Monday, August 4, 2008

Community Announcements

Next Tuesday August 12, 6-8 p.m. Mayor Dixon will hold a "Neighborhood Conversation" at Loyola College Andrew White Student Hall, 2nd Floor,
4501 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21210.
For more info, call the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods at 410-396-4735.
(Their slogan: "you may as well be calling the MOON!")

Meister reports on a new blog-- Baltimore John Watch!
... for more on Internet john-watching, see this Wired article
(Now that William Brown is in jail, are the prostitute killings going to stop?)

4 comments:

John Galt said...

From Fred Bealefeld, a new variety of policing: self-serve.

"These people are prepared to take care of their own community, and what you really need is communities taking care of communities."


OK, so, we're going to lay off all the cops, strap on six-shooters, and receive a full refund of our taxes, yes ???

No. What he has in mind is that the City collects a higher tax rate than most other cities in the country, hires no cops, hands the money out in grants to nonprofits, and then expects citizens to police the streets for ourselves with absolutely no legal authority.

Gotcha.

Maurice Bradbury said...

maybe said communities are defining "take care of" differently.

The Baltimore Cynic said...

"No. What he has in mind is that the City collects a higher tax rate than most other cities in the country, hires no cops, hands the money out in grants to nonprofits, and then expects citizens to police the streets for ourselves with absolutely no legal authority."

Also, don't forget - when you do police the streets for yourselves, he expects the State's Attorney's office to pursue you criminally as if you were a petty thug.

But that doesn't matter, so long as the major constituency of the city that makes the voting decisions is kept satisfied by not locking up anyone's baby (or baby's daddy, as the case may be).

Perhaps we shouldn't get out the vote, but instead should get the (dumb) voters out?

Carol Ott said...

I like the idea of self-serve policing. Does this mean I can carry the Sig down the street with me with Fred Bealefeld's permission? 'Cause if I have to act like a cop, I want all of the accoutrements that go with the job. Oh, a big-ass billyclub...and some handcuffs...oh wait, I already have those. :: giggle ::