Posts Tagged ‘Baltimore’

Baltimore’s $52 million deficit: My ideas, the online tool to fix it, and the take-home cars that help fuel it

Posted by ameister on Monday, January 9th, 2012

Baltimore is going to have to find a way to fix its $52 million deficit. The city has created an interesting web page where you can decide what to cut or tax in order to fix the deficit. Check out the site here and play around with the deficit cutter tool.

It was pretty easy for me to cut the deficit  with the limited options the city provided. The bottom line is that the city payroll made up of current and former employees (pensions and insurance costs) is too high.  In most businesses you try to cut payroll and run things more efficiently when you are losing money. Baltimore city is not run efficiently. There are 14,559 city workers- one worker for every 43 residents!  Yakov Shafranovich just posted two incredible blog entries that pertain to this subject.

At this link Yakov shows how many city workers live outside of the city and the state and which departments house the most out of city and state workers.

At this link Yakov discusses the illegal tax breaks, pensions, and take-home cars that helped plunge this city into the massive deficit it finds itself in. I feel that no city employee should have a take-home car (in 2009 at least 247 city employees had take-home vehicles) and if any elected official is receiving an illegal tax break that he or she should resign and return all the money he or she owes to the city.  The sweet deal that city retirees currently get in terms of pensions and insurance needs to be more in line with the real world. Every single city employee should take a 10% pay cut and if they think that is wrong then they can try and get a job in the private sector in this economy.

We all see the city employees who do nothing or next to nothing all day and still have attitudes.  This culture of complacency and inefficiency needs to change now.  The tax payers of Baltimore are funding this disgrace and the only way things are going to change is if the money stops flowing and city workers are actually forced to earn their incomes like people do in the private sector.

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A coalition focused on moving Baltimore elections to 2014

Posted by ameister on Monday, January 9th, 2012

It is always nice to see one of my ideas move from this blog into the real world. In October I suggested that we combine state and city elections. There were many good comments left under that entry. Today I found out about something called “The Baltimore Election Change Coalition”.  I first read about them in this article on the ABC 2 site.  I was shocked to read that our current mayor supports resetting the election cycle. The Maryland Daily Record also posted a story about this same topic.

I wish the coalition good luck. I have not received any emails from them and they do not have a website.  I hope that they work on their marketing strategy because there are a lot of people out there who have no clue about the coalition who would gladly support the election change if they were informed about the coalition.

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Freedom of speech for Conaway supporters

Posted by ameister on Thursday, January 5th, 2012

So the special prosecutor is not going to charge Frank Conaway with anything.  This part of the saga is over. I have learned a lot about the justice system in this city and I will share some of the behind the scenes aspects of it that few people know about in a future post. I still do not understand why an elected official who gets paid close to $100,000 a year gets to be home at around 10:30AM on a work day.

Frank Conaway straight up lied about me being on his property. I was never on his property and I never tried to kick him. I have said this from the start. I stand by every single word I posted in my original post about this matter. The citizens of Baltimore have to understand they have a man in office who straight up lies about his fellow citizen (me) and for some reason gets to have a concealed carry permit while average citizens get to fend for themselves without legal guns.  It is a shame that the mainstream media paints this as a feud between Frank Conaway and myself.  Other than Frank lying about me and his daughter suing me this has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with the citizens of Baltimore, the leaders that rule over them, and the mainstream media’s unwillingness to do basic research that could expose so much.  The citizens of Baltimore should be outraged over what this blog revealed about local politicians in 2011. Many of our leaders are political bullies who reign like unquestioned dictators  by relying on low voter turnout (brought on by most of the population not giving a darn), short memories, and lack of being questioned by the media and general population.  Look what you can dig up on Google if you take two seconds to do a simple search.

Over the last couple of months there have been people who have insanely said that jogging in certain neighborhoods is wrong, that expressing your political views in public is wrong, and that writing about political leaders in a critical way is wrong.  It is scary to read how so many people have no clue about the freedoms ALL OF US HAVE in this country. In honor of these freedoms I have decided to provide you some quotes and video clips from Frank Conaway supporters. Like me, they can say what they want to say, walk where they want to walk, and the public can decide if they agree with them. There is a great deal of irony in some of their actions.

A few weeks ago some Conaway supporters including Aaron Wilkes (see some of his numerous comments on my blog here) showed up in front of my house and held a four person protest. They brought a toilet and a megaphone. They also flyered my block with anti-Adam Meister literature. The video is below (make sure you check out the end where Aaron states what he had previously posted):

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Right after the Conaway gun story broke a few of his supporters posted their thoughts on Facebook.

This guy ran for City Council President:

Here is another opinion:

Chairman of the Baltimore Maryland House of Delegates delegation, 43rd district delegate Curt Anderson can be seen at the following Frank Conaway rally at the 36 second and 2:54 mark. Anderson seems to want to keep a low profile at this rally, but the world should know that he was at this circus.  I assure him this video will still be around in 2014. C.D. Witherspoon and Doc Cheatham are featured in this video:

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Click on this image to see a Facebook exchange C.D. Witherspoon and I had back in 2009 after I had seen him on Eutaw Place while I was jogging:

EDIT: An alternate version of the protest in front of my house video can be found here:

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The Oliver neighborhood is about to be on ABC news

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Last month the Baltimore Sun and this very blog wrote about the Oliver neighborhood in Baltimore. Turn on ABC news now because they are about to show a piece about the neighborhood.  I will link to it below when it goes live on the ABC site.

It is always great to see a positive national story about Baltimore, NBC also showed one last month. The people trying to bring Baltimore back should be praised, but at the same time the people who helped make this city worse than a charity case should be voted out of office. The unelected bureaucrats who do not even live in Baltimore, who continue to fine homeowners for nothing, who sleep in their work vans, and who bring their bitterness to “service” counters in municipal buildings continue to make Baltimore a very unfriendly and unpleasant place for no good reason.  For every good story in Baltimore there are ten frustrating stories that usually involve some sort of crooked and lazy public servant. Common sense needs to prevail again in Baltimore. As long as Baltimore remains a bureaucratic nightmare for home owner occupants and potential home owner occupants this city will remain a charity case that many people with common sense can’t wait to leave.

Watch the ABC story here.

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Sunday’s Ravens win will deliver a positive economic punch to Baltimore without a grand prix headache

Posted by ameister on Monday, January 2nd, 2012

The Baltimore Ravens will play a playoff football game in Baltimore on January 15, 2012 in front of at least 70,000 spectators. It is possible that they could be playing in another NFL playoff football game (the AFC title game) the next week in Baltimore also. The extra game(s) will deliver thousands of  money spending fans to the downtown Baltimore area. At the very least the Ravens will  pay the city/state the various ticket taxes they collect.  Keep in mind that playoff tickets can be triple the price of the already expensive regular season tickets. Tax paying citizens of Baltimore  should be dreaming of a Ravens victory and a Patriots loss in two weeks so our city can host the AFC title game in three weeks and receive a double shot of suburbanite infused positive economic news. Our city needs every penny it can get without forcing city residents to pay another ridiculous fee or a tax.

This video is unrelated, but you should watch it because it is very interesting:

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Baltimore’s property tax revenue will decline just like I predicted last year

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

This all could have been avoided!

From yesterday’s Washington Post:

“For instance, Baltimore collected $815 million in property taxes during the most recent fiscal year, according to Bill Voorhees, Baltimore’s director of revenue and tax analysis. Next year, the figure is predicted to shrink to $803.5 million. The following year, $773 million. The year after that, $735.7 million. The year after that, $729.4 million.”

On December 24, 2010 I predicted this scenario in this blog and I pointed out that this all could have been avoided if our leaders understood simple mathematics. Had our leaders practiced fiscal restraint during this past half decade and allowed the constant yield property tax rate to be our property rate then the budget would have never grown to its current size. Our leaders chose to increase Baltimore’s budget every year and now if they do not raise property tax rates it will be impossible to maintain it. Had we cut programs and salaries in 2007 or 2008 it would have been a lot less painful than what we are about to experience. Our leaders decided to keep kicking the can down the road and hope for a miracle.  If they truly understood the numbers they would have known that eventually the game would end and cuts would be unavoidable. If any elected official proposes higher property taxes because of this “unexpected” budget shortfall then they are not fit to hold elected office.  This economic scenario was very predictable.

The time has come to reign in spending and to get rid of all of the city government patronage jobs!

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Baltimore allows bureaucracy to get in the way of innovation and intelligence

Posted by ameister on Thursday, December 8th, 2011

Take some time to read this blog post about Baltimore’s tech community.

Over the years I have attended numerous tech events and meetings in Baltimore. The ideas and energy at these events are inspirational.  These people and ideas are mostly ignored by the establishment bureaucracy of Baltimore. The minute these young idealists encounter the monster Baltimore bureaucracy they begin to realize the unfortunate truth about Baltimore. If you are a smart person with a great idea and you quietly choose not to play by the bureaucratic rules of this city then there is no way your idea will ever be adopted by the government.  If you choose to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops, participate in all the time wasting  formalities, and play the archaic bureaucratic game then most likely your idea will still be rejected and you will be bitter and want nothing to do with this city.

Leaders talk about bringing people to Baltimore, but their slow bureaucratic actions and inability to adopt efficient mechanisms for change drive away countless great idealists who would rather take their talents to places where they will be welcomed instead of bogged down at every point in the game.

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Baltimore will make positive national news tonight on NBC

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

When Baltimore is mentioned on the mainstream national news it usually is for something negative unless the subject is sports. Tonight Baltimore’s own Holistic Life Foundation, Inc. will be featured on the Making a Difference segment on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. My friend and fellow Friends School class of 1994 member Ali Smith is one of the three men behind this local group.

I am not the biggest fan of the mainstream national media, but it can not be denied that they provide a lot of exposure for whatever or whoever they choose to feature. Baltimore can always use the free positive publicity so I am looking forward to seeing what the people at NBC put together.  I will be watching channel 11 at 6:30 tonight!

Here is some of the footage that appears on NBC’s site.

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Peter Angelos and his associates played a major financial role in the city council campaign of Carl Stokes

Posted by ameister on Monday, December 5th, 2011

It is no secret that Peter Angelos supports Carl Stokes and that he likes to play a role in Baltimore politics. The Baltimore Brew wrote about the Stokes connection in September and way back in 1999 the City Paper wrote about some of the Angelos associated limited partnerships that made large campaign contributions.  The full extent of his financial support during the 2011 campaign has yet to be revealed though. Today I was trying to find various candidates’ most recent campaign finance reports. The report that should have come out on November 29, 2011 has yet to be published online so I decided to explore some older campaign finance reports.

The Citizens for Carl Stokes’ October 28, 2011 campaign finance report shows that the Stokes campaign received quite a bit of money from LLC’s.  This is not exactly a shock although there are some pretty large amounts of money listed.  Closer analysis reveals that in 2011 quite a few people and entities associated with Peter Angelos gave a lot of money to the Carl Stokes campaign.

Below is a chart that lists all of the entities that gave $1500 or more to the Carl Stokes campaign in 2011. I have colored the Angelos associated contributors red.

Candidates Account Contributor Name(Address) Amount Date Received Contribution Type
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Charlesview, LLLP
(100 N Charles St STE 1730 ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 11/15/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Friends of Bernard Jack Young
(326 N. Charles Street, Suite 301 ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $1,500.00 10/15/2011 MD PAC
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Samuel Bates
(9307 Pent Angel Way ,
Baltimore, MD, 20236-1759)		 $1,500.00 10/15/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Ross Valley Farm, LLC
(100 N Charles St ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 10/15/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For 120 West Layette Street, LLLP
(100 N. Charles STE 1730 ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 10/15/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For CCA Air Charter, LLC
(100 North Charles St ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 10/15/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For PGA 210 North Charles St, LLLP
(100 N Charles St ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 10/15/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For PGA Rossville, LLC
(100 N Charles St Suite 1730 ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 10/15/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Louis Angelos
(7 Meadow Road ,
Baltimore, MD, 21212)		 $4,000.00 10/15/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Georgia Angelos
(16450 York Road ,
Monkton, MD, 21111)		 $4,000.00 10/15/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Thomas Minkin
(6 Red Cedar Court ,
Baltimore, MD, 21208)		 $4,000.00 10/15/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Armand Volta
(17 Naborly Ct ,
Catonsville, MD, 21228)		 $4,000.00 10/15/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Thomas Pappagallo
(2031 Sue Creek Drive ,
Baltimore, MD, 21221)		 $1,500.00 09/16/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Mid-Atlantic Sports Network
(8403 Colesville Rd #370 ,
Silver Spring, MD, 20910)		 $2,500.00 08/17/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Bal
(333 West Camden Yards ,
Baltimore, MD, 20201-2435)		 $2,500.00 08/17/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Artemis Properties, Inc
(100 North Charles Street ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 08/17/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For 222 Holding, LLC
(222 N. Charles St Garage ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 08/17/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Artemis Texas, LLC
(100 North Charles Street ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 08/17/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For PGA Court Towers LTD Partnership
(210 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 110 ,
Towson, MD, 21204)		 $2,500.00 08/17/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Forest City Enterprises, INC.
(50 Public Square Suite 1600 ,
Cleveland, OH, 44113)		 $4,000.00 08/17/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For CJZ Investment
(3000 Waterview Ave ,
Baltimore, MD, 21230-3510)		 $2,000.00 08/07/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters
(8500 Pennsylvania Avenue ,
Upper Marlboro, MD, 20772)		 $3,000.00 08/07/2011 MD PAC
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Thomas Pappagallo
(2031 Sue Creek Drive ,
Baltimore, MD, 21221)		 $2,500.00 07/25/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Samuel Bates
(9307 Pent Angel Way ,
Baltimore, MD, 20236-1759)		 $2,500.00 07/14/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Friends of Bernard Jack Young
(326 N. Charles Street, Suite 301 ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $3,000.00 07/12/2011 MD PAC
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Patrica Handal
(66 James Ln ,
East Hampton, NY, 11937-2722)		 $3,000.00 06/14/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For German Hill Retail Center PTRN
(8801 Kelso Drive ,
Essex, MD, 21221)		 $2,500.00 05/31/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For PGA One Charles Center, L.P.
(100 North Charles St ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 05/31/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Peter Angelos
(100 North Charles St ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,500.00 05/31/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Clift Briscoe
(113 Howell St ,
Alexandria, MD, 22301)		 $4,000.00 05/18/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Carl Stokes
(2411 Guilford Avenue ,
Baltimore, MD, 21218)		 $4,000.00 05/06/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE, BALTIMORE CITY LODGE#3
(3920 BUENA VISTA AVE ,
BALTIMORE, MD, 21211)		 $2,000.00 04/27/2011 MD PAC
Stokes, Carl Citizens For H Scott Peaker
(4219 Old Milford Mill Road ,
Pikesville, MD, 21208-6032)		 $1,500.00 04/21/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Dave Brown Communication
(3331 Shrewsbury Road ,
Abington, MD, 21009)		 $1,750.00 04/04/2011 Business Entity
Stokes, Carl Citizens For Calman Zamoiski
(2 Hopkins Plaza Ste 805 ,
Baltimore, MD, 21201)		 $2,000.00 02/03/2011 Individual
Stokes, Carl Citizens For COMMITTEE TO ELECT JIM BROCHIN
(670 MILITARY AVE ,
PIKESVILLE, MD, 21208)		 $2,000.00 01/05/2011 MD PAC
Remarks: Citizens for Carl Stokes, Campaign Event held 16 Dec 2010
Stokes, Carl Citizens For FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE, BALTIMORE CITY LODGE#3
(3920 BUENA VISTA AVE ,
BALTIMORE, MD, 21211)		 $2,000.00 01/05/2011 MD PAC
Remarks: Citizens for Carl Stokes, Campaign Event held 16 Dec 2010

Some of the above Angelos connections are not as obvious as others. I will elaborate on some of the less obvious ones below:

The Angelos related grand total of $55,000 was almost as much as competitors Odette Ramos ($66,819.30) and Jason Curtis ($61,569.22) raised during their entire campaigns!

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My foreshadowing article about the Parkway Theatre from 2008

Posted by ameister on Sunday, December 4th, 2011

The Parkway Theatre is in the news again. The BDC selected developer has failed miserably and has been terminated. The Baltimore Brew article only glances over the previous owner Charles Dodson. Dodson purchased the theater before the government had serious interest in it (they could have purchased it if they wanted it early in the 2000′s).  He wanted to make the theater an attraction and he worked hard on it and spent his own money on it. The BDC and the city should have let him keep working on it instead of taking it from him. What was the worst thing that could have happened? We are now stuck with an empty building that has not been worked on in years and will not be worked on until 2013 at the earliest (probably 2014!).  If they would have let Dodson keep the place he would have been working on it in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. Now NO WORK will have been done during that time period.  We need to go back to a normal development system where owners get to work on their properties and not fear that the government will try to take what is theirs. Below is my original article about the Parkway Theatre from 2008:

“BDC To Seize Parkway Theater On North Avenue
September 22, 2008 –

The city/BDC is on the verge of seizing the Parkway Theater from its owner Charles Dodson.

I have spoken to Charles Dodson a few times and he has told me a lot about the situation. The man had every intention of fixing up the place. I have been by the building many times and compared to the rest of the North Avenue area it is in fine shape. Dodson legally purchased this property in an area where the BDC already had plans. It’s clear to me that Dodson did not fit in to their plans. You see Dodson is not a connected developer or a political contributor. He is not an insider and when you are not an insider the big boys find ways to beat you.

How many empty buildings does the city of Baltimore own? How many empty buildings does the BDC own? Shouldn’t we as tax payers be able to “quick take” them since we are the ones who fund the city and BDC?

Why is an unelected shadow government type organization allowed to decide who gets to keep what they own and who does not?

So now the BDC will give Dodson less than what the building is worth and then they will give it to a connected “developer” (who will take his time to renovate it by the way) in better shape than it was in 2002 when Dodson purchased it. Meanwhile thousands of city owned properties sit vacant and trashed.”

Occupy Baltimore should be all over this situation!

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