Man, you people are really obtuse! You sound like Republicans. Every problem can be solved with a bumper sticker slogan! Build a wall!

Sure, easy as pie!

Have you tried hiring lifeguards in the last 2 years? Not easy. Almost every pool is shortstaffed.

Many Starbucks across the country have bathroom codes. A few years ago they changed their policy to allow non-customers to use the bathrooms, or even just loiter inside for hours without buying anything. Of course, this led to disaster in many urban Starbucks, so they revised this policy. But shhhhh, it's a secret. Starbucks doesn't want to lose their liberal base.

Who was clamoring for DJs and techno at the farmers market? Odd.

I applaud his responsiveness. And he's 100% better than Mosby, but ideally I'd like someone who is more focused on economic issues and not the progressive playbook.

Per The Sun: "Investigators believe Mendoza shot and killed Carter following a dispute." So, unclear if the dispute arose from a random interaction or something else. Also unclear who instigated things.

In general though, seems like a lot of the shootings among young people are from "disputes", i.e. simple disagreements that used to be settled without guns.

I think Zeke is a genuinely good person. However, I also think he concentrates on things that only have effect at the margins. He is also the poster boy for virtue signaling.

I want more pragmatic, no nonsense leaders in Baltimore, not guys who talk like they're reading from the Huffington Post.

Agree with most of what you said. I guess I'm wondering why the motivation for the ballot measure even matters. If it passes and a recall election occurs at some point, then the people got exactly what they wanted.

It seems to me that the criticism of these ballot measures is a veiled admittance that the electorate is inherently dumb and will vote against their own self interest. I happen to agree with this, but let's hear the Ryan Dorseys of the world say that. They won't even though that's exactly why we have a representative democracy, and not a direct democracy, in the first place.

I know there will be harsh criticism of this, especially on this sub, but if people vote for it, then isn't that democracy in action? Personally I don't think I support it, but I bet a lot people like the sense of control recalls seem to provide, especially for the perpetually disenfranchised. I mean, California has recall elections all the time.

Maybe next we can build a city gun range so murderers have somewhere to shoot without hurting anyone.

It was the Gallery at Harborplace. It was recently converted to office space.

It's all about the bread.

Magerk's uses Amoroso, which is good, but not as good as Liscio's or Sarcone's. Those two bakeries provide 90%+ of the cheesesteak bread in Philly. I don't understand why a restaurant can't have that same bread delivered here. Often thought a Philly cheesesteak carryout would be a great business opportunity in Baltimore, assuming the bread could be obtained.

New apartments are being built in neighborhoods where the population is increasing.

They could get the possible person that job, give them the highest school administrator salary in the country, and it wouldn't make any difference in academic performance except maybe at the margins.

And the bigger point is that a city government has no role in determining macroeconomic systems. Schools, police, transportation, garbage collection, and other basic services...that's what a city government actually does.

Schools are segregated in America. The solution requires an influx of white residents in black neighborhoods - 99% of which are urban - and an influx of black residents in white neighborhoods - 99% of which are suburban or rural. Not an easy thing to advocate for or accomplish. Bottom line - in 2023 America there should not be neighborhoods nor schools that are 99% black when only 13% of the population as a whole is black.

An interesting comparison is to look at # police per square mile. We actually rank low. The lack of population density in Baltimore skews the $ per capita number. But relatively speaking, the BPD has to cover a huge area and we need a lot of money and officers to do it.

I can't access the substack article.

I agree with the commentary in The Sun, but the solution isn't to do away with TIFs, it's to lower the property tax rate so TIFs aren't required. I agree with that wholeheartedly. The tax rate is prohibitive to development.

But my point still stands - the City isn't "footing the bill". In theory they would if there was a default, but that hasn't happened. The TIFs have worked as planned, at least in a strict financial sense.

Doesn't make sense. There is no way the average per capita income of a Marylander increased $20k in one year.

Per this data, Baltimore per capita income is higher than the US in 2022:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCPI24510

Silver lining is that other American cities have taken a greater downward turn since 2020. Baltimore, by comparison, isn't as much of an outlier as we once were.

Footing what bill exactly? Are you talking about TIFs? Those cost the city nothing. The taxes collected are used to pay back bonds, but 9 times out of 10, a TIF site wouldn't have been producing any tax revenue anyway.

Yup, sounds good to me.

The Right is against minimum sentences for illegal gun possession because they think rednecks who "make an honest mistake" will go to jail or they're just 2A absolutists. The Left is against such laws because they think they're inherently "racist" or will not by "equitably applied".

Round and round we go...

They do NOT advertise it as pizza.