Posts Tagged ‘Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’

Funeral for the American Dream and other local events

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

I received an email informing me about a Wells Fargo protest that is going to take place on Thursday at 4PM in front of the Wells Fargo in West Baltimore.  The protest is called Funeral for the American Dream.  Good Jobs Better Baltimore is the organization that is promoting this event.  They are going to use the #ripUSdream hashtag for live tweets during the event. You an actually see the Wells Fargo Branch at the 5:20 mark in my run on North Avenue video:

YouTube Preview Image

On Saturday some of the people behind Occupy Baltimore are encouraging citizens to show up at the Mayor’s Budget Workshop and actually ask hard questions. This type of community meeting is usually just a show where people can feel like they are being heard. Here is the Facebook invite that has more information.

Speaking of funerals for the American Dream… CBO: Federal workers make more than their private-sector counterparts.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Require that all city employees live in Baltimore and the number of families living in the city will increase by 10,000 in a decade

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Many people are talking about a Baltimore Deputy Mayor who lives outside of Baltimore. Quite a few people think it is offensive for a high ranking (and high paid) person in the mayor’s office to live outside of the city. A few people are shocked that this could happen. There is nothing illegal about this and none of you should be shocked, but I think there is something wrong with this picture.

There should be no shock about people in the mayor’s office (or any other city employee) living outside of Baltimore. Two weeks ago I posted about the numerous city employees who live outside of Baltimore and Maryland.  Yakov Shafranovich posted specific numbers at his blog:

  • 38.43% of Baltimore City’s 14,559 employees live outside of the city in Maryland.
  • 5.1% of Baltimore City employees live outside of Maryland.
  • The Mayor’s Office  has 111 employees and 30 of them live outside of Baltimore in Maryland and 16 of them live outside of Maryland.

Imagine if the 6,338 Baltimore employees who live outside of Baltimore were forced to live in Baltimore or quit their jobs.  The mayor wants to add 10,000 new families to Baltimore over the next decade. If the city told every city employee today that they have until the start of 2017 to move to Baltimore or they will have no job with the city then within five years Baltimore would be well on its way to attaining the 10,000 new families goal. Most of the city employees who quit because of this SHOULD NOT BE REPLACED in order to save money. Money that used to be spent on these employees can be allocated to improving services that will help retain and attract residents. In the perfect world this money would be used to lower property taxes.

A 100% city employee residency requirement will help shrink our bloated local government and help bring families to Baltimore. Two respectable accomplishments will be attained because of one policy change that is sure to make current city residents feel less frustrated. Instead of having a Woodlawn resident tell you that you deserve a fine because your grass is too high, you will now have to deal with a fellow city resident who will better understand the situation and empathize with you.  Jobs are not easy things to come by these days so if for some odd reason a large percentage (over 80%)  of current non-Baltimore residing city employees decide to quit then there will be plenty of people who want to live in Baltimore who will gladly fill the necessary jobs that were left empty.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

City of Baltimore denies Occupy Baltimore permit for McKeldin Square

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

You can view the letter from the Mayor’s office here.

I assume the encampment will be shut down soon. Apparently there are other groups that already have permits to use the area over the next five months. The city does not seem to like the permanent camping aspect of the encampment.

I hope that Occupy Baltimore can morph into a local movement that goes beyond a campsite. There is symbolism behind the campsite, but symbolism can only go so far in this world. Hopefully the people at Occupy Baltimore will read this recommendation of mine that I wrote two weeks ago.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Occupy Baltimore occupiers should prepare for the end of the physical occupation

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

The following is another reason why Occupy Baltimore should be ready to morph into becoming a movement that is not centered around a physical location. It is important to note that the BDC event was a great step in attaining the above goal.

Over the last few days we have seen some of the physical  spaces of the stronger occupy groups totally cleaned out in organized night raids. The clearing out technique seems to be very successful and easily replicable. The mayor of Oakland told the BBC that eighteen cities were recently part of a conference call (that most likely had something to do with the US Conference of Mayors) where participants talked about handling the physical occupations. It would not surprise me if the night raid technique was discussed. I have no idea if the mayor of Baltimore was part of this call, but it is clear that somehow (possibly by some sort of coordination) elected leaders across the country have come up with a way to clear out the physical occupy  spaces. Occupiers in Baltimore have to assume that it is only a matter of time before the police show up at their space in the middle of the night.

In the long run I think the clearing of the spaces is a good thing and a true test of the long-term strength of this political movement.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

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

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Baltimore Grand Prix will end up helping Rawlings-Blake

Posted by ameister on Sunday, September 4th, 2011

I jogged by the Baltimore Grand Prix and I only took away positives from what I observed and heard. There were a lot of people downtown who never would have been down there on Labor day weekend. Lots of money was spent on hotels and other tourist related businesses. LOTS of earplugs were purchased. The cars were incredibly loud. That was the overpowering surreal aspect of what I saw. On Pratt street you could easily go up to the fence and see the cars zoom by for free. I talked to people who were at the event and were out on the town later on Saturday night and all of them only had positive things to say about the event. The bottom line for me is money and we may never know the real numbers behind everything, but from what I observed I can see this race becoming a self-sustaining Baltimore tradition. I thought the marketing of the event was lacking yet there were still many people down there.

There are some things we can learn from the event and the lead up to the event. The idea itself is not very original or special. It was pushed through because some guys had some connections and money to contribute to political campaigns. Everyone would have a better taste in their mouth if they could confidently say that in the future those in charge will be open to ideas from ANYONE. There are so many people who do not donate to political campaigns who have much better ideas than the Grand Prix which would be smaller scale, much cheaper, but definitely generate revenue for the city. Instead of having a nebulous BDC and various city hall bureaucrats decide what new events and policies Baltimore should adopt, there should be some sort of innovation officer who meets with regular citizens who have ideas about how to improve Baltimore. This innovation officer should then help the citizen find the person he or she needs to talk to in order to make their idea a reality. This person should also be able to nicely say to no to some ideas.

Many people say the Baltimore Grand Prix could be a new Preakness-like event for Baltimore. This could happen, but why try to create a new event when the original event (the Preakness) is not living up to its full potential? This reminds me of what the great Park Advocate Chris Delaporte once told me. Baltimore has awesome parks that need maintenance. The city insists on creating new park related attractions instead of maintaining what it already has. The more new things created, the less money available for maintenance of older attractions. Eventually the new attractions need maintenance also and the parks’ financial pie gets split in more pieces. Before we create any more new Baltimore mega-events we need to make sure that our main mega-event (the Preakness) is as strong as possible.

The following video played on the jumbotron during the Grand Prix. A few people have complained and said it was a campaign ad for the mayor. Since the majority of the people who saw it are probably not registered to vote in Baltimore City (although I hear you can claim a homestead tax credit in Randallstown and be registered to vote in Baltimore City)  I do not think it is going to influence any voters. It also is not about the mayor, so it is a reach to say it is campaign propaganda:

YouTube Preview Image

Since nothing remotely catastrophic happened at the Grand Prix, this event will be considered a success for the mayor. For the next week people will be praising the event and the positive vibes generated may even get the mayor more votes.

9/5/2011 Edit- The New York Times gushes over the event here.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Has joke candidate Frank Conaway dropped out of the race for mayor?

Posted by ameister on Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Hassan Giordano says that Frank Conaway Sr. has dropped out of the mayoral race and given his support to Catherine Pugh.

The Daily Record says that Conaway has canceled his press conference.

Who knows what this joke of a politician is thinking. I actually predicted in this article that Conaway would drop out of the race (like he did in 2007) and support Pugh (he supported Mitchell in 2007).  My theory is that he knows he has no chance so he stays in the race until the big debates are over so his last name can get out there as much as possible. The Conaway name recognition helps his disgraced daughter Belinda.  If he really drops out he will support Pugh in order to get Belinda on her ticket. Pugh may get some people who were going to vote for Conaway to vote for her (his name will still be on the ballot so if they were ignorant enough to want to vote for him in the first place they probably will not even know that he dropped out of the race), but there is very little else in it for her. She may be hesitant about making a deal with Conaway and this could be the reason for the delay in the announcement.  Teaming with Belinda Conaway can only hurt Pugh so she should be very careful about any deal with Frank.

In other local political news…

Last night I revived a robo-call from Jody Landers. Today I received my third Stephanie Rawlings-Blake mailing. The theme was education and there was a photo of Elijah Cummings on it.  A Reservoir Hill targeted Nick Mosby  flyer was placed in my door. There is a photo of Bill Cole shaking Mosby’s hand on it. There is also a supportive quote from Bill Cole on it. The quote implies that Cole is endorsing Mosby. I will try to get a digital copy of the flyer to post here.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

What to make of the recent Baltimore Sun poll

Posted by ameister on Monday, August 29th, 2011

I know many of you are still without power and can not read what I am typing. Some of you who are just getting your power back probably missed the Baltimore Sun’s story about the mayoral poll they conducted.  The poll basically says that Rawlings-Blake will get over 50% of the vote.  There have been people who have said that the mayor’s competitors should get together and pick the best candidate amongst themselves to challenge the mayor.   If the poll is correct then the “too many competitors diving up the opposition” theory is wrong.

Some groups do not think the poll is correct. You can read one of the anti-poll theories here.  I think the poll is right. I have been saying the mayor probably will get close to or over 50% of the vote and use that momentum for a run for Lieutenant Governor in 2014. I am still very disappointed that one or more of the current mayoral contenders did not try to run for City Council President. I assure you that the council president race would have been less challenging than the mayoral race.

I remember the polling numbers from the 2007 election. The polls said that Sheila Dixon was going to kick Keiffer Mitchell’s butt.  Many people were shocked and frustrated with the poll. There were so many orange Mitchell signs around, how could this happen? Well it did happen. There is a huge chunk of the Baltimore voting population that is so ignorant and complacent that they will always vote for the incumbent because that is the only name they know. They have no desire to “know” any other candidate or research the race.  What they get in the mail and what they see on TV advertisements totally influences their decisions.

It is true that the poll hit a lot of older people because that is who has land lines and that is who has voted in the past. This factor probably only lowered Rolley’s numbers.  The poll showed young people liked Rolley just as much as the Mayor. I think you can conclude that Rolley has probably succeeded in attracting a substantial amount of young and new voters and there is a high likelihood that this will help him overtake Pugh.  It is very newsworthy that Rolley is as popular as the mayor (probably more popular) amongst younger voters. It shows that in the future it is possible that the city may go in a non-incumbent type of direction. It also shows that 60, 70, 80, and 90-year-olds control the direction of current elections and the near future of Baltimore. That is depressing any way you spin it.

On Friday at 6PM I was received a mayoral poll phone call from Hart Research. I thought that another media poll was about to come out and that we may get some other numbers to compare the Sun poll to. I have since been told that Hart Research is the company the mayor’s campaign uses to poll. This was not a cheap little poll. This is an example of just how much money the Rawlings-Blake campaign has to blow. She has a huge lead in one poll, but she is still polling and trying to tweak her campaign!  Her campaign clearly wants to get over 50% of the vote and use the momentum for 2014.
There was an editorial in today’s Baltimore Sun urging people to vote. The election results are the only numbers that really matter.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Otis Rolley wins the hurricane challenge

Posted by ameister on Saturday, August 27th, 2011

For months I have been saying that in order to beat the Mayor one of her competitors is going to have to partake  in numerous outside of the box campaign activities. This Otis Rolley Tweet describes a storm related activity that fits the outside of the box campaign activity profile that I have been talking about:

“Come help me fill these sandbags outside of the former ESPN zone. The more hands, the more shovels, the more bags. #bmoreprepared”

I received my second Otis Rolley campaign robo-call on Thursday afternoon.  On the other end of the line was a tape of a longtime female resident of Baltimore talking about how Stephanie Rawlings-Blake cares more about her campaign contributors than the citizens of Baltimore. It was pretty hard hitting.

Baltimore is definitely made up of two very different worlds. There are many people who can not stand what Sheila Dixon did and how she left office. There are also many people who have no problem with Sheila Dixon. At the end (3:20 to 3:50 mark) of the following video we learn that Otis Rolley returned campaign contributions he received from Sheila Dixon. Many people think this is a very honorable move and quite a few people (including Dixon apparently) do not like it. I am willing to bet if Rolley kept the money that the Rawlings-Blake campaign would have held it against him. Campaign finance records show that Shelia Dixon related campaign accounts gave Jody Landers $1,000 and Catherine Pugh $1,000.

YouTube Preview Image

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The beginning of the election promotional storm

Posted by ameister on Thursday, August 25th, 2011

I have heard that we might have to deal with a tropical storm this weekend. Local candidates are beginning to inundate super voters (those who voted in the 2007, 2008, and 2010 primary elections) with promotional mailings and phone calls. We probably will drown in hurricane Stephanie mailings before Irene hits us.

On Wednesday afternoon I received a robocall from Otis Rolley. Rolley is the second mayoral candidate to call me. Rawlings-Blake’s campaign had a live volunteer call me earlier this month.

I received my second Stephanie Rawlings-Blake promotional piece in the mail this morning. It was a full page, full color, two sided, thick paper piece. The theme of the mailer is “Stronger Neighborhoods/Revitalizing Communities”. It looks like my predictions of six Stephanie Rawlings-Blake mailers has a good chance of becoming reality.

City Council candidates are getting in to the act also. A friend of mine in Canton gave me a Jim Kraft full color mailer he received last week. Yesterday I received my first 7th District mailer, it was a full color piece from Nick Mosby.

A reader emailed me about two Rawlings-Blake commercials she had seen on television. I have included the only one I could find online below. The reader wondered why all the people in the commercial were African-American. I think there must be some sort of logic behind that move. The marketing team is probably trying to reach out to a certain demographic that they think the mayor needs to dominate. I assume they felt that older black women would like the commercial and to cater towards them. If Rawlings-Blake does well amongst these voters then she will win the election.
YouTube Preview Image

Here is a Stephanie Rawlings-Blake radio spot:
YouTube Preview Image

Late Wednesday night I heard about the death of legendary Oriole pitcher Mike Flanagan. The following clips are from the 1983 World Series and the 1983 American League Championship Series. Flanagan pitched in both series and played a major role on the 1983 Orioles. I hope these clips bring back some good memories on this somber day:

YouTube Preview Image
YouTube Preview Image

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »