Thursday, May 31, 2007

May 31: Political BS

Stop the presses, now Dixon's planning a plan: a "more focused" partnership between local and state law enforcement agencies. Could she be planning to ask O'Malley for some state troopers?

... frienemy Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is asking for 15 state troopers to help out in the city (baby steps!) and wants to spend $2 million of city reserve funds, plus some state cash, to recruit 140 teenagers, Southerners and Puerto Ricans to police positions (yes, that's more than $14k a recruit). (Other Council budget details here.)
The bad news: no mention of raising police pay to be on par with surrounding counties to help retain the recruits.
Fun Fact: City Council President will be ostensibly elected at the Sept. 11 Democratic primary. Rawlings-Blake will be opposed by City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. and political legacy Michael Sarbanes.
Olesker: "These candidates running today are the children of those who struggled through such tough times, and made it their life’s work to relegate it to the past. Maybe voters won’t care about race as much as character ... maybe the new generation of candidates will lead us to such a day." Yeah, maybe! Wait...race? Who's he talking about? Aren't all of the candidiates lightly browned?

MD State Police "Superintendent Colonel" Thomas Hutchins = out!
Hutchins was installed by Ehrlich in 2003 to replace Ed Norris; Baltimore County Police Chief Terrence Sheridan will replace Hutchins.

A letter from the ever-vivid Frank M. Conaway, Sr: "A river of blood is flowing through the streets of Baltimore. What are Baltimore’s leaders doing to stem the flow? Planting trees."

A stuffed deer head with a gold tooth and a mop on its head that looked like an afro was photo'd at the Station 33 fire house on E. 25th Street, someone then posted the image to a blog, an uproar allegedly thus ensued and someone at the NAACP was alerted, then someone called Mike Schuh, who turned it in to three minutes of your life that you'll never get back!

19 comments:

ppatin said...

I'm so sick of the Baltimore NAACP. "Doc" Cheetham has never muttered one word about the lack of cops in this city, but as soon as someone pulls a stupid stunt with a moose head he's all over it. Cheetham is a disgusting, race-baiting slimeball.

Marc said...

The other bad news: it's a non-binding, "sense of the council" resolution.

ppatin said...

Is Michael Sarbanes in any way qualified to be city council president, or is he just trying to coast into office without accomplishing anything (sort of like John Sarbanes did when he was elected to congress)?

Marc said...

Sort of like Stephanie Rawlings did when she was elected to the City Council at age 25 on Pete Rawlings' coattails?

For what its worth, Sarbanes' experience encompasses "15 years of community service, which include working as an attorney with the Community Law Center and as director of the Citizens Planning and Housing Association" as well as a stint as "executive director of the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention in the Glendening administration".

I don't know if that makes him qualified to be City Council president or not, but at least he isn't complicit in the past 12 years of incompetent city government.

DurhamSt said...

Frank M. Conaway, Sr. letter has a new crime plan - "Weed and Seed". Why can't I get a job at the Ministry of Silly Names?

ppatin said...

Ok, obviously Michael Sarbanes will be a better choice than Stephanie Galling Flake (not that that says very much). I'm still annoyed at his brother though, who beat Peter Beilenson solely because of name recognition. It sure would be nice if we elected fewer lawyers, those damned parasites are running our society.

Anonymous said...

Politics is part name recognition, part rhetoric and all finance. as for "Weed and Seed", it's something, right? better a solution from the ministry of silly names then nothing at all....

Sean said...

Funny, same day that the Sun printed the letter I wrote about that $19m surplus (in mildly mangled form).

burgersub said...

i can't find any specifics on what weed & seed is in the DOJ description. it just says "this program reduces/prevents crime" over and over again.

whoa, we can reduce crime? how come nobody's thought of that before?!

Anonymous said...

Sarbanes - I've heard more about his community activism than his brother who apparently is now my Representative.

Face facts, people - Baltimore is a political dynasty town. Here's a handful of family names that have benefited from riding mommy and daddy's coattails (even when they were absurdly unqualified):

Cardin (a few delegates, one senator),
Curran (you name it: Attorney General, councilman, judge),
Conaway (Clerk of Court, Register of Wills, City Council, Delegate who is apparently insane),
Rawlings (Delegate, Council),
Sarbanes (Senator, Wicomico County Council, representative, soon to be council president assuming tweedle dee [harris] and tweedle DUMB [rawlings-blake] level each other out)

Political Dynasty = Political Complacency. Deal with it or draft someone new for this madness.

John Galt said...

I'd hate to let arithmetic diminish the significance of Council Pres. Blake's press release, but last time I checked, full-time police field operatives cost about $68,300 each, which means that a $2MM budget transfer from the rainy day fund would enable the hiring of about 30+ cops, depending upon their experience. That's not a number which has significance to the city police force. In fact, it's about the number who are needed here on my little 18 square-block police post, where we have several hundred resident supervised probation cases.

I hope this sheds some light on the true magnitude of the understaffing problem, for the last twenty or so years of ridiculous staffing have rendered the aberrant behaviors structural and multigenerational in nature.

I hope the next 'sense of council' is the realization that it has, in fact, so very little of it.

ppatin said...

It's John Sarbanes who pissed me off the most. Peter Beilenson seemed like a really good guy, and one of the competent officials in the city government.

John Galt said...

Oh, I get it. The $2mm is just for fluff. Public service announcements, flyers, etc. Yeah, that's gonna get the dedicated public servant type.

Not.

It's gonna reach all those Baltimore losers who apply for the job and are surprised to be told that yeah, flunking the drug test is a big obstacle.

So, I guess we're not actually getting ready to do anything about hiring good cops.

Believe. Believe away, Baltimore.

Anonymous said...

Weed and Seed has been around for years. If you really want to know what it is call over to one of BPDs neighborhood service units...they can tell you.

Anonymous said...

Cynic,
In your run down of politicians sliding into office on their family names, you skipped Mitchell(great congressman, expelled convicted state senators, councilman)

Anonymous said...

Excellent observation, anon - which leads us to the bigger question... do we really need any more of these goobers messing things up any further?


ppatin, the only time I've ever heard Cheatham utter a word even relating to the Police is when the discrimination lawsuit with the ACLU started... clearly, he is no more than a race-baiting slimeball who further shames the NAACP. Plus, I don't actually think he's a Doctor...
*coughs* (actually, can anyone even verify if he went to college at all? the Baltimore NAACP site says nothing)

burgersub said...

what i don't get is why we're only using $2 million from a $75 million rainy day fund for police recruitment. is being on pace for having the highest murder rate in 8 years not a rainy enough day?

ppatin said...

I think the city has to maintain a certain amount of money in reserve in order to keep down the interest rate on the bonds they issue.

John Galt said...

Just so the price of the bonds is higher than the price of a life.

Nice.