Baltimore Asks Washington To Step up to the Plate and Reform Immigration

by: casa_de_maryland

Tue Aug 11, 2009 at 03:09 PM EDT

By Mario Quiroz, of CASA de Maryland

Delay may be business as usual in Washington, but Baltimore isn't having it.

Yesterday evening, amidst news that President Obama now sees immigration reform delayed until 2010, the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution-- the first like it in Maryland-- calling on President Obama and Congress to act swiftly to pass real, comprehensive immigration reform. 

According to Baltimore City Councilmember Rochelle "Rikki" Spector:

As a city with a rich immigrant history, we recognize that our city and country will be stronger if we can assist new immigrants in fully assimilating into our community, There’s no doubt that the country has a broken immigration system, and that local municipalities are paying a big price as a result of Washington’s inaction.

Return of the SUPERTRAIN?

by: Isaac Smith

Thu Oct 30, 2008 at 04:36 PM EDT

Via Ryan Avent, potential good news for transit geeks:

A proposal to build a high-speed train between Baltimore and D.C. that hadn’t progressed in five years may claim $15 million to get moving again — albeit slowly.

The Federal Railroad Administration is making $45 million available for three magnetic levitation train projects, known as Maglev. Backers of a plan to build a 40-mile Maglev in the Baltimore/Washington corridor are considering application for at least a third of that money.

But even though federal cash for Maglev projects is flowing for the first time in years, the money may be out of reach for the Baltimore-Washington project, estimated to cost $3.7 billion in 2002 dollars.

With state money for transportation projects scarce, it’s not clear whether there will be funds to match any federal offering for the project.

The Maglev is viewed as a powerful resource for driving regional economic development and accommodating expected growth in public transportation use.

The Maglev, with its 18-minute projected travel time between the two cities, would address a need for more transportation capacity in the corridor with 50 percent population growth by 2040, said Phyllis Wilkins, head of Maglev Maryland.

Now, a train that could get you from Baltimore to DC in 18 minutes would a boon for Charm City, as it would tie it much more closely to the comparatively more prosperous DC metro area. Whether this Maglev line will get built, however, is another matter: If the $15 million from the feds requires matching funds from the state, we will likely not be able to put up the money, given that a billion dollars' worth in transportation projects have already been delayed. It's a shame, I think: improved infrastructure needs to be a top priority for both Maryland and the country, both as a means of economic recovery and as a means to reduce the carbon footprint of our country's transportation sector. Something like the Green Recovery plan put forth by the Center for American Progress would be a good place to start in this regard.

Baltimore City in Rare Position of Having Teacher Surplus

by: Eric Luedtke

Mon Aug 11, 2008 at 10:00 PM EDT

The "Flesh and Blood" Defense

by: Isaac Smith

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 11:14 AM EDT

If you're in the mood for a bizarre story, check out the Washington Monthly's cover article on black Baltimore drug dealers using a strange form of legal defense derived from white supremacist ideology. Kevin Carey explains:

In the previous year, nearly twenty defendants in other Baltimore cases had begun adopting what lawyers in the federal courthouse came to call “the flesh-and-blood defense.” The defense, such as it is, boils down to this: As officers of the court, all defense lawyers are really on the government’s side, having sworn an oath to uphold a vast, century-old conspiracy to conceal the fact that most aspects of the federal government are illegitimate, including the courts, which have no constitutional authority to bring people to trial. The defendants also believed that a legal distinction could be drawn between their name as written on their indictment and their true identity as a “flesh and blood man.”

Judge Davis and his law clerk pored over the case files, which led them to a series of strange Web sites. The flesh-and-blood defense, they discovered, came from a place far from Baltimore, from people as different from Willie Mitchell as people could possibly be. Its antecedents stretched back decades, involving religious zealots, gun nuts, tax protestors, and violent separatists driven by theories that had fueled delusions of Aryan supremacy and race war in gun-loaded compounds in the wilds of Montana and Idaho. Although Mitchell and his peers didn’t know it, they were inheriting the intellectual legacy of white supremacists who believe that America was irrevocably broken when the 14th Amendment provided equal rights to former slaves. It was the ideology that inspired the Oklahoma City bombing, the biggest act of domestic terrorism in the nation’s history, and now, a decade later, it had somehow sprouted in the crime-ridden ghettos of Baltimore.

I don't really have a larger point to make, if that's even possible here, but the article provides a good look at the problem of crime in Baltimore.

In Which I Do Someone Else's Job for Them

by: Isaac Smith

Fri Jun 27, 2008 at 01:14 PM EDT

The fellow named Last Reporter over at Red Maryland wonder why links to records of political contributions from Ron Lipscomb, one of the focal points in the Sheila Dixon controversy, don't last more than a day or two, and cast vague aspersions on the transparency of the Maryland government.

Improving state government or other public websites is indeed something that needs more attention, and hopefully the newly established state IT department will work on that as soon as possible (although I suppose their mandate doesn't include UMBC, which houses the political contributions website). In the meantime, rather than bemoan how hard it is to get government contribution records, why doesn't Last Reporter just employ some freely available Internet tools?

Let's begin with UMBC's website. You can download your search results as a CSV file, then upload it to Google Docs (which, if you're using Blogger, you already have access to). Publishing the spreadsheet then gives you a permalink, such this one, detailing the contribution records of one Ronald Lipscomb.

There, was that so hard?

Return the Gift

by: Isaac Smith

Tue Jun 24, 2008 at 11:01 PM EDT

It just keeps getting worse for Madame Mayor:

Prosecutors are investigating whether Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon received thousands of dollars in gifts - including fur coats - from a prominent developer whose projects benefited from tax breaks and zoning changes she supported as City Council president, a document obtained by The Sun shows.

Court records, drafted by the state prosecutor's office in November, indicate that Dixon also went on lavish trips to Boston, the Bahamas, Chicago and Colorado with the developer, Ronald H. Lipscomb. In one instance, the two left Baltimore for New York by train hours after she had voted to approve a tax break for one of his company's largest projects.

 [...]

After receiving questions from The Sun yesterday, Dixon and Lipscomb acknowledged publicly for the first time that they had had a relationship and exchanged gifts, but both denied that the relationship played any role in projects that Dixon helped advance on the City Council and the Board of Estimates.

"In late 2003 and early 2004, I had a personal relationship with Ron Lipscomb," Dixon said in a statement. "We were both separated from our respective spouses at the time, we traveled together and exchanged gifts on special occasions. Our brief relationship was personal, and it did not influence my decisions related to matters of city government."

The analogy to the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal is getting stronger than ever. It's worse, really: Kilpatrick is alleged to have fired a police officer who was investigating Kilpatrick's affair with his chief of staff, whereas it seems that Dixon's affair with this developer may have led to favored legislation in the City Council.

Is it time, perhaps, for Dixon to resign? Put your thoughts in the comments.

Sheila Dixon Under Investigation

by: Isaac Smith

Wed Jun 18, 2008 at 10:34 AM EDT

Ever since taking office, the current Mayor of Baltimore has been dogged by allegations of favoritism regarding the awarding of contracts when she was City Council President. Now, it seems, it's finally blowing up:

Maryland state prosecutors raided the home of Mayor Sheila Dixon yesterday as part of an investigation into past spending practices at City Hall, the most aggressive move so far in the years-long probe.

After spending more than seven hours inside, state prosecutors and police emerged from Dixon's house - in Hunting Ridge, along the city's western border with Baltimore County - carrying boxes, folders and a blue cooler they had brought in with them.

[...]

Investigators have been examining spending irregularities at City Hall since a March 2006 series of articles in The Sun that detailed questions about the role of Dixon - then council president - in approving contracts that benefited her sister's employer. Prosecutors have served subpoenas on the city's development agency, Finance Department and Board of Estimates in the past year.

Two people with ties to Dixon - her former campaign chairman and the owner of a company that employed her sister - have pleaded guilty on tax charges as part of the probe.

But the decision to raid the mayor's private residence, which is not paid for by taxpayer money, represented a more aggressive stance in the investigation, which to date has largely relied on subpoenas to gather documents from city offices and employees.

It's hard to say at this point whether Dixon will go the way of Kwame Kilpatrick and get indicted, but it's obvious that Dixon's ability to govern going forward will be compromised. We'll see what happens.

The Economist on Baltimore

by: Isaac Smith

Fri Apr 18, 2008 at 07:26 PM EDT

Despite appearances, the city of Baltimore has actually made strides in reducing the crime rate:

Baltimore's police chief, Frederick Bealefeld, prefers not to rely on divine intervention. With 282 murders last year among a population of 630,000, Baltimore was one of the most violent cities in America. But since last summer, the killing has slowed. The six months to March this year saw an impressive 28% fewer murders than the same period a year earlier. Mr Bealefeld credits smarter policing, and says he is cautiously optimistic that the trend will continue.

Television dramas such as “The Wire” may give the impression that Baltimore is a hellhole. It is not. Most of the city is calm and pleasant. Only a couple of areas are crime-ridden. And even in these areas, relatively few young men commit—and are the victims of—the most serious crimes. Last year, 89% of those murdered in Baltimore had a criminal record.

Mr Bealefeld thinks the murder rate has fallen because the police are paying more attention to the most violent offenders. One helpful new tool is a registry for gun offenders which the mayor, Sheila Dixon, announced last year. Like sex criminals, anyone who commits a crime using a gun must register his whereabouts with the police as soon as he is convicted or once released from jail. Failure to do so can get him imprisoned again for up to a year.

The logic is simple. Of the 135 people arrested for murder in Baltimore last year, nearly half had a prior conviction for a gun offence. So it makes sense for police and parole officers to keep close tabs on former gun criminals.

One interesting thing about the article is that, despite the improvements in policing, Bealefield comes out in favor of drug legalization as the best way to reduce crime in the city, an approach that's rejected by Mayor Dixon. It is depressing that the lessons of Prohibition have been so thoroughly forgotten in this country, but it's good to see that someone on the frontline of the War on Drugs realizes that it's not a war that we should be fighting in the first place.

(Via Dan Rodricks.) 

Yay! for the Baltimore City Council

by: Carolyn in Baltimore

Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 05:36 PM EDT

The Baltimore City Council passed a resulution supporting the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, and act wending its way through the legislature with about zero chance of passage but anyway......

Bill Henry sponsored this, was supported publicly by a few council folk, including City Council President Stephaie Rawlings-Blake (who has been surprising me in a good way) but the last times I spoke to him about this he was very unsure it would pass.

9-3-3 (2 absent, one abstaining). Wow! Way to go!!!

Similar resolutions have been passed in Takoma Park,  College Park, and Kensington.

Time to call your Delegates and Senator!!!

Hopeful Signs for Baltimore City Public Education

by: Carolyn in Baltimore

Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 06:08 PM EST

I was recently in a group asked to present to the City Council Education Committee. It was a great experience (and far different from my experiences testifying in Annapolis). Mary Pat Clarke had some questions - she needed background on Charter School funding - because Dr. Alonso will be meeting with them to propose some changes to the City School model.

Details below: