Baltimore City Council

I am often asked why I gave up a secure seat in the Baltimore City Council, if any elective office can be considered secure, to run for president of the Baltimore City Council in a highly competitive race.First of all I believe that public service is a high calling, especially in times of crisis. Baltimore is in the midst of a momentous crisis in public safety, education and economic development.The fear of crime lowers community participation, diminishes economic development and saps the optimism and confidence of the citizens.

Baltimore City Council members confused caring about unemployment with abating it by giving preliminary approval to a local hire law last week. The legislation, which requires a final vote and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's signature to become law, requires businesses that are awarded city contracts over $300,000 or receive $5 million or more in city financing to hire 51 percent of new workers from within Baltimore. In promoting it, City Council members sound like they are competing for the "most compassionate" prize.

On a blustery January day, just after Baltimore's homicide rate soared to a new record, a young city councilman called for the police commissioner to resign if the escalating violence did not end.Yesterday, almost two years after he became widely known for his crusade against crime, Councilman Lawrence A. Bell III announced his candidacy for council president.He delivered a tough speech on the need to "rescue our young and old from the pervasive fear of being victimized by crime." The 4th District councilman cited his legislative efforts to combat crime and promised to "continue this challenge to make Baltimore a safe community."

Baltimore's new police commissioner wants to expand his agency's focus beyond gun violence to burglaries, car break-ins and other crimes that affect a broader swath of citizens, he told the City Council panel that signed off on his confirmation Wednesday. Anthony W. Batts, the former police chief in Long Beach and Oakland, Calif., breezed through his appearance before the City Council's executive nominations panel, receiving a 4-0 vote with one member absent. He'll face a final vote before the full council, likely next week.

The Baltimore City Council decided last night it wants a public hearing on the Health Department's policy of giving Norplant, the five-year contraceptive, to teen-agers.Second District Councilman Carl Stokes sponsored the nonbinding resolution that asks the Health Department for more information about Norplant. The contraceptive's safety, Mr. Stokes said, has not been proven in young black women -- though the contraceptive, which contains fewer hormones than birth control pills, has been used safely in other countries for 20 years.

On most Monday nights for 27 years, Melvin S. Laszczynski, the Baltimore City Council's sergeant-at-arms, unfastened the council chamber's red velvet rope to admit members to their seats.After fastening his rope and counting heads, Mr. Laszczynski would bellow to the council president: "We have a quorum, Mr. President." Then the council meeting would begin.Mr. Laszczynski, a retired fuel tanker driver who joined the council as a part-time clerk in 1971, died Saturday of a massive heart attack at his Highlandtown residence.

Baltimore City Council members confused caring about unemployment with abating it by giving preliminary approval to a local hire law last week. The legislation, which requires a final vote and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's signature to become law, requires businesses that are awarded city contracts over $300,000 or receive $5 million or more in city financing to hire 51 percent of new workers from within Baltimore. In promoting it, City Council members sound like they are competing for the "most compassionate" prize.

Hoping to defend the proposed 24 percent raise for all elected officials, the Baltimore City Council yesterday came bearing extensive figures, charts, national comparisons and just a touch of indignation that all the documentation was even necessary. Apparently it wasn't.A public hearing yesterday morning to let the public weigh in on a proposed 24 percent raise -- a bill thought to be so inflammatory that it was scheduled for two days after the election -- was met with nonchalance from Baltimoreans.

"We are going to change," Rep. Kweisi Mfume declared yesterday after being chosen to head the NAACP.He could have been talking about himself. Kweisi Mfume, 47, began his political career as a dashiki-clad political activist on the Baltimore City Council. But when he arrived on Capitol Hill, he quickly transformed himself into a polished consensus builder.Battling Mayor William Donald Schaefer and Council President Clarence H. "Du" Burns, he first ran in 1979 on a campaign to "beat the bosses," advocating for the poor and the powerless.

The killers of former Baltimore Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. have shattered the hope that Baltimore is safer because there are fewer homicides. The trio of robbers who hid behind scary masks and guns has shown again that anyone can be a target of violence, including a man who worked hard to make this city a better place for men and women of all walks of life. Raised by a single mother, Mr. Harris worked four jobs to get himself through Morgan State University. He began his community work in his neighborhood and he understood the importance of respect, whereas the thugs who killed him had no respect for human life; they were only too willing to end one in the brief moment it takes to fire a gun. Confronted as he left a popular jazz club in Northeast Baltimore, Mr. Harris ran to his car. His assailants murdered a husband and father of two who had spent the past decade working to change things that he thought were wrong or unjust or unfair.

Baltimore City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young took a stand Sunday against O'Malley administration plans to build a new juvenile jail in East Baltimore. Writing an opinion piece for The Baltimore Sun , Young said there is "plenty of evidence to refute the need to spend millions to build a jail for juveniles. " "Recently, Governor [Martin] O'Malley decided to double-down on the misguided plan to spend more than $70 million building a youth detention facility in Baltimore that studies show is not needed and could ultimately end up being a colossal waste of taxpayer funds," Young wrote.

Two Baltimore City Council candidates were poised to overcome write-in challenges Tuesday, converting their Democratic nominations into general election victories. Councilman Warren Branch of the 13th District was leading write-in challenger Shannon Sneed, widening a margin of victory from the September primary. Meanwhile, political newcomer Nick Mosby appeared to have turned back a write-in challenge from incumbent Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, whom he defeated in the 7th District's Democratic primary.

In its last meeting before the September primary election, the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling on state legislators to give the council input in the selection of school board members. Councilman Bill Henry, the resolution's lead sponsor, said Monday that the council has a say in executive appointments to most city commissions and boards, and it should be involved in the selection of school board members. City school board members are appointed jointly by the governor and mayor of Baltimore.

The Baltimore City Council voted Monday to approve a $1.3 billion operating budget for next year, in spite of last-minute protests by residents and a city councilman who wanted to restore funding to a summer youth employment program. Council members voted 14-1 to approve the budget proposed by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for the fiscal year that begins July 1, with only Councilman Carl Stokes voting against it. Stokes, who says he will be running for mayor but has yet to file, made a last-ditch effort before the vote to add more summer jobs for youth by cutting the Baltimore Police Department budget by $7 million.

The Baltimore City Council, spurred by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, deserves praise for its resolution endorsing the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action, to be held in Washington, D.C., on July 30. This march, and the national attention it brings to the plight of our public schools, is long overdue — especially as it falls on the heels of the mass hysteria around blaming teachers for the questionable lack of student performance on...

The chairman of a City Council committee told Baltimore's housing authority Tuesday to take immediate steps toward paying a former public housing resident who suffered lead poisoning — just one in a looming tidal wave of legal claims that the authority warns could eventually total hundreds of millions of dollars. "You're just lying to them," Councilman James B. Kraft said to housing authority chief Paul T. Graziano after hearing how the authority has refused to pay a $200,000 settlement it reached with Daron Goods.

The president of the Baltimore City Council is demanding that the city tap its rainy-day fund to keep public pools open for two more weeks. Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young has scheduled a news conference Wednesday at Southeast Baltimore's City Springs pool to call on Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to dig into the fund to reopen the pools, which closed for the season Sunday due to budget constraints. "This is one of the hottest summers that we've had," said Young.

With barely a moment to spare, the Baltimore City Council is moving forward this week to enact tax proposals designed to avert the worst consequences of the current budget crisis. Measures already given preliminary approval would generate more than $20 million — enough to prevent layoffs and other damaging cuts to the police and fire departments. Others due for votes starting on Thursday should bring the projected total new revenues up to near the $50 million figure Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake sought to restore funding to parks and recreation, health programs, sanitation and other key municipal functions.