Keep checking back here for updates throughout the day. I believe Anna will announce plans for a weekend supportive gathering at some point today. |
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At least in West Virginia. In Baltimore it's a different story. Some think they "deserve" raises. |
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I have been told that bill 08-0117 (The Urban Renewal - Key Highway - Amendment) passed and has moved on to third reader. Opposed to the bill were: Bill Cole, Mary Pat Clarke, Ed Reisinger, and Jim Kraft. Nick D'Adamo passed on the vote. People in Federal Hill are not happy. Read the comments under my previous post and check out this email from FHNA President Paul Robinson: "And in about 48 hours time (since the Urban Affairs vote last Thursday), Swirnow has all but completed construction of a massive guard house at the Warren Avenue “access” to the so-called “Public” promenade along the “waterfront”. So, now that Council is on the verge of creating brand new development rights (above and beyond those stipulated in the original Key Highway URO) relaxing the lot coverage and height ratios on both Lot #3 and Lot #6, the Mayor and the Council President are going to send Doug McCoach into battle against Swirnow and force him to relinquish these rights on Lot #6 so that the Public Waterfront Park with “active open space” they promised us before last year’s Election actually becomes a reality? Here’s what will happen. Swirnow will demand that the City sell the Fire Department Repair Facility land to him AT HIS PRICE! Or he will refuse to cooperate at all by accepting tighter development area controls on Lot #6. The City will threaten him by introducing another Amendment to the KHURO changing the boundaries to exclude Lot #6. Swirnow (THE most litigious developer inBaltimore history – ask Michaela Gallagher) and Frank Wise will threaten to sue for irreparable financial damages. Andy Frank will capitulate. The Mayor will come back and apologize. Game Over….. What puzzles me is that we suggested a compromise (that was a bitter bill for Federal Hill residents, anyway). Essentially the Amendment (which was rejected by the Mayor and the Council President as “offensive” in that it demonstrated “a lack of trust” in them to keep their commitment to us) required Swirnow to cooperate fully on Lot #6 (Hell - without the Amendment passed yesterday he could build NOTHING there anyway). If he failed to comply, the original KHURO development area controls on both Lot #3 and Lot #6 would be re-instated in full force and effect. Had the Amendment been introduced and supported it would have boxed Swirnow, the Planning Department and the Administration into a corner. Swirnow would have had no choice but to cooperate. So, when presented the opportunity to either assure Swirnow’s cooperation or provide him with the leverage he needs to negotiate any future Key Highway development deals from a position of greatly increased strength, the powers that be choose the former. Here’s the real deal. Swirnow staged a couple of fundraisers. The Mayor and Council President did not carry our precincts last fall. Mitchell and Sarbanes did. We couldn’t even deliver the local precinct for Ed. Welcome to Baltimore politics. Pay-back is Hell!" Below are some campaign contributions by developer Richard Swirnow and his company HarborView properties:
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Categories:
City Council ,
Rikki Spector ,
developers ,
Federal Hill ,
Sheila Dixon ,
Richard Swirnow ,
HarborView
Gilbert Sapperstein stole $3.3 million from the school system over a number of years. Now the city is paying him more than $1 million for three parcels of land that are needed for a shopping center project. Before he was a convict he gave generously to the following political campaigns:
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The kids at the Algebra Project said they were going to have a hunger strike if the Mayor did not give them $3 million to fund their Peer to Peer project. On Wednesday they suspended the hunger strike because Mayor Dixon agreed to meet with them. The Mayor points out that she has already given $14.5 million to about a dozen other youth programs. I do not agree with the Mayor on a lot of issues but I strongly agree with her on this one. I think it is great that kids are getting involved in the political process and I wish more would get involved in other issues (like city council races). There has to be a point when you stop funding special interest projects. When you are already funding $14.5 million worth of similar ones then I think you have already passed that point. The Baltimore school budget is a staggering $1.2 billion a year! I think the kids need to ask where all this money is going to before they try to ask for more. Another avenue to take is private financing. Perhaps a for profit company would donate the $3 million if the kids agreed to be unpaid interns. Use those brains to be creative and come up with out of the box solutions. Trust me, it is easier to deal with private entities instead of the City any day! I emailed the Algebra Project and asked the kids to leave their thoughts here. Feel free to give your own opinions on this issue in my comments section below. |
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In a recent Examiner article Councilman Robert Curran says that he wants to stop independent tow trucks that are not authorized to tow cars from accident scenes from towing from accident scenes. He says these unauthorized trucks are ripping people off and he wants to protect motorists. At first glance this seems like a good idea. Baltimore grants medallions to certain tow companies that allow them to tow from city accident scenes. Of course this limits competition and limited competition usually results in higher costs for the consumer. The medallion trucks are required to tow cars to the city’s impound lot where the car owner is charged a "storage fee" by the city. The unauthorized independent trucks can tow a car to any location. Independent tow truck drivers say they provide the best towing deals. Councilman Curran says: "I'm not trying to help the tow companies with this bill." The bill does help the medallion tow companies though. The medallion companies will maintain a lucrative monopoly in the Baltimore accident market and the city impound lot will continue to charge storage fees for the cars brought in by these companies. A quick check of the campaign finance database shows that on 10/20/2004 Frankford Towing Inc. (a medallion towing company) gave Friends of Bob Curran $500. Frankford Towing gave $3000 to Friends For Sheila Dixon on 09/07/2007. |
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Baltimore has a very interesting election calendar. In 2008 we have the presidential election, in 2010 we have elections that determine statewide offices (Governor, Delegates, State Senators...), and in 2011 we have citywide elections for local offices (Mayor, City Council, Comptroller...). It costs a lot of money to hold each election. It would save a lot of money if instead of having citywide and statewide elections in separate years, we had them in the same year. This would also prevent statewide office holders from running for citywide office (and vice versa) with no fear of losing their current office. In Maryland you can not run for two positions at the same time so current officeholders would have to give up their current position in order to run for another one no matter what level of government they were currently a part of. It would even make more sense for Baltimore to do away with primary elections for citywide offices. The Democratic Primary is all that counts in Baltimore for those seeking local political offices. Independents and other parties have no say in who wins that primary. In a sense independents are disenfranchised. The primary winner goes on to to the general election and crushes the competition. The media and the etablishment political machine play a huge role in making the general election an afterthought. In theory the 2nd place candidate in the primary may have been heavily favored by independents who will never get a chance to vote for him or her. In order to save money and give a say to voters besides democrats I say we get rid of the Baltimore primaries and make everyone run in the general election. It will be one less election to pay for. Now if the Democratic and Republican Parties want to pay for their own primaries then more power to them. |
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On Thursday I ran in to a hardcore Michael Sarbanes supporter. We talked about life and a little bit about politics. He mentioned how Baltimore is a machine city. He was basically saying that in the 2007 election it was a very good idea to be associated with the Dixon team in some way (Sarbanes was not and he did not win). You can actually trace the roots even deeper. I did some research to find out what campaigns received contributions from Friends of Martin O'Malley. I have noticed that certain people immediately think higher of you if you have the blessings of O'Malley. Many people blindly vote for who O'Malley tells them to. Of the fifteen people including Council President Dixon who were part of the council prior to 2007, thirteen of them had at one time received contributions from Friends of Martin O'Malley. Nick D'Adamo and Belinda Conaway were the only members not to receive O'Malley money. The current council has a few new people, but out of them only Nick D'Adamo, Belinda Conaway, Warren Branch, and Bill Henry did not receive funds from Friends of Martin O'Malley. So clearly it pays off to seek the support of the Governor and to join his machine. In my eyes there is something very respectable about attaining office without being part of the machine. Out of the four people that did not receive O'Malley financial aid one clearly rises to the top. I think all of you should seek out and meet Bill Henry of the 4th district. I don't even want to call him a politician because he is just a real person that is honest, smart, and nice. He is also one of the few full-time members of city council (most collect $57,000 of your tax money a year by making city council a part time job!). Today I am proud to be the first journalist or pseudo-journalist (no way am I a real journalist!) to proclaim that not only should Bill Henry be our future mayor but he should be our current mayor! Keep an eye on him. |
BG&E electricity rates are rising again. Constellation Energy is the parent company of BG&E and they like to donate money to the following council members' campaign accounts (since 2003). Please note that many of these donations were made after the price hikes of the last few years:
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Adam Meister's scribe spreads his innate enthusiasm for all things Baltimore--and, in particular, the political inner workings of his beloved hometown.
- New Arena in Baltimore Could Mean A 6.5% Sales Tax
- More About Yesterday's Fire Margaret Burns Event
- Video And Review Of Today's Jessamy Fire Margaret Burns Event
- Patricia Jessamy Finally Issues A Statement About The Zach Sowers Case
- A Former Insider's View Of The Inner Workings Of The State's Attorney's Office
- KAGRO Gave Money To These Politicians
- Dixon Versus Rawlings-Blake
- A Review Of Sunday's Gathering And More On Sowers Versus Burns
- Linden Bar And Liquors Is Open Again
- Ed Reisinger Supports The Dismissal And More Photos And Links From Gathering
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