“If you’ve been to our website recently (and seen the new feature on our main page), you’ve probably seen that we’re really going to be focusing on the gas tax increase for the next couple months during the 90-day legislative session. Specifically, we’ll be doing our best to inform the electorate about how unnecessary this tax increase truly is, and on some better ways to plug the holes in our infrastructure budget.

To this end, we’ll be sending emails out specifically pertaining to the gas tax increase whenever we publish new content on the subject. Today, we begin with a brief list of myths and realities.”

If you are not a fan of the proposed gas tax then you probably should keep up with the Maryland Public Policy Institute.

If our gas taxes actually went to funding public transportation (heavy rail subway lines in Baltimore) then we probably would not have the vacant property problem we have in the city. A few weeks ago Mike Subelsky compiled a list of major Baltimore vacant property owners. The city of Baltimore is by far the biggest owner of vacant properties in Baltimore.  It is a shame that they did not liquidate their portfolio back in 2005 (like I recommended) when housing was extremely overvalued. Most of the portfolio is now worthless.

One of these days I want to search through all the private owners and find out if any gave political contributions to our local leaders.

Mike’s lists:

Some stories from around Baltimore from all sorts of different sources on this final day of Charm City Current:

• Mobtown Shank’s view of 2011.
• Rodney Foxworth- Should Baltimore be a “social services” city?
• Yakov Shafranovich’s letter to the Maryland General Assembly Regarding the Proposed Budget Bill.
• Streetsblog- College Presidents Kill Baltimore Bike Lane.
• North Baltimore Patch- Charles Street Stretch To Close for 2 Years.

Thank you Charm City Current for allowing me to speak my mind. On August 1, 2011 Examiner.com stifled my freedom of speech when the prevented me from posting this. I said if they did not allow me to post that on my Examiner blog then I would never write for them again. They did not give in and I did not give in. I never wrote for them again.

This is not my final Charm City Current post. I will have at least one more news story today and hopefully a few more on Friday.

Thanks for your support!

Adam

The Sun covers the story here and the the Baltimore Brew has an excellent recap of events here. Below this post is a video from the scene.  Here is one hilarious quote from the Sun article:

“State police spokesman Greg Shipley said the six individuals were told they were entering private property, which is owned by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.”

How can property that is owned by the state of Maryland be private?  We pay for the property, but we can not go on it?

I was shocked to see state troopers in the photos. For years I have been told that Maryland State Police are not allowed to “police” Baltimore. There is some bureaucratic battle between the city and state police forces that prevents troopers from helping out in Baltimore.  These people are supposed to protect and serve, but can not figure out a way to compromise and allow troopers to help maintain peace on the streets of Baltimore. Our city police leaders are always saying how they need more cops on the streets.  I have no idea what the state troopers involved in this action usually do, but if they just had their cars parked at some of the worst drug corners in Baltimore it would make a difference.  It is embarrassing and shameful to finally see Maryland State Police in Baltimore used for such a ridiculous purpose.  At least the police can no longer talk about how it is impossible to have State Troopers enter Baltimore.  We need leaders who will use this episode to allocate Maryland State Troopers to the streets of Baltimore for useful purposes. It appears our state leaders are more interested in ratifying a 100 year old constitutional amendment (to get their names into the paper) instead of dealing with current issues.

The Schools not Jails people say they were run off site this morning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Back in November I predicted that the 44th district (which covers a large part of West Baltimore) would lose a  city delegate in the House of Delegates. I was correct, but my prediction underestimated the Governor’s recommendations that you can view here.  The proposed plan has the 44th district with one delegate in the city and two in Baltimore County!  This plan is supposed to allow the current city Senator (Verna Jones) to remain in office. The city house where she supposedly lives is still in the district, but will the numerous county voters blindly vote for her? Since two thirds of the district will be populated by county residents I do not fully understand why they would want to be controlled by Baltimore City and thus elect a city based Senator.  One would think the current Senator could expect a county resident to challenge her for her seat. West Baltimore could end up represented by a State Senator who lives in the county.

Keiffer Mitchell’s house will remain in the 44th, but current 44th district house of delegates representatives Keith Haynes and Melvin Stukes will now be living in other districts. Melvin Stukes’ house will be in the 41st and he will have a very hard time running against the three incumbents in that district. Keith Haynes will be moved into the 40th district which is now represented by Frank Conaway, Jr., Barbara Robinson, and Shawn Tarrant. Haynes is a highly ranked and well supported delegate. In 2010 the three 40th district incumbents basically ran on the same ticket. I think that two of the incumbents will join up with Haynes in 2014 and leave a current incumbent out in the cold.  My prediction in that Frank Conaway, Jr. will be replaced by Keith Haynes on the 40th district incumbent ticket. Conaway Jr. (and  Robinson for that matter) has familial real estate connections that could allow him to run for office in at least one other district in Maryland. It will be interesting to see how things play out.

The 44th district and Baltimore were rightfully punished for losing population. This should be a wake up call for the city. The powers that be are NOT running things correctly. We need to gain some population back or else by the time the 2022 election takes place there will be no part of the 44th district in Baltimore.

The Sun paints the homestead property tax credit in a negative light when it is actually not the problem in Baltimore. Baltimore’s insane property tax rate is the problem. If the homestead property tax credit disappeared tomorrow and all those old people had to pay taxes on the full value of their houses, Baltimore would still have a property rate that would be almost double Baltimore county’s rate (one assumes the new revenue would be used to lower Baltimore’s rate as much as possible). Baltimore’s property tax rate needs to be lowered and then we can talk about changing the 4% homestead property tax rate cap to something higher.  A change in the homestead property tax credit rate is not going to get new people to move to Baltimore, but it will drive current residents out of Baltimore.

Newer residents of Baltimore need to educate themselves on the situation they are getting into. If they do not like high property tax rates then they are not going to be happy with Baltimore. The high property tax rate is not the fault of the guy who bought his house at a dirt cheap price thirty year ago though.  Before you buy in Baltimore try and calculate your yearly tax bill and then calculate how much the seller should knock off the price of your house. This is a buyer’s market and they have the leverage to lower prices based on a real factor like future property taxes.  Do not be a naive lamb and blindly listen to your Realtor. He or she wants you to pay $300,000 for your house no matter what county you buy in because he or she gets a 6% cut!  You will be the only person to blame for getting stuck with a  $6800 a year property tax bill.  You could buy a cheap house like I did.  Baltimore has plenty of $100,000 houses out there.

Below is one final set of numbers that shows how silly it is to worry about the homestead property tax credit instead of the bigger City property tax issue:

During a five year period you will pay $34,020 in property taxes to Baltimore City on a $300,000 house.

During a five year period you will pay $13,650 in property taxes to Anne Arundel County on a $300,000 house.

$34,020-$13,650= $20,370 saved over five years by living in Anne Arundel County.

Current property tax rates in Maryland.

While we are on the subject of throwing money away, I was listening to the end of the Larry Young morning show on Friday morning and he had a woman call in who was recommending three and four digit numbers for “entertainment purposes” only. I think this is a semi-regular segment on the show. I am sure the Maryland state lottery enjoys this form of free advertising, but I found it to be a sad commentary on life in Baltimore.

“The power of incumbency is amazing in this town. When an incumbent sends out a press release about the lamest of issues the Baltimore Sun covers it. When a challenger has an article written about her the Baltimore Sun then gives the incumbent a fluff piece. Many legitimate contenders are IGNORED during primary season when they send out awesome hard hitting press releases to the Sun. The Baltimore Sun completely ignored the Belinda Conaway housing scandal until she ignorantly sued me.  Challengers have a right to dislike the Baltimore Sun and its blatant bias toward incumbents.”

Over the next few days I am going to give some of the non-democrats some exposure in this blog.  It won’t make up for the Sun’s lack of in depth primary coverage and it probably will not be read by many general election voters, but these guys deserve some exposure so any mention is probably appreciated.  Since Bill Barry sent out a press release to me and his action is tomorrow I will start with him:

“The response has been great for a campaign march up Harford Road

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 5 starting at 1 p.m.

4400 Harford Road

(we will gather at the crown jewel of Bobby C’s Harford Road development, as he described  on the radio, the deserted gas station at the corner of Harford Road/Montebello Terrace for which we taxpayers paid more than $500,000.)

We will walk up Harford Road, passing out leaflets as we go.

Park on Harford Road or Montebello Terrace.

If you already have a campaign T-shirt, please wear it–otherwise, we’ll have some to distribute.

If you want to ride in a pickup truck, we have a couple.

This will be fun!  Bring your children and a neighbor.

PS: All other Good Cause leaflets/banners welcome.


Bill Barry
www.citizensforbillbarry.org
Go Green – Recycle The Baltimore City Council”

Luke Broadwater is a good writer and a nice guy. I know he can write a hard hitting investigative piece because I have seen him do just that at InvestigativeVoice.com and the Baltimore Examiner. At some point somebody neutered this article about Warren Branch.

I have seen Warren Branch in action at City Hall. If we are cursed to have Branch reelected in November then I  encourage all of you to check out Mr. Branch at City Hall. You will quickly see that he does not come across as the smartest man in the city. Check out this article about the Pete Welch/9th district open seat hearing. In the article I describe some of Mr. Branch’s odd behavior:

“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.”

The power of incumbency is amazing in this town. When an incumbent sends out a press release about the lamest of issues the Baltimore Sun covers it. When a challenger has an article written about her the Baltimore Sun then gives the incumbent a fluff piece. Many legitimate contenders are IGNORED during primary season when they send out awesome hard hitting press releases to the Sun. The Baltimore Sun completely ignored the Belinda Conaway housing scandal until she ignorantly sued me.  Challengers have a right to dislike the Baltimore Sun and its blatant bias toward incumbents.

Why doesn’t the Sun mention that the 13th district resembles a war-zone more than any other district in Baltimore? Why would most Baltimore Sun readers not step foot in the 13th district of Baltimore? How can Warren Branch not be held accountable for the current state of the 13th district? I invite every single one of you to visit the 13th district in the middle of East Baltimore and tell me how on Earth Warren Branch’s incompetency is not mentioned in the paper of record every single day. For four years the media ignores the travesty that is the 13th district and when primary election time comes along they decide to ignore his challengers and hold him accountable for nothing.  The voters of the 13th district should have held the Branch family accountable long ago, but just because the voters are blind does not mean that the local media should reinforce the people’s political ignorance.

Who in their right mind believes a grown man holding elected office: “lives with his mother one day a week at the address he lists on campaign information — the same address listed by his brother, State Del. Talmadge Branch — and stays with his girlfriend and their three children the rest of the week at a different home in the district“?

Stop the madness/blind ignorance and support Shannon Sneed!

Click here to view the embedded video.