Who Am I?

I have been the Director of Labor Studies for the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) at the Dundalk campus since April, 1997, administering a program that provides credit and continuing education classes for union members throughout the state of Maryland. I am all fulltime faculty member at CCBC.

I was an active member on the organizing committee for The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) campaign for the faculty at CCBC and a member of The United Association of Labor Educators.

From 1992-1997, I was a stay-at-home Dad, with our two sons, Willie (now 15) and Alex (now 13) who attend The Stadium School in the city. My son Willie will be starting high school (gasp!) in the fall at Independence School Local 1 in Hampden, a city school.

From the 1992-1997, I worked as an adjunct at Dundalk, teaching Labor Studies classes and part-time teaching adult education for a succession of programs, including Baltimore Reads.

From 1972-1992, I was a union organizer and staff person, working in New England, California, the Carolinas, Virginia, and eastern and central Pennsylvania. I moved to Baltimore in 1989 and became the Regional Organizing Director for the Clothing & Textile Workers (ACTWU).

I am married to Joan Jacobson, a self-employed writer and former reporter (1974-2002) at The Baltimore Sun. We have lived in Lauraville since 1990, and I was the treasurer of the Lauraville Improvement Association for six years.

 

Why Am I Running?

In 2004, when I first ran for the council seat, I said that I was like Howard Beale in the movie 'Network' - I was mad as hell and I did not want to take it any longer. For years, I felt like going to my window and screaming, as Howard did, but I realized that sitting at home and being pissed off only allows the social problems to get worse.

I wanted a decent city (and beyond this, a decent state and decent country) for myself, for my children and their children and for my neighbors. If there were a symbol for City Council members, it would be a huge rubber stamp. For decades, the Council members have simply allowed a mayor to run the city like a fiefdom, offering neither opposition nor fresh ideas.

There is now total one-party domination in the state of Maryland, and the Democrats no longer have the convenient scapegoat of a Republican governor to blame. This party controls everything and, if you want to check out the record of the Democratic Party, just drive through Baltimore City from one border to the other.

It's also time to put some ethical standards into public services. How often do we read that City Council members take perks - like free parking or tickets from people who do business, or seek tax breaks, from the Council? In 2005, I filed an unsuccessful law suit against the Council for using tax monies to hire private lawyers to defend Council members against corruption charges. The Judge, a loyal Democrat, threw out the suit without comment. No surprise.

Council members employ relatives, and pressure subcontractors, while laying off other city workers.

 

CAMPAIGN ISSUES - WHY AM I STILL MAD AS HELL?

"A CITY DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND"

ONE PARTY DOMINATION

If you want to see the failure of loyally electing the same party, and even the same families, year after year, just drive through Baltimore City.

  • Look at the crime rates. Failure
  • Look at the blocks of abandoned housing. Failure
  • Look at the school performance scores. Failure
  • Look at the thousands of residents who leave the city each year. Failure
  • Look at the manipulations of Council members to protect their private interests. Failure

Even look at a state level two years ago, for example, there were 600,000 residents of Maryland without health insurance. What happened? Nothing. In 2007, there are 800,000 residents without health insurance. What did the Maryland state government, totally controlled by the Democratic Party in the House, the Senate and the Governor's mansion, do? Nothing. Failure

Look at BG & E. During the state campaigns of 2006, all of the Democrats in our district promised - PROMISED, with big ol' tears in their eyes that BG & E's rate increases would be stopped. So they all go re-elected and what happened? Open your next BG & E bill and you'll see.Failure

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CITY REVENUES

There are two related issues for the campaign of November 2007, to determine if there is a future for Baltimore City and its residents.

One issue is, of course money - revenue that can be raised for public services.

The other issue is where this money is spent.

This problem seems complicated, as we are bombarded with fear stories about the city's financial problems, but there are some obvious solutions - solutions which require both a new direction for Baltimore City politics and improved relations between Baltimore City and other revenue sources, like the state and federal governments.

Since the Schaefer administration, Baltimore has become a kind of third-world city, neglecting city residents and city workers. The revenues that Baltimore City gets are funneled toward the Inner Harbor area, for wealthy residents and tourists, while citizens of the city are required to make do with less. The city states that it spends only 5% of revenues on neighborhoods.

With the invasion of Iraq sucking $5 billion per month out of public funds, the city needs to raise revenues to expand important services. Eliminating extravagant PILOT programs, which offer generous financial loopholes to wealthy developers, is a first step. PILOT stands for Payment In Lieu of Taxes, a corporate welfare payment for wealthy and politically-connected developers.

In the first week in June, the City Council began to consider a $ 33 million tax giveaway to John Paterakis for luxury office building and expansion of Inner Harbor East, a project that already been relieved of paying much of its taxes. When the Council is worried about depleting the so-called 'rainy day fund', and when city schools are in complete disrepair, there is absolutely no excuse for such gifts to wealthy, and politically well-connected, developers.

I am going to raise this as a major campaign issue - it symbolizes the failure of the council, in collusion with The Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), a semi-secret group that puts some of the area's wealthiest individuals on welfare - corporate welfare.

We all pay full taxes on the assessed value of our homes - why not use the same standard for wealthy developers?

I have correspondence going back for years with our then City Councilman, Martin O'Malley, objecting to the PILOT programs. O'Malley insisted that PILOT programs create jobs for Baltimore.

What kind of jobs?

Cleaning hotel rooms at the Inner Harbor? Parking cars at luxury condos? Washing dishes at trendy restaurants?

The Council authorized in 2005 a $300 million bond issues to build a new hotel at the Inner Harbor because no private investor thought there was any chance of a decent return. When this hotel flops, the taxpayers of Baltimore City will pay the bill.

Look at one example of how the City of Baltimore managed our money: beginning in 2002, city officials began a rubber stamp relationship with Bank of America, offering extensive welfare to this giant corporation. Check out the numbers:

  • Baltimore City's Board of Estimates purchased land on the west side for $12 million - a huge overpayment to begin with
  • Baltimore 'sells' the same land to Bank of America for $6 million - a loss to the citizens of Baltimore of $6 million.
  • In January, 2004, Bank of America got the Board of Estimates to give it an additional $1.5 million for asbestos removal.
  • In March, 2004, Bank of American agrees to pay fines to the federal government of $ 175 million for securities fraud to settle a criminal indictment

What do we have? The Board of Estimates - with no objection from City Council - subsidizes a corporate lawbreaker with our tax money! This is a pattern repeated over and over.

An expanded partnership with the State of Maryland is also essential. Former Comptroller William Donald Schaefer (who knows something about Baltimore City finances) found that 2/3 of Maryland's largest companies paid no state income taxes in 2001 and 2003.

A 1% income tax surcharge on all millionaires would create $70 million in revenue for the state, a much better way to raise money than sales tax increases or slots.

The City Council also should pass a "union neutrality" provision so that any business which has either a city-protected monopoly, like COMCAST or BG & E, or receives subsidies from the taxpayers, like most of the downtown Gold Coast hotels and restaurants, should sign a pledge not to interfere with the rights of their workers to organize a union. Higher union wages and benefits puts more money into the local economy, and is the best crime-prevention measure we could have.

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PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The issue of public education is very important to me because I have two children in Baltimore City public schools. We were fortunate to get them admitted to the Stadium School, founded more than ten years ago in the face of major opposition from the school administration. The Stadium School is tied to the Algebra Project, which teaches The Four R's - reading, 'riting, 'rithmatic and rebellion because we did not feel confident in our neighborhood school.

It is clear now that the City Council now accepts at least some responsibility for the public school system but the current Council members have shown no ability to solve other crises, so what makes us think they can deal with education?

Which City Council members actually have children in the public schools? Does the Mayor send her children in the public schools -or even to schools in Baltimore City?

  • Public schools in Baltimore should be fully funded on a regular basis and the money should be spent on our children, their teachers and support staff.
  • The City should decentralize the school system, since the administration on North Avenue is both secretive, in terms of making decisions, and inept (witness the exposures in The Baltimore Sun of phony budget numbers and horrendous school construction and repairs).
  • Let the principals be responsible for their schools and establish accountability.
  • I support charter schools, which demand parental involvement, so long as the teachers and paraprofessionals are covered by the B.T.U. contract.
  • Increasing parental involvement should be as much a part of the curriculum as reading instruction; I know there are many parents who want their children to succeed but no one reaches out to them on a consistent basis.
  • I also think that it should be required that any member of the Baltimore City School Board should have children in the public schools. Too often the current members feel no sense of urgency or involvement in the progress of the system.
  • Test scores are a misleading way to evaluate the school.

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BG & E

Why is BG & E raising your electric rate by 50% in June?

Because it can.

The city should have long ago opened a municipally-owned source for gas and electric. Small cities have public authorities; large cities have public authorities, why not Baltimore?

There are publicly-owned stadiums, publicly owned-hotels - why not a public utility.

The fiasco in the Public Service Commission, which rolled over for BG & E, is another good reason for ending the domination of the Democratic Party - Democratic City Council, Democratic Assembly, Democratic State Senate, Democratic governor - the result? A 50% increase in my electric bill.

Let's also not forget the otherworldly expenses that BG & E has for us to pay.

Mayo Shattuck, CEO of Constellation Energy, had a salary in 2006 of $ 20 million, plus stock options worth more than $ 49 million! Leaving aside the question of how one guy would spend $69 million, spreading this out among us ratepayers is very costly.

Protecting this money with an estimated $ 80,000 in campaign contributions to the Democratic Party, which refuses to step in to block the rate increase, is really chump change.

And remember that a few years ago, BG& E spent an enormous amount of money--I heard $44 million--for The Burke Group to fight the union campaign by IBEW, trying to organize one of the few remaining non-union utility companies. The Burke Group provided a full range of union-busting tactics--speeches, videos, letters, etc.--and the costs, of course, were passed along to us in our BG & E bills.

A monopoly like BG & E should be required to sign a "union neutrality" pledge as a condition for maintaining its monopoly.

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CITY COUNCIL SALARIES

All of you out there, who got an $ 8,000.00 raise this year, please raise your hands.

All of you out there, who got a 19% pay raise, please raise your hands.

The biggest hand up belongs to Robert Curran, our incumbent City Councilor.

He and the rest of the council members rigged a procedure so that they could get these exorbitant increases without the political risk of actually voting for it. No Profiles in Courage here!

For a part-time job, as many council members have other jobs or businesses, the salary is now $58,000.00 per year, about double the average family income in Baltimore City.

The mayor's salary is now $148,000, after an 18% pay increase, and the City Council president goes to $98,000.00 No wonder so many people are running for the job.

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CITY MINIMUM WAGE

I propose a city minimum wage of $12.00 per hour for any business with more than 10 workers in the city. This is directed at large national corporations (hotels and Wal-Marts, for example) and not at the mom-and-pop operations. Let's put some of this national money back into the local economy.

Think how much more money would be spent in Baltimore City, instead of being sucked back to Bentonville, AR, if the minimum wage were truly a living wage.

Many years ago, The Baltimore City Council recognized that the federal minimum wage was not enough for workers to live on, so the city set a higher wage. Over time, as the federal minimum wage increased, it caught up with the city, and the Council never again considered helping out the poorest workers in Baltimore City. The federal minimum wage has not increased since 1997 - if it had simply met inflation, the minimum wage would be $6.40

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PUBLIC HEALTH

I support efforts to improve public health and the environment, especially in expanding renewable and clean energy sources. Other counties in Maryland are stressing rewnewable energy, co-generation, and "green" buildings. Baltimore City, with all of our intellectual resources, should be the leader.

I also support improving the public parks and recreation centers (another area of the city that is neglected in favor of the Inner Harbor). With all of the problems in the city, groups that provide parks and recreation services should be fully supported financially by the city, rather than having to depend upon volunteers and constant fund-raising. Volunteers are great and make our city great but they need guaranteed financial resources.

Michael Moore is making the US "health care system" a great issue but I have long supported a single-payer health plan. Here is a link to the testimony [link to Word document] I gave in Annapolis this winter in support of a bill to establish single-payer in Maryland. It was shocking that there were 600,00 residents of Maryland with no health care in 2005, and now there are 800,000.

And what did the Assembly do for these residents in the session? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Unless 800,000 residents can pay their medical bills with promises from the Democratic party, they're stuck for another year.

The City Council could begin to fight for single-payer since the majority of uninsured people are in the city, creating an enormous burden for our hospitals which, by law, cannot turn away anyone for lack of insurance.

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CRIME IN THE CITY

Baltimore is now the second most dangerous city in the United States - is this a record for the Democratic Party to be proud of? With the economy providing low-wage, or no-wage jobs, criminal activity seems an attractive alternative.

Increasing police presence, or installing military rule on the city as Bobby Curran proposed in May, is treating as symptom, not dealing with the cause. So long as there are no jobs and no recreational activities for young people, communities will see increased crime and violence. Such anti-social activities reflect this divided city.

As a public health issue, I support the decriminalization of drugs like marijuana and cocaine. We have lost the war on drugs, just as we lost the war on alcohol during Prohibition, so it is time to declare 'victory' and move on. Eliminating the profit in the drug trade will have a positive effect on public safety so drug addiction can be treated as a public health issue. Money wasted on arresting and prosecuting petty criminals can be diverted to socially useful causes, like schools and drug treatment centers.

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AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Housing in Baltimore City is a disaster. Rents are rising faster in Baltimore than in any other major city. The news articles on a fire off Greenmount Avenue indicated that 13 people were living in a single apartment -and then the building caught on fire.

A new study shows that the Housing authority of Baltimore City (HABC) is tearing down public housing much faster than it admits, and not replacing it. The council must change this policy.

The City administration in March 20, 2004 was prepared to spend $7 million to rehab 30 houses for Section 8 housing. This money should be spent instead to facilitate first-time home owners as a way to stabilize neighborhoods. Section 8 housing only rewards absentee landlords, but it does get political contributions for Council members.

Let's go back to the days of the $1 house to fill vacant and potentially dangerous vacancies.

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SLOTS

No way. If you want to know what will really happen if slots ever come to Maryland, listen to the Tommy Bromwell tapes.

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CITY WORKERS

After school children and teachers, city workers are next to be blamed by the Council for all of the city’s problems. City workers not only provide city services, they are city residents, so knocking off the lowest-paid workers may only push them to public assistance or crime, and will certainly make the city less livable.

The lay off of workers and cuts in services, like trash collection and recycling, are flat out wrong. I support the right of city workers to protect their contracts.

I oppose privatization because it usually ends up costing us more for less, and because workers are always forced to take pay cuts and benefit reductions.

I was especially disturbed to see repeated stories in The Baltimore Sun about bad relations between the administration of the Fire Department and the unionized workers. There is no excuse for such open disunity, exposed only by the tragic death of a young recruit in a 'proactive' fire.

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GAY MARRIAGE

It is not the place of government to tell citizens whom they may or may not marry. Remember the old miscegenation laws that were once supported by the Baltimore City Council? Families come in all forms and should be supported, legally and socially.

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PUBLIC SPACES

Parks and recreation facilities are essential to improving the quality of life in Baltimore City. There should be partnerships with park users, either as individuals or with groups like The Herring Run Watershed Association, to expand park maintenance.

I support an expanded public transportation system, including neighborhood shuttle buses and bicycle lanes and trails.

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THE INVASION OF IRAQ

If you need another example of the failure of the Democratic Party, take a hike down to Washington, DC, where the party controls a majority of the House and Senate, as a result of the elections in November, 2006, when the American public loudly demanded withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. What happened? A huge military budget of $120 billion dollars with no timetable for withdrawal.

In addition to the devastating cost in human life, the invasion is costing us taxpayers about $ 1billion/week. Think what the city of Baltimore could do with just one week's money. The states and cities had become dependent over the years on federal money, which is now dramatically drying up. Time for regime change - in Washington and in Baltimore.

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