A Life For Itself

Tag: baltimore

  • NaBloPoMo 2016 – Day 2 (Blunt Force Politics)

    I get it. The media is selling us an election as much as they’re covering one. It’s not as much that they’re putting time and energy into covering something in the public interest as they’re engaged in a race and a fight themselves for eyeballs and advertisers. That’s the news game and between the uncertainty of print and online, I get the push to make the most money, the quality of the information being disseminated — not always the most important consideration. It’s feed for the growing fetishization of politics in America.

    Perhaps if the majority of information I see coming at me were about policy as much as pussy and who’s saying it and who’s grabbing it; if it were as much about ideas as ideology and not the same staid politics and talking points, it might not be as loathsome. It might not feel like I’m being constantly beaten over the head with the same talking points over and over.

    My mentor emailed me the other day talking about the election and his thought that Trump might win. I replied because I’ve always enjoyed talking about a wide range of subjects with him, including politics, but a wave of gladness and gratitude washed over me when, after a while, it came to me he probably wasn’t going to reply about it. I’m just tired of it all. I was tired months ago when he’d come to my desk to offer his latest prognostication.

    Next Tuesday can’t come soon enough. At least then, the commercials will be gone, even if the fallout from the election will be just starting, whatever form it takes. My mentor and I can get back to mostly discussing ideas, which are far more satisfying.

    I’m looking forward to local elections, specifically the mayoral election in Baltimore. Sheila Dixon, still convinced she does or will have a mandate, regardless of the outcome of the Democratic primary, is mounting a write-in campaign against Catherine Pugh (D), Joshua Harris (G), and Alan Walden (R). (I saw a huge setup for her over at Northern Parkway and Park Heights).

    The next Mayor will be the first to deal with the long-term ramifications of Freddie Gray, the loss of the Red Line, and the acceptance of the Port Covington TIF, among many other issues facing the City. I know personality will enter into the election, but ultimately, the choices that we have aren’t being tainted and tarred by scandals and soundbites, but solely about which direction the City should move in. But here at the local level, there’s no large scale advertising to be sold, no race to the bottom for TV ratings. It’s truly a relief.

  • Dispatch from Home

    I sit in a plastic chair on the porch.

    A sweet scent. Maybe sausage on a grill. Beef. I smell fries and my mind tricks me into believing I can also smell the gravy about to be doused over them. The whole concoction will go into a box, fried wings in the next. There’s now a new carryout where the old banquet hall used to be. The Chinese food store is still there. I have my stories. About the store and gravy fries and cheese fries and wings and chicken boxes. Salt, pepper, and ketchup on my wings and fries.

    Ka-joom. Clack-a-lack.

    A trailer banging, tripped by the imperfections in the asphalt. The truck’s motor growls, yanking the still reverberating metal box up the road. And then another, probably headed South this time, maybe to Washington or somewhere in Virginia or North Carolina, maybe even to Florida or even somewhere out West. The road jabs and pitches these hulks all day and night. They always have, same as the #36 bus that stops across the street. The cars whose drivers, free of Downtown’s one-way-street grid, take liberty to fly towards the County line, a few corners away.

    There’s a soul food store at the gas station, now.

    Someone once shot at that gas station from the block, then ran. Altogether both stupid and smart.

    Kids run down the block. There’s a fight at the bus stop. I run in, open the back door and it’s spilled all the way across the parking lot. The alley between the shopping center and the apartments keeps the kids in their khakis and powder blue and navy blue uniforms from dribbling over to the #44 stop.

    In my day, fights transferred from line to line, line to neighborhood, line to block. I even got myself caught up in one once. But there was never more than that. We didn’t wear uniforms, either.

    As soon as it heated up, it died out. When the cheering stopped, I knew.

    Any out-of-towners driving by, perhaps hoping for a Wire-esque performance, complete with blood and the wailing of an ambulance and another brown-skinned mother, would have gone home disappointed. The police didn’t even show up. At night, they drive through the parking lot with lights flashing to show they’re there. Perhaps they want to own the night and have ceded the day to the kids.

    The two boys at the corner watch excitedly for a moment, then as they probably have more than once, leave.

    They’ve replaced me.

    The hide and seek places — the bushes and trees I’d try to hide my husky frame behind; the knoll on the side of the apartments around the corner where we played minimally organized football and baseball games, against other neighborhoods and each other, where we coached ourselves and each other, patted ourselves and each other on the back; the blocks in the street where we used to jump and bounce balls and throw water balloons, all belong to these kids now. They own the bus stop and the Chinese store.

    This is their time.

    I wasn’t sure I’d ever be back here. Not to live. Visit? For sure.

    I had finally found some peace with used to being from here, with someone else’s son or daughter taking the story over. I’d gone on to adventures elsewhere. Made some plays. Toured Harlem on foot. Driven the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

    I’m not settled, yet. I’m still learning the new, like the Qdoba on York Road, the building on 33rd Street that replaced the frat house with the shoe tree in front; remembering the old like the Giant on York Road, how to get to White Marsh. Harry Little’s sub shop became a frozen yogurt store and now it’s about to become a juice bar.

    It’s often slow going like when I first went to Jersey, but I learned it. Learned in some ways to love it.

    Still, I don’t know if I can ever stake the same claim I had before. How much of this city, this area, can be mine like it was. While I’m figuring it out, I’ll watch the trucks from the porch. Eat a few coddies. This city made me who I was, but being away, letting go, helped make me who I am now.

  • Baltimore Needs Some Wins

    Resignation over Goodson verdict, and the larger problems raised by death of Freddie Gray

    Dominic Nell left work at a Baltimore summer camp Thursday afternoon, rode the subway home to West Baltimore to find a veritable skyline of satellite trucks, boom microphones and cameras.

    Source: www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-goodson-reaction-20160623-story.html

     

    I texted my cousin shortly after the verdict was read. I asked him what the mood of the people was in the streets, how folks were feeling, was anything going on. He replied: “streets are quiet, we knew the verdicts last year.”

    Later, I read the article linked above. My cousin isn’t the only one who felt the same way. Everyday folks interviewed on WBAL Radio were saying the same thing.

    Regardless of how well or poorly the state made their case or how well or poorly the defense represented Officer Goodson, it’s likely a lot of people felt the fix was coming. A lot of people have given up on the notion that there’s going to be justice for themselves and people who look like them in Baltimore.

    It’s part of a larger notion of powerlessness. Check the election turnout numbers for years in Baltimore. Many just don’t participate. They feel like nothing’s going to happen for them through politics. You wonder why some would take things as far last year as they did? They don’t feel like they have any other voice.

    Whether the state whiffed completely, there are going to be people who want to know how Freddie Gray could be put into the police van and come out almost dead on the other end and nobody is going to be held responsible.

    The lawyers on the radio were explaining how there’s a difference between that which happened being a criminal matter vs. being a civil matter. All of that may be true and accurate, but most people around town aren’t lawyers. All they know is Freddie Gray went in and came out almost dead and nobody is so far being held responsible for this violence. Just like other times in the City’s recent history.

    Can anybody blame them for feeling like the criminal justice system overall, isn’t for them?

    When the City is about to essentially take out a half a billion dollar or more loan to build up Port Covington, but people don’t see any changes or development going on in their neighborhood, it’s easy to see why they would give up on participating in the system. What’s the point of calling up City Hall when you’re not a developer and they seem like the only ones who can get anything changed?

    Baltimore really needs some wins. Not ones that are going to cost $535M in taxpayer-backed money, but Baltimore needs some big, high profile wins. Outside of Downtown or Harbor East. In the “real” Baltimore.

    Not for outsiders who won’t think Baltimore’s anything anyway, but for the people there who you can maybe make give a damn or better, feel like they have some kind of ownership.

    The O’s are in first place with the All Star Break around the corner, but while an O’s World Series win would be big, that’s not what Baltimore needs. The Ravens have had two Super Bowl wins in the last 15 calendar years and while those were edifying to the community psyche, those weren’t enough and won’t be enough now. They’ll play a role if they happen, but more needs to happen.

    The Red Line could have played a part, but that’s gone now and besides, I’m not sure how well the powers-that-be made the case for how good the line could have been for communities along its flanks. MTA is about to begin holding community workshops about the replacement BaltimoreLink bus plan, but is that even a worthy substitute for everything the Red Line maybe could have done, had it been given the chance to succeed as light rail has done in other cities? Maybe it will. For the sake of the City, I hope it does because I don’t think they’ll ever build the Red Line or anything like it. Definitely not during my lifetime, if it does.

    Suffice it to say, this is the kind of thing Baltimore needs. And it needs a bunch of them.

    It needs the kind of things that don’t leave the majority of Baltimore residents out of the loop, out of the process, and out of the prosperity.

    Otherwise, people who don’t live or work or play in places like Harbor Point or Port Covington will continue to feel isolated and hurt and that at best, the city doesn’t care about them or that worst, the city is outright hostile to them.

    The city needs to show that it’s committed to justice and fairness for all of its residents. Catherine Pugh is going to be Mayor, everybody knows it. She needs to lead in that way or else years from now, we’ll be even more generations into the kind of apathy and disenfranchisement that’s helped to get Baltimore into the position that it’s in now.

  • Goodson: Not Guilty on All Charges

    You can follow @baltimoresun or @wbaltv11 or any Baltimore news source or their reporters. They’re all covering it.

    I pretty much figured this was coming when the judge admonished the prosecution on their conduct concerning evidence.

    What now?

    If the State could not secure a conviction on the most serious charges against any of the officers, what does this mean for the trials for the rest of them?

    What does this mean for Marilyn Mosby? There’s talk that she should drop the charges against the rest of the officers, that getting a conviction against them may be harder now; there’s even talk online that she should resign.

    And what does this mean for the community, the neighborhoods, the City? At this hour, there is protest outside the courthouse, born of all of the hurt and fear and anger from the relationship of the police and the criminal justice system to people in Baltimore. How will this be addressed? Will it be addressed?

    Presumptive mayoral-elect Catherine Pugh has already issued a statement, but what will she do as the City’s next leader, in the wake of this verdict and the others?

  • Five Things – 22 June 2016

    1.

    Mets took down the two-game series vs. the Royals on the latter’s first trip back to Citi Field since last year’s World Series.

    Despite the pyrrhic victory, some getback from last year feels good, but the Mets’ issues weren’t solved in this series with the Royals. They need to keep hitting. It might help to go out and get a bat.

    I’m ignoring Murph’s Nats stats … ignoring them … ignoring them … wow he’s really cooled off. Batting just .352 now. Whew.

    O’s beat the visiting Padres to sweep their two game series.

    Nothing much going on in Ravenstown. That’s good news.

    2.

    Tomorrow, Judge Barry G. Williams will read his verdict in the trial of Caesar Goodson, one of the six Baltimore Police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. The trial didn’t start out well with the judge excoriating the prosecution concerning some of the evidence. Since then, my feeling has been that Goodson will be found not guilty. Actually, before that point, since the moment that Goodson requested a bench trial, that’s been my feeling.

    We’ll see what happens tomorrow, 10 AM.

    I hope, in the event of a not guilty verdict, if there are protests, the rights of individuals to protest the decision are respected. I’ll leave that there.

    3.

    It’s tough coming up with things when 95% of my time is taken up by writing, being taught about writing, and talking about writing. This is a good problem to have, though, so no complaints. Still, I’m paying minimal attention to the O’s, Mets, Ravens, everything outside of here.

    4.

    Aside from the fact that I watched last night’s episode of Major Crimes, which was really good. Maybe they’ll give Rusty a better arc this year with his still-shaky relationship with Gus and now his mother’s revelation that she’s pregnant.

    I’m really looking forward to Murder in the First’s season premiere Sunday night. I’ll be back home watching it, so I need to leave really early to get home and write so that I’m not up writing late instead of watching.

    5.

    I’m not thinking too much of going home. I’m enjoying myself and worked through the issues that plagued Sunday and part of Monday. The writing activities and process have really helped.

    I think I’m going to resolve to do even more writing in the mornings. Like getting up earlier, like 6, and getting it in, before work. And perhaps hiding with my notebook more. Not eating lunch at my desk. Maybe I’ll haul a desk into the big network closet to be a writing desk for myself.

  • Five Things – 9 June 2016

    1.

    Mets have been scuffling a bit, but managed to get a win and avoid the sweep in Pittsburgh (never a good thing in my book). They got a game-clinching hit from Wilmer Flores, but they’re going to need better hitting period. Their pitching will keep them in it, but they’re not going to win 60 or so more games 1-0 to make it into the postseason.

    O’s are rolling, completing the three game sweep of the Royals

    Also, this happened:

    Ventura had already thrown at him earlier in the game and really, who can blame Manny for charging after getting hit by a 98 MPH fastball. Especially since Ventura doesn’t have to stand in the batter’s box himself.

    I haven’t asked any Royals fans how they felt about this, yet. But as much as they were upset about Noah Syndergaard throwing inside in the World Series last year, I might give them the benefit of the doubt and imagine they’re as as upset as the team is about Ventura doing it now.

    Speaking of the Royals, the sweep extends their losing streak to seven. Their injuries have hurt them, but they’re still just 3 games out in a close division.

    O’s up 12 games over .500 and in first. Gotten some good pitching lately. Chris Tillman’s 8-1.

    Ravens lost a week of OTA’s and really, there isn’t much else to say about them. They’re back at practice. They have a bunch of tight ends on the roster.

    Oh, and coach, please don’t join Twitter. The last thing you need is a zillion remarks about your clock management every Sunday night after a close game. Ravens Twitter can be a mess on Sunday nights.

    Talking about KC does remind me of last December’s Chiefs at Ravens game. A painful memory. Not necessarily because of the loss, but because of the gold pants:

    Never again. Please. We’re not the Steelers.

    Oh, the MLB Draft will be on TV and streaming beginning tonight. Mets pick 19 and 31 (compensatory pick for Daniel Murphy). O’s go at 27 (compensatory pick for Wei-Yin Chen). I might order myself a salad and watch and get ready to see these players in a few years.

    2.

    I’m finally allowing comments on blog posts. I didn’t want to because comments sections are usually cesspools and I wasn’t sure who I was going to be attracting to this site. But I thought it would be interesting to possibly see who might be reading what I’m saying here.

    So, comments are there, going forward. Moderated, though, through Disqus. Warm up your social media passwords if you have something to say.

    3.

    Found out that someone else affiliated with my job is from Baltimore. And not just that, his folks lived not too far from where I grew up. I even attended camp at their former church one summer (though long after they’d moved).

    I love meeting Baltimore people outside of Baltimore. Especially ones who are still positive about Baltimore as a whole and haven’t given up on the City being able to come back, regardless of its recent troubles. And believe me, there’s been trouble lately.

    4.

    As I said in an earlier blog post, I’ve never been to Horseshoe and I’ve only been to Maryland Live once or twice. One of those times, I just went to Bobby’s Burger Palace.

    Despite my not having dropped a few bucks into the till, casinos around Maryland aren’t hurting. We’ll see what this means especially for Baltimore, given all the big talk about community investment from casino money, specifically from Horseshoe. Especially after National Harbor’s casino opens later this year.

    Meanwhile, AC’s trying to come back from its spectacular hit in 2014 when four casinos closed.

    During summers when I was growing up, I remember there being many bus trips from Baltimore up to Atlantic City. The cost of the ticket included your fare there and back as well as some chips or something to play inside the bus’ destination casino. Once the bus got to Atlantic City, you had 12 or so hours before the bus returned. You just went and did your thing.

    This went on for years because AC was the only place in the region with table games. If you wanted to just play slots, you could go up to Delaware Park.

    And then every state around New Jersey legalized table games. Delaware brought them into Delaware Park and Dover Downs. New York State followed. Pennsylvania’s table games went to new and already established casinos. Maryland Live, Horseshoe, and Hollywood Casinos opened in Maryland.

    I wondered then about the fate of AC and the bus tours because if you were going to spend hours sitting there playing slots or cards, you had no reason to go all the way to Atlantic City to do it. Then 2014 happened. I wasn’t surprised, but a lot of folks in AC seemed to be.

    Hopefully for the sake of the folks lining up to get jobs, they’ll be able to make something work at (the former?) Revel and Showboat and with the overall AC recovery. As one of the linked articles shows, there were people who put in many years working in those properties who very quickly found themselves out of work.

    I don’t know what it’s going to look like in AC going forward with all the surrounding states working to keep the casino dollar at home, but until they can figure out the future of AC, I hope folks there find some relief.

    5.

    For years, my coworkers have praised me and my boss for keeping things going at the office. Information Technology is obviously important and we do our best, along with our technology partners, to keep things going. Even if I have to hear nearly every day that someone’s default printing settings have changed. Oh how I love to hear yet again that someone’s default printing settings have changed.

    However, I have to nominate our HR Director for being the one who really keeps things going there. Anybody who can actually understand the complicated processes surrounding interactions with the health care and insurance industries and help the rest of us with all the documentation and calling and making sure folks get paid while you don’t get thoroughly ganked, is worth their weight in gold.

    The documentation and payment process has been nearly as stressful as the hospital stay that produced the need for much of the documentation in the first place. Having someone there to help is pretty invaluable.

    I help my coworkers keep their iPhones synced with their office email and the occasional Facebook password reset. And I personally take complaints about user printing settings. I guess there’s value in that, as well.

  • Ali: Our Forever Champion

    Feet shuffling across a checkerboard floor.

    A left fist, flicking in the air, then again and again and BANG, a right cuts the air.

    Both hands thrown in the air.

    Victory.

    Unknowable, the number of times this scene played out in cities and suburbs, in parks and playgrounds, on street corners and boulevards and bazaars and so many places it probably happened in most places. Over days, then decades.

    #

    I’m back inside a barber shop in Baltimore. The 80s. Professional wrestling on a small, black and white TV set bolted to a shelf overlooking the storefront shop. A usual Saturday for a haircut. Men congregating, talking boxing. Sugar Ray. Marvin Hagler. The great boxers of the day.

    As great as they are, when the discussion turns to Ali, the room itself lights up. The men animate. An older barber moves around his client as he talks, giving a spiritual testimony as much as an assessment of Ali’s skills. Other brothers around nod and sway in agreement.

    Talking Ali is more than just discussing a great fighter. He’s more than that. I’m too young to fully understand the passion in their voices, their eyes.

    #

    Fight night was big. It was at our house. My mom was a fan.

    This was Mike Tyson’s heyday. Make sure you got all your eating in and your bathroom business done before the main event started. Once it did, things would go slowly during the paegentry of the entrances and introductions and then downhill and fast and it would be over.

    Ali was better, she said. The best. The fights were better. The Liston fights. The Ken Norton fights. The Frazier fights. The Foreman fight. Those were events. There was no PPV and you had to go in person if you could or watch on closed-circuit TV. But they were important. Everybody wanted to be there.

    Ali would hype the fight. Talking shit about how pretty he was and how his opponent didn’t have a chance. How he was going to win and his opponent better not even think he could whip him. And then he’d go into the ring and back up all the shit he’d talked. All evening if he needed to. 15 rounds worth of dodging and banging and making his opponent say his real name when the opponent wouldn’t.

    I’d missed out, she said. Born too late. Tyson was in my day, but Ali was in hers. And what a day.

    #

    “No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.”

    I’m from Baltimore. There’s never been a shortage of bad seeds, bad apples, bad motherfuckers. Dudes who will take a life and go get a chicken box. With hot sauce and ketchup. But even they’ll still hide from the lawman when he shows up.

    Government came for Ali. They wanted to ship him over to Vietnam. He told the government to kiss his ass. He wasn’t going to fight the Viet Cong (or for propaganda). His oppressor was right here at home. While people who looked like him were trying to go about their lives and be free, the same people who wanted to send him over to Asia to fight, were hurting and maiming those who looked like him right in America.

    Black athletes like Jesse Owens and Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson had challenged America on the field. They’d proven that, despite the ideas of the day, Black people were capable of being great athletes. And of enduring the hatred and bigotry they’d still experience out of the area of competition. Like not being served at lunch counters or being able to rent a room in the same hotels that served white athletes.

    Their play spoke for them but off the field, they still played by the same politics of appeasement and respectability that dominated the thinking of those times. They were going to win America over by being great on the field and ingratiate themselves to America off.

    Ali wasn’t having that. He told America to its face what was what. And he told America he was going to look good doing it and he did. They took his boxing license and his best fighting years, but he preferred putting all that on the line to giving into his principles. To giving in on his Islamic faith. On his Blackness.

    #

    Ali was done fighting by the time I came along. He’d been proven right by his refusal to go to Vietnam. Become a global figure for his boxing and his commitment to social justice and freedom. He wasn’t in the limelight as he had been in his fighting days, but he still traveled the world and gave people hope and joy.

    Even as his body would continue to be ravaged by Parkinson’s. But still, he won that fight. Lighting the Olympic flame in the 1996 Olympics. I remember some people being bothered by the image of a shaking Ali unsteadily holding the Torch, but he was still there holding it. He was still holding strong.

    #

    Back in the barber shop, the joy they felt talking about Ali, I finally came to understand it one day. They were people who had been living in segregated neighborhoods, denied access to better jobs, better lives, more respect. They couldn’t go into Roland Park or Rodgers Forge and tell those people what they thought about them. Couldn’t tell the old racist bus drivers who would pass them by on the streets to kiss their asses. They were still Ellison’s Invisible Man.

    Ali spoke for them. And to them. Ali lived as freely as a Black man could. As a Black person could. He didn’t march when they said march. He traveled the world. He lived life on his terms.

    He transcended sport and what people thought athletes should be. He transcended ideas about boxing and boxers and became a worldwide humanitarian. And became an icon for it.

    He didn’t transcend blackness, but transcended many people’s ideas about Blackness and what it meant. The limits of it. How black far black people could go in the world. How black people could be seen. How we could see ourselves.

    He wasn’t just a champion, he was our champion. He championed us. He showed us how great he was. How great we could be.

    “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky. My name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me.”

    “I’m gonna fight for the prestige, not for me, but to uplift my little brothers who are sleeping on concrete floors today in America. Black people who are living on welfare, black people who can’t eat, black people who don’t know no knowledge of themselves, black people who don’t have no future.”

  • Five Things – 2 June 2016

    1.

    I was right about Matt Harvey. Kinda. He has “snapped out” and at least in his last start was the old Matt Harvey. But, instead of the issue being something mental, it was a flaw in his mechanics. Hopefully, they’ll keep him on track the rest of the way through because they’re going to need the starting pitching to do well as Jeurys Familia and the Met bullpen haven’t been lighting the world on fire lately. Aside from Addison Reed. He’s locking the 8th inning down right now.

    2.

    Ray Lewis must, without the help of anything mechanical, achieve flight and ascend directly into Heaven or Low Earth Orbit one day soon.

    It came out this week that not only did Ray come back from a torn triceps in 2012 (see, 2012!), he also re-tore the triceps the night before the Super Bowl. And played anyway. And prayed over Jacoby just before his touchdown. He must be touched or it was all 100% Concentrated, 125 Proof Deer Antler Juice. At least that’s what I hear on the Internet.

    I’m going to make a pilgrimage to Ray. I’ve already been to the statue. That was just the first part.

    Seriously, though, I need to stop talking about football while the O’s are just 1 game behind Boston in the AL East after splitting this week’s series. They also mashed 7 dingers earlier. Baseball jargon.

    3.

    Pretty much done with the infection. Took my last hit of antibiotics earlier. I’ll be taking my probiotics after I click the publish button in WordPress. And some vitamin C as I think I got a summer cold the other day. Sniffles, some sinus/throat soreness. Don’t worry, though, it’s gone.

    And with my skin healing, I will get back to throwing my bell and possibly lifting some next week. I’ll definitely be throwing the bell. I love how thoroughly drained I feel when I’m done. Feels like I was running without having to run. I wish I’d discovered the bell when I was in high school.

    4.

    Been doing some writing and editing at work this week. Playing surprisingly well with others involved in the process, too, considering how much I hate that (I like collaborating in Theatre, but not when I’m writing). I appreciate the opportunity, though. I’m a writer, even if I’m doing something else for pay there.

    And even if my name isn’t going on the work. I don’t even care, which is also strange for me. I’m engaging my biggest passion in the office and besides, the work is for something important to the organization. I appreciate that my input is so valued.

    And before you say “they’re taking advantage of you,” I’ll have you know that I’d much rather spend that hour or two editing and rewriting something than having to walk around and reboot something for somebody (which you should do before calling IT anyway), climbing under a desk, or moving a workstation for the thousandth time. It really is like a small vacation. The workstations will be there when I’m done.

    5.

    Baltimore Metro is infested with rats.

    Amalgamated Transit Union held a protest at Mondawmin, complete with folks in rat masks. Video is above. I often talk about how different we are from folks in other cities, but in this case, I kinda hope we get a New York style video of a rat hauling a cookie from The Great Cookie down the concourse.

    (I haven’t been to The Great Cookie in so long. I need to go over there. Often, when I smell freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, I think of Mondawmin. When I was younger, the smells from Great Cookie seemed to fill the entire mall. Whenever we went over there, I always knew where I wanted to go. I hope the rats are indeed enjoying those treats as much as I want to. Until they get gassed or something by MTA.)

  • In Love With TIF

    In middle school, some of my classmates insisted I had a crush on a girl named Tiffany. Though this Tiffany was indeed cute, I did not have a crush on her. One could say I was in the initial throws of falling in love –as much as someone 13 years old or younger can– with someone else.

    Some twenty-five or more years later, someone has indeed fallen in love with Tiff. Or rather, TIFs. That someone is the very City of Baltimore.

    #

    Tax increment financing. What is a TIF? How do TIFs work?

    Back in the Land of Pleasant Living, the most recent TIF, as I alluded to in my last post, has gone to Michael Beatty’s Harbor Point development. In a nutshell, the City floated $107M in bonds to pay for infrastructure improvements at Harbor Point, which, among other things, is the new home for Exelon, the owner of the local electrical utility.

    Beatty himself bought a bunch of the bonds, therefore he’s benefiting from the interest paid on said bonds. So the City is, in a sense, taking out a loan to pay for infrastructure from his project, and by purchasing some of the bonds, Beatty has become one of the loaners of this money. Baltimore will be paying him back with interest for infrastructure the City has paid and will be paying for, on this project.

    Well, not all. Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Brew are reporting that there have been even more payments made from the City to this project. $29M worth of cost overruns. And the talk among those in charge is that the City will have to dip into General Funds, or in other words, straight up taxpayer dollars, to cover shortfalls in the TIF.

    I say straight up taxpayer dollars because ultimately, the property taxes generated by the Harbor Point development are supposed to cover the principal and interest payments on the bonds themselves. But until and unless enough property taxes are generated, somebody has to be on the hook to bondholders and it is the issuer of the bonds. The City of Baltimore. Or, more bluntly, the taxpayers of the City of Baltimore.

    And again, Beatty is a bondholder.

    Imagine that Baltimore is instead playing stocks or options. It’s low on cash (or so it says). So, it buys some stock or options on margin, betting that sometime in the future (in the case of this TIF, by 20 years out) the value of the stock or options will go up and they’ll make money for the whole city.

    That’s the expectation. They’re borrowing now with the belief that the future ship will come and cover the floated bonds and eventually, contribute money to the City for the usual other things that the City pays for. But if they’re wrong; if they don’t take in as much as they’re expecting, they still owe the brokers, the bondholders. And in this case, Beatty is one of the brokers.

    They also baked in some language to demand that the project pay for some general civic improvements that don’t necessarily benefit the project, but we’ll see how that goes.

    Still, the project was sold on the premise and promise that no taxpayer dollars would be used. That’s certainly true, if the future property tax projections pan out.

    That was, until the cost overruns and while it’s appalling (yet not surprising) that they’re talking about dipping into general funds, they’ve now assumed so much risk that they can’t turn back. They’re in too deep. The City needs the project to work because it has an expectation that somehow, dollars will come in to cover the initial outlay paid for by the bond generation. In a sense, the City has become a partner with no equity, just a need for everything to work out and hopefully go as smoothly as it can in the future with minimal additional cost overruns.

    We’ll see about that.

    Here’s the crazy bit. They want to do it again.

    The Port Covington TIF. Just like the Harbor Point TIF, but on the proverbial steroids, because this one weighs in at a hefty $535M. As the Sun reported, with interest, all told, it could cost over $2B. And in this case, Sagamore Development, the development arm of Under Armour founder Kevin Plank, would buy some of the bonds itself and thereby benefit from the interest on said bonds.

    The vote is up to City Council at this point. The Mayor supports it. The quasi-governmental Baltimore Development Corporation supports it. Of course BDC would certainly put its stamp of approval on the TIF. They’re not elected, so they’re not responsible to the taxpayers and voters of Baltimore. If things don’t pan out with the property taxes on Port Covington and the City is on the hook and has to cover parts of bond repayments (because who else is supposed to? The state? That’s funny), nobody at BDC has to go into districts and neighborhoods one day and explain why there’s no money for parks or rec centers.

    Again, they plan to bake language into the TIF so that there will be public benefit. And yes, the renderings look amazing, but looking at recent history with Harbor Point, it looks like the City is going in way over its head. It looks like the City is about to partner again with no equity. And if cost overruns occur this time, will the City have to dip back into general funds to cover?

    Plank has sold this project on, among other things, the number of jobs it’ll bring to Baltimore (and specifically to Baltimore residents) as well as on improving Baltimore’s image. The price tag on Baltimore’s image is listed above.

    To put it into perspective, in 2014 dollars, the City and Baltimore County pledged $280M ($230 and $50 respectively) towards the building of the since-cancelled Red Line light rail project (with Maryland and the Feds picking up the rest of the nearly $3B project). So the City is willing is thus-far willing to float bonds in excess of double that amount for a project in one section of the city.

    Sure, Sagamore is floating jobs projections now, but other cities like Denver are realizing actual development gains from the increased mobility. I’m not saying the Red Line was cancelled because of Port Covington (or Harbor Point) because it wasn’t, but if the City is interested in borrowing money they think they’ll be able to pay off with future property taxes, wouldn’t projects like light rail that have had the effect of creating new development and raising the value of pre-existing property, especially in places like Minneapolis, be more preferable to ones like the ones they’re financing?

    (It’s also not Beatty or Plank’s fault that such an idea would never get off the ground because of the classism and racism through which public transit is viewed in the Baltimore area, making new projects hard to support. Look at the amount the County was willing to contribute to the Red Line. Shows exactly the degree to which their citizens value mass transit. Also Google “baltimore loot rail” if you really don’t believe me.)

    People around the City government like to throw around the name Freddie Gray, but when will the economic conditions that created the overall situation he lived and died in, be reasonably addressed? When will the people of Freddie Gray’s neighborhood see the benefits from Harbor Point or Port Covington? 20, 40 years from now? Ever?

    #

    It’s not all doom and gloom, though.

    I enjoyed the article in City Paper concerning the idea of developing a City-owned retirement fund for people, using interest paid on some of the Port Covington bonds. Start a special benefits corporation, buy the bonds, collect the interest.

    I like the idea.

    I like the idea of regular Baltimoreans who can afford to do so, buying the bonds. If the City is going to float them regardless of the will of the citizens, the only thing left is to buy them and receive whatever benefits you can. Which, even though they’re running ads everywhere, seems like it’s going to be the case.

    Relatively not that many would be able to take part, but what else is there, if you’re not an “insider”?

    #

    I was 14 when I really first fell in love. I didn’t get the girl, but I got the lessons. Those were free. I loved again, several times over.

    I hope Baltimore gets their proverbial girl in the form of property taxes sometime 20-40 years from now. I’ll be nearly 80 towards the end of the Port Covington TIF, so hopefully they’ll put some old folks stuff up with the money.

    If the City doesn’t, the lessons will be infinitely more painful. A much lowered bond rating. The City on the hook for whatever amounts of money. And the things that were supposed to be paid for, not there. Maybe they’re thinking they’ll do some development in Sandtown with the money one day. Will they be able to? (And we won’t even talk about the supposed “game-changer,” the Horseshoe Casino and the money that was supposed to contribute to Baltimore. I’ll admit to not doing my part, since I haven’t gone there and played video poker, yet. They have that in there, right?)

    If it doesn’t work out, what will the City do to recover? What lessons will it learn? What do they say when the next developer wanting a TIF shows up to 100 North Holliday? Will it fall in love with someone other than TIF if TIF doesn’t work out?

    Well, someone other than PILOT . Been there, done that.

  • A Brief Meandering on the Possibility of the Ravens Leaving One Day

    Russell Street Report’s Tony Lombardi posted a commentary that may give some Ravens fans —e.g., older fans who remember 1984— a reason to be relieved. According to him, last June, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti called the idea of the Ravens playing anywhere other than M&T Bank Stadium “preposterous.” It certainly feels better than “I have not any intentions of moving the goddamn team. If I did, I will tell you about it, but I’m staying here,” but that’s mostly because of the person saying the words.

    Still, Lombardi is not subtly hinting that at some point in the near future, The Bank, as it’s known, will undergo some kind of renovation. Again, assuming that the Ravens’ plan isn’t to build another stadium or perhaps move to another city. Whuh?

    To even think this, let alone say it, would be as close to blasphemy as one can get for a Baltimore guy and Ravens fan. A day one Ravens fan. The problem is, before anything gets done between the Ravens and Maryland Stadium Authority, before Bisciotti makes any final decision, the NFL will have its say in the matter.

    #

    I’m sure if the NFL doesn’t know now, they will at some point, that Baltimore City is doling out a lot of development money in the form of TIFs and other public moneys these days. Upwards of $400M is going to Michael Beatty’s Harbor Point development, the new local home for Exelon, the owner of the local electric utility. Actually, it’s probably more, since he bought some of the bonds himself and will benefit from the interest paid on those.

    Then, there’s the 20 year/$535M TIF being debated in public and soon to be voted on by City Council that will go to Sagamore Development, the development arm of Under Armour owner Kevin Plank, to develop their Port Covington project. Part of the project will be a new corporate home for Under Armour, other parts slated to be public parks and other such amenities.

    While I’m sure the NFL won’t be concerned with local laws concerning the running of the electrical utility or the number of jobs Sagamore claims it will bring to Baltimore, they’re seeing big dollar figures being moved. Even in a city known for its striking areas of poverty. Forget the fact that stadiums aren’t even a totally local concern in Baltimore (except for the Baltimore Arena, somehow). When it comes time to discuss the stadium situation in Baltimore, the league is definitely going to inquire about the large sums of money being spent by the City to develop real estate projects.

    #

    Still, other than public statements to the effect that Bisciotti doesn’t want to move the team elsewhere, does Baltimore/Maryland have any leverage to keep the Ravens?

    The growing sentiment around the country may be swinging towards kick rocks when it comes to public financing of sports stadiums. Las Vegas seems willing to say yes to the Raiders as we wait for their current home, but Oakland might not be interested in committing that much money. San Diego may ultimately be willing to part with the Chargers and spend that money on other things. In the event that those teams moved, their cities would be open, but would they have changed their minds about stadium financing?

    What other non-NFL cities are there lining up? The league itself feels public financing is getting harder to get from cities.

    While the situation between the Ravens and Baltimore is different, as they deal directly with the State and its more vast resources than a city and with Las Vegas seemingly ready to come off the map of possible NFL cities, where else could the Ravens go and get as good a deal as they currently have? The stadium deal that Art Modell eventually took was a sweetheart deal he used to get himself out of the financial straits he’d put himself in back in Cleveland. Before L.A. and now Las Vegas, Baltimore was the city the league used as the relocation threat. Most of the TV markets larger than Baltimore are occupied with teams already. In moving to Vegas, the NFL would be moving from the 6th largest TV market to the 42nd. Would they want to stomach that again?

    Having said that, I’m sure that most Ravens fans would rather not tempt fate by asking the question for real and hope that the Ravens and Stadium Authority can work out the future of the Ravens’ tenure in Baltimore, with the least input from the Jerry Jones’ and Stan Kronke’s of the world. Reportedly, the Ravens and Stadium Authority have had a great operating relationship through the years, so there’s no reason now to believe they wouldn’t be able to work out terms of a renovation of the current stadium. Or more.

    Besides, losing the Ravens, if it came to that, would equal political suicide for anybody in charge for letting a 2nd NFL team leave Baltimore on their watch. Baltimoreans have long memories and besides, Ravens fandom in Maryland isn’t confined to any political party or the political boundary lines of Baltimore City (even back in the day, the Baltimore County Executive became involved alongside Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer in the effort to keep the Baltimore Colts. The outcome of this was the impetus for the creation of the Maryland Stadium Authority). Annapolis is as wedded to the Ravens as Baltimore is.

    #

    I want to say I know they’re not leaving now or in the foreseeable future. But it’s not that simple. I don’t want to be that naive. Bisciotti may think Baltimore is the best home for the Ravens, but what does the league think? The L.A. decision wasn’t just about one team.

    The Falcons are barely 20 years into the Georgia Dome and they’re moving into a new stadium after this season. The Vikings are moving into a new stadium. The Rams’ move to L.A. was predicated upon their new stadium. Chargers and Raiders will be moving into new homes at some point. Even the Bills are talking about moving into a new stadium. The league is more than willing to take the PR hit from pulling up stakes. That shameless press conference announcing the Rams’ move is proof-positive that they don’t care.

    All I can do as a fan is support my team and if this one decides to go, pack up my jerseys next to my Baltimore Colts pennant and get up the next morning like last time.