The Politics Meister

Posted on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 7:53 am

“Another reason Curran said he would likely throw his support behind Welch was the nominee’s mother’s support for the citywide smoking ban passed in 2008 that Curran successfully sponsored and fought hard to pass.

“Rarely in political life do you get to pay someone back,” Curran said. “She was very supportive of the smoking ban.”

Curran had the nerve to say this to Investigative Voice before the hearing even took place! Is this guy a complete idiot or does he think we are all idiots? Curran’s behavior at the hearing would reveal the truth.

Councilman Curran represents the 3rd District of Baltimore in Northeast Baltimore. The Curran family has been involved in Baltimore politics for many years. One could say that Curran is part of a local political monarchy. If you have gained power because of your last name why would you stop others from gaining power the same exact way?

I remember that during the 2003/2004 local election cycle Robert Curran was involved in a debate with a Green party candidate. Curran blamed the Green Party for costing the Democrats the 2000 Presidential election.  The 2000 election brought about the eight year George W. Bush presidency. I don’t see why Curran would be such a Bush hater. George Bush got by on his last name just like Curran and Pete Welch. Curran wants Welch to lead because he owes his mother a favor, just like how so many people who owed George H.W. Bush favors gave generously to George W. Bush’s campaign and helped get him elected. Political monarchies are clearly hard to topple at any level of government, but in Baltimore our leaders are much more open about the deals they make to continue these corrupt administrations.  Who is the true George W. Bush of Baltimore? Robert Curran or Pete Welch?

Dr. John Bullock was the first candidate to speak at the hearing. He gave an excellent opening statement (that I will discuss in a post dedicated to Dr. Bullock) that was filled with information about who he is, where he lives, and what he does for a living. Every council member had a packet that contained biographies about the candidates with the same basic information. The first question that Robert Curran asked was what community association Dr. Bullock was a member of. Dr. Bullock had already stated that information in his opening statement and the information was in the packet that Curran had right in front of his face. The man clearly was not paying attention to Bullock and had not taken the time to read anything about him.  I guess it is also possible that he has the reading comprehension skills and attention span of a first grader. He also probably enjoys listening to his own pointless questions.

When it came time to ask Abigail Breiseth questions Curran decided to pay attention a little more and ask her a question that he thought dealt with her job as a teacher. He said that he had been involved with some legislation that would lower the age one needed to be to serve on city council from 21 to 18. He wanted to know Breiseth’s opinion on this issue.

Why on earth is a councilman working on useless legislation like this when our city is crime infested and rotting before our eyes? What gall this man has to ask such a question to candidates who wants to represent a district where 18 year olds get shot at and shoot at others and could give rat’s butt about how old a person has to be to serve on city council. There is no wonder why parts this city resemble war zones when our leaders want to deal with total BS easy fluff news issues like this one!

Breiseth gave a pretty sophisticated answer. She found the question to be interesting. Curran was quite flattered and said that since 18 year olds are old enough to “go to Iraq and Iran” that he thought they should be old enough to serve on Baltimore’s City Council. Yes he said Iran! Does this guy think we are at war with Iran? Is that the Green party’s fault also? Surely we would not be at war with Iran if we lived in a one party system that supports local hereditary monarchies like we do in Baltimore!

When it came time for Curran to question his buddy Pete Welch he reminded us all that Pete and him went to the same High School. How cute.

In Michael Johnson’s opening statement he indirectly addressed Curran by stating that he thought it was an insult to the other candidates to say that Pete Welch could “hit the ground running” and thus imply the others could not do so. Johnson stated that every candidate there could hit the ground running and that any new councilman had to “hit the ground running”. You could tell that Johnson did not appreciate Curran’s pro-Welch pre-hearing comments he made to Investigative Voice.

Johnson said that he wanted to make the district look better and that currently there were close to 90 streetlamps out in the district. Curran tried to get smart with Johnson and say that the city was already spending $17million on streetlamps. Johnson countered Curran by saying that clearly something was wrong with the system if the city could spend so much money on lights and have such bad results. He said the city needed to be more progressive and it also needed to audit many departments to find out where huge amounts of money like the chunk of change needed to maintain street lights was really going.

Old school councilman like to toss big numbers at you like they can not be reduced. Outside the box people will always find a very simple way to reduce those numbers. The problem is that the reason those numbers are so big in the first place is because people like Robert Curran would rather line the pockets of his living outside the city union buddies with inflated city projects than come up with inexpensive solutions that save money for the citizens of Baltimore. Not one member of city council asked a candidate how they could cut city expenses. Most of the financial questions dealt with raising taxes, creating new fees, and “how would you create revenue”.

So Curran made it pretty obvious that this was one big show for him and that his mind is made up just like he implied in the Investigative Voice article. He probably thinks that the people of his district will never know about all this. We’ll see about that one. Anyway even though Curran was pretty disgraceful, he was not the worst of the city councilmen in attendance. That honor goes to Warren Branch of the 13th District.

From the Baltimore City Council Website:

“Councilman Warren M. Branch was born in Baltimore City on January 16, 1961 to Rosa and Lee Andrew Branch. Warren is the brother of State Delegate Talmadge Branch.”

Helen Holton’s disinterest was disgraceful, Robert Curran’s statements were embarrassing, Rikki Spector’s absence was typical, but 13th District Councilman Warren Branch stole the show! At times I thought I was in the twilight zone when this man spoke. Many say the 13th district (located in East Baltimore near Johns Hopkins Hospital) is in worse shape than the 9th and with this man at the helm it should not come as a shock.

The first question Branch asked Dr. Bullock was why he didn’t have recommendation letters from his or any other neighborhood association. Dr. Bullock stated that letters of recommendation were not part of the application process. Councilman Branch then went on a rant about how he has a piece of paper in front of him that mentioned recommendation letters and how he was only going to pick a candidate who the people of the 9th district supported. It was no coincidence that Pete Welch was the only candidate who had letters of recommendation (he supposedly had 30)and the only candidate who up until that point asked his “supporters” to stand before he spoke. His supporters were mostly old women from an apartment building that had been brought to city hall by a bus.  Jack Young pointed out that recommendation letters were not part of the application process, but Branch continued to ramble on.

For every candidate Branch rambled on about the importance of recommendation letters and how he wanted to pick the person who the people supported. He totally ignored the fact that Michael Johnson was the only person there who had actually received any votes from any citizen of the 9th district in an official election (he came in second in 2007). At one point Jack Young foolishly said that they would accept letters of recommendation from 9th District people/organizations. It appeared he was changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game! Young did eventually stress that letters were not necessary. At one point Young appeared to be quite frustrated with Branch. By the 4th candidate the crowd in the balcony was vocally frustrated and angry at the embarrassing Branch. It is also important to point out that if any organization is a 501c3 nonprofit then they can not legally endorse any candidate. Branches rant eventually morphed into him talking about how recommendation letters need to become a requirement at future open council seat hearings.

It is obvious that many residents of the 13th district voted for Branch because of his Brother who is in the House of Delegates. Branch represents the nightmare scenario of Baltimore political family based power. Someone in the 13th needs to step and run a solid campaign to get rid of this guy.

Many other council-members had questions and some were notable. A few members revealed some of their legislative priorities… 

Filed in: Uncategorized.

Tags: Agnes Welch, Baltimore, City Council, Michael Johnson, Robert Curran, Warren Branch, William Welch