Posts Tagged ‘elections’

Followups to two recent posts

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

In my post entitled A coalition focused on moving Baltimore elections to 2014 I said that the Baltimore Election Change Coalition (BECC) needed to do a better marketing job. It turns out that they did send out a press release. A woman from the ACLU forwarded me the informative press release today and you can read it below. It looks like they are reading this blog.

A few people thought my idea to cut every single city employee’s pay by 10% was harsh.  Why should someone making $50,000 a year suddenly make $45,000 a year. In reality if the city was run efficiently and our politicians were not in bed with the unions such a drastic move would not have to be made. Instead of having three people doing the work of one we would only have one person doing the work of one person. Pension/insurance reform should have happened a long time ago.  We did not take our medicine ten years ago so now it is going to hurt much more than it would have then. Even though this all seems harsh, it is better than what is happening in the private sector.  Some people with manufacturing jobs were fired and were out of work for long periods of time. After months to years of no job these people were hired at similar jobs for 75% or less of their former pay. They gladly took these jobs.

I strongly feel that the middle to upper managers in the city bureaucracy who have gamed the system and now earn over $80,000 a year should feel the pain (fired or major salary cut) before the custodian who actually works hard and does his low paying job efficiently.

I will leave you with this reader comment from a Washington Post article about the proposed Metro fare hike:

“Where’s the 5% drop in crazy pension entitlements then?
Seriously, publicize your P&L and let the taxpayers decide if you are running a transportation company or a customer-funded retirement scheme. FYI, there IS a problem when over one-third+++ of your costs are retiree entitlements!“

MEDIA ADVISORY

New Baltimore Coalition to Hold Press Conference Calling for Moving City Elections to Match Gubernatorial Cycle

ADVISORY FOR                                  CONTACT:

January 9, 2012                                 Millie Tyssowski, LWV, milliety@earthlink.net, 410-448-2650

BALTIMORE, MD – On Monday, January 9, a newly-formed group, the Baltimore Election Change Coalition (BECC), will hold a press conference to build support and discuss its goal of changing the year of city elections to coincide with the gubernatorial cycle. Members of the coalition include the League of Women Voters of Baltimore City, American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, Baltimore City Branch of the NAACP, Citizens Planning and Housing Association, National Action Network of Greater Baltimore, Baltimore’s Safe and Sound Campaign, and Teaching Our Own Understanding and Responsibility.
In 2011, voter participation in the Baltimore City primary and general elections was at an all time low. Less than 12% of eligible voters participated in the primary; only 22% of registered voters voted. General election turnout was even worse. The BECC believes that having our City officials selected by so few voters with the expenditure of monies that the City needs in the current budget crisis calls for action now.
The BECC proposes that Baltimore City join all other major jurisdictions in the State and hold its elections at the same time as the gubernatorial election – beginning with the gubernatorial election of 2014. With more officials and issues on the ballot, more voters will turn out and democracy in Baltimore City will be strengthened. In addition, the City could potentially save several million dollars.
WHAT: Press conference to announce the Baltimore Election Change Coalition and discuss the benefits of changing the year of city elections to coincide with the gubernatorial cycle.
WHO: Representatives of the Coalition and Maryland General Assembly Legislators
WHEN: Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10 AM
WHERE: 417 E. Fayette St., Baltimore, MD

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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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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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The shameful voter turnout of young people and men in Baltimore

Posted by ameister on Thursday, November 10th, 2011

I just stumbled upon the 2011 primary voter turnout chart located at the bottom of the page at this link.

64,378 Democrats voted in the 2011 primary election. Only 23,902 were men! Almost twice the amount of women voted.  There is no legitimate excuse for this embarrassing statistic. At least 10,000 more men need to take responsibility and vote in the primary election.

The number of young people who came out to vote in the primary was just as pathetic as the number of men. 14,802 Democrats who were between the ages of 25 and 44 voted in the 2011 primary. 16,804 of the Democrats who voted in the primary election were over 65.  Those two numbers generate a depressing comparison. People in the prime their lives allow people who are past their prime (and in some cases close to death) to electorally influence the future  of Baltimore more than they do. Young people need to wake up. Young people could quickly eliminate the tired old last names of Baltimore politics if they actually took a few minutes to vote every four years in citywide elections!

30,942 of the 64,378 Democrats who voted in the 2011 primary election were between the ages of 45 and 64. This is the number of Democrats who are between 25 and 44 that SHOULD be voting. There is no good reason why the total number of middle aged voters should be over double that of young voters.

All of these sad numbers show why women over 70 years old who have held office for decades like Agnes Welch and Rikki Spector easily win election after election. The young men who have little in common with these relics do not even bother to vote. This goes way beyond sex of the public official. If young people voted do you think Frank Conaway Sr. would still be holding a CITYWIDE office?

As a registered democrat male between the ages of 25 and 44 I can proudly say that I am part of the 8% (5,159/64,378).  Young men and women need to increase their numbers on election day 2015 in order to drastically alter the direction the city is going in.  I believe it can happen, it will just take an organized campaign or some type of once in a decade event. WAKE UP!

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Disgraced Belinda Conaway is gone! Frank Jr. is next!

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

I know the Conaway’s and their lackeys read this blog so I hope they also check out the glorious election results here.

Nick Mosby crushed Belinda Conaway in the general election. The saga that Belinda started in early May when she sued me for millions of dollars and called attention to her residency issues has come to a glorious end. Belinda Conaway tried to ruin and silence me, but she ended up politically ruined and politically irrelevant. This did gain her family one thing, a political enemy for life!

The media in this town has been pathetically easy on the Conaways through the years. My basic research has dug up all sorts of interesting easy to find tidbits about them. I encourage all of you to jump on the anti-Conaway bandwagon because being anti-Conaway is being pro-Baltimore.

FRANK JR. IS NEXT!

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General election update- Hampden

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

As of 10AM 56 people had voted in Hampden at the “Third-School No. 427, 1300 W. 36th St.” polling place. 38 were democrats, 7 were republicans, and 11 were others. So about 20% of all voters who voted so far did not have an opportunity to vote in the primary. The anti-Conaway sentiment was literally audible this time. One young guy (and I am almost positive that he was an independent) loudly laughed at the two Belinda Conaway supporters stationed there. I was at that same location all day on primary day and I did not experience anything like that. Some of the people who came out today passionately wanted to vote against Conaway and I suspect it is because their lack of party affiliation did not give them the opportunity to do that in the primary. In my three hours at the polling place I saw four people arrive by bike, for the primary I only saw one person arrive by bike all day. I wonder what those bikers think about Conaway’s support of the Monroe street bike lane removal?

Team Conaway members did not show up until 7:15AM and they never put on their yellow shirts as long as I was there, but they did hand out materials and tried to talk to just about every voter. The one makeshift Conaway sign did not arrive until about 9AM. No candidate for any other office had signs. The Conaway poll workers were VERY different than the people Belinda had out in Hampden on primary day. That day she had members of the police force hand out materials for her. Those men and women did very little work. Two of them stayed in a running air conditioned Yellow Ford Mustang take home Baltimore city police car for four hours. On Primary day I asked one cop how he could support Conaway after the way her father spoke about police. The cop calmly told me he did not care about that, he only cared about his pension. One of the cops lived in Anne Arundel County.

So why on earth did team Conaway try so hard this time, but clearly did not give out even half the effort during the primary campaign? I believe they thought that they were going to win on the Conaway name up until the final days of the primary campaign. When it became obvious the last name was not going to save them it was too late. Now they have put themselves in situation for further humiliation. They did try very hard this general election, but they may come in third place in Hampden!

I guess now would be a great time to share a Facebook message that Conaway supporter and former 12th district councilman wannabe Aaron Wilkes sent me on Sunday.   I had to edit out the N-word:

“you are a racist liar the way you attack the conaways because they wont uncle tom to you like hassan giordano and all those uncle ni—rs you have like nick mosby”

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Some other candidates to consider on Tuesday

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

I want to apologize to all the candidates who are mentioned in this story. This story was supposed to go live on Sunday. In the middle of typing this story my Verizon DSL stopped working. My DSL did not become functional again until tonight. I was away from the Internet for a day. I also have no idea why the formatting looks so odd in this article.

On Tuesday night I was at the Ottobar on the 2500 block of Howard street. I had to leave the bar at 11:30PM. On the walk back to my car I n0ticed full color white flyers stuck in house doors. I picked one up and saw that this was a Kent Boles Jr. for city council flyer. Boles is a Republican who is running against Carl Stokes in the 12th district.  I was suprised to see such a nice political piece for a Republican in a Baltimore general election. You have to give Boles credit for making a legitimate run by spending some money on his campaign.

There are other Republicans who are running for City Council also. Dennis Betzel in the 8th district, Ari Winokur in the 5th district, and Gary Collins in the 3rd district have been emailing me for months about their campaigns. They definitely deserve shout outs from the media instead of the usual “ignore the general election” policy that residents of Baltimore are so used to. I hope this helps.  The city paper deserves credit for its interesting general election coverage that can be read here and here. They endorsed Kent Boles.

One final general election note, last week I received a mailer paid for by Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.  One side of the piece encouraged me to Vote for Nick Mosby (on the version my friend in the first district received this side encouraged him to vote for Jim Kraft) and on the other side it listed the mayor, the council president, and all the city council incumbents other than the disgraced and defeated 7th district incumbent (Mosby was listed instead) and Nick D’Adamo (Brandon Scott was listed since D’Adamo is retiring). The listing sort of looked like a ballot and readers were encouraged to take it into the voting booth with them.   I do not recall team Dixon sending something like this out for the general election in 2007. I believe they did not send out anything.

YouTube Preview Image

Gary Collins

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Baltimore general election ads are all over the place

Posted by ameister on Friday, November 4th, 2011

Since Tuesday I have stumbled upon numerous general election print and radio advertisements. I can not recall ever seeing so many in past city general elections. I do not remember any from 2007.

In this week’s City Paper there was a full page ad for 11th District Republican candidate Duane Shelton.  There was no mention of the 11th district in the ad. The full text of the ad happens to be exactly same as the content of this page.

The Baltimore City GOP also placed a full page ad in this week’s City paper. It was paid for by “The Baltimore City Republican Committee”. For more info go to: BaltimoreCityGop.org.

Today I listened to the always delusional Frank Conaway radio show on WOLB. I had not listened for a few weeks, but I thought they would be as clueless as ever since the General election is only a few days away. I was not disappointed. It was hilarious to hear an ad for Nick Mosby in the middle of the show! A Belinda Conaway ad immediately followed the Mosby one. You know the Conaway’s must have loved to hear a Mosby ad in the middle of their lackey filled love-fest.

An ad for Warren Branch followed the Conaway ad! It was hilarious. He had his brother (Delegate Talmadge Branch) do a lot of the talking. The guy was clearly trying to leverage his last name as much as he could. He should ask Belinda Conaway about the chances of his last name suddenly becoming a lot less powerful. It had never happened before, but in the primary we finally saw a status quo last name fall. May it happen many more time in Baltimore soon!

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Some exposure for the general election challengers

Posted by ameister on Friday, November 4th, 2011

The following is a quote from my article entitled The Sun’s Warren Branch article is a microcosm of Baltimore’s political problems:

“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”

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Belinda Conaway’s campaign finance report does not mention the $1000 transfer from Friends of Mary Pat Clarke

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

On Tuesday Belinda Conaway accused the city elections board of major fraud. I feel this was just her latest shameless attempt to get her name into the paper and get free publicity.

Last night I noticed that the latest Friends of Mary Pat Clarke campaign finance report lists a $1000 transfer to Belinda Conaway’s Campaign account. Nowhere in any of Belinda Conaway’s campaign finance reports is this transfer mentioned:

Candidates Account Payee Name(Address) Amount Date Received Expenditure Type
Clarke, Mary Pat Friends Of Friends of Belinda Conaway
(Baltimore, MD, 21215)		 $1,000.00 09/06/2011 Transfers Out to Other Maryland Treasurers (Includes Ticket Purchases)

Mary Pat Clarke’s (who was first elected to city council in 1975) campaign not only contributed $1000 to Belinda Conaway’s campaign, but Clarke also appeared in a Belinda Conaway mailing where Clarke’s name was spelled wrong. One would think the Conaway campaign would proudly report a $1000 donation from the campaign of a long time establishment politician. One would think the the campaign of even a semi-useful chair of the budget and appropriations committee would know how to properly account for a $1000 transfer.

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