City Council Is About to Sneak In A Federal Hill Development Amendment

The email below this post has been floating around message boards and email accounts for the last few hours.  It appears that if the amendment in question passes that there will be even more development in Federal Hill brought to us by HarborView Properties. 

On Thursday BILL 08-0117 passed its hearing thanks to a vote from HarborView resident and 5th District (and HarborView is NOT in the 5th district) city councilwoman Rikki Spector.  You can read a little bit more about Ms. Spector here and here.  The second article shows that Rikki gets to live in her condo at HarborView for free for the rest of her life.

Ms. Spector has been a member of the council since I was 6 months old in 1977.  The following is what happens when citizens of Baltimore continually vote for the same people over and over again:

"Hey Gang!

The long and the short of my intrusion is to point out the City Council is about to sneak through an amendment that allows a local developer to circumvent the past efforts of FHNA (and other Peninsula organizations) in trying to curtail the unbridled growth along Key Highway. BILL 08-0117 passed its hearing on Thursday and is going to full Council vote tonight, Monday. It doesn't give us much time to mount an opposition, which of course explains the Council's urgent need for accelerated legislation.

My apologies if you have already received a request to sign the petition below. If you haven't acted as of yet, please take a few moments, read the message below from FHNA President Paul Robinson and enlighten yourself on how a member of the City Council be given a "the right to live in a one-bedroom condominium at Harborview, Unit 1109, until she dies, at no charge" and not recuse herself from voting in last Thursday's hearing that greatly benefited the owner of her condominium building.

If you agree with me that City Council back room politics need to stop, then please sign the petition and pass it along to as many friends and neighbors who you think would be opposed to the "business as usual" attitude taken on by our elected City officials.

The Online Petition of Opposition is now up and active. Please add your name (and encourage everyone you know to do so) right now. Only your address will be visible to City leaders.

And please try to attend tonight's City Council Meeting tonight at 5pm as a demonstration of your Opposition to construction of more skyscrapers on the HarborView Property."