Baltimore Residents

Before sunrise Monday, Kevin and Shelley Taylor set out from their Millersville home to a new employment center for the Maryland Live! Casino, a slots parlor next to the Arundel Mills mall seeking workers for 1,500 jobs. Having tracked the progress of what will be the state's largest casino, the Taylors believe the facility could provide opportunity for their five-member family. Though Kevin Taylor has a job, he wants a better-paying one. And Shelley Taylor has been out of work for several months.

PETA wants to take a Baltimore City councilman up on his budget-balancing idea to put ads on fire trucks. And the ad the group has in mind could start some fires all by itself. The group, known for its attention-getting tactics, sent a letter to City Councilman William "Pete" Welch on Friday, saying that they love his money-making scheme of selling ads on city fire trucks.  "In light of the recent bill you proposed that would allow advertisements to be placed on the city's fire engines to ease financial trouble, we would like to be the first to offer you a revenue-raising ad that will get hearts racing while preventing heart attacks," PETA wrote.

I REMEMBER, when I was a child, looking one night across the meadow next to our home and noticing an orange glow that started at the horizon and diffused upwards into space. ''That's the city,'' my father said.I remember being not quite sure whether to believe him, partly because of his penchant for teasing, partly because it just seemed so impossible that you could actually see Baltimore -- or a reflection of it -- from our house in northeastern Carroll County. So far away. That was how the city seemed, literally and figuratively.

In the alleys behind row homes in the Baltimore County neighborhood of Colgate, leaders of the local improvement association can see the telltale signs of the creatures they say have invaded their community. Trash cans with no lids - the rats always find those. Garbage piled behind chain-link fences - feasts for the rodents. They've even made a home in what some call "Rat Mountain," a big mound of burrows in one front yard. "Pretty much every household has been affected by it," said Dave Hyland, president of the Colgate Improvement Association.

About one in four Baltimore residents is living in poverty, a one-year increase of more than 20 percent, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Although the recession officially ended in June 2009, a federal survey conducted last year shows that the downturn's enduring effects have led poverty rates to skyrocket over a short period. The uptick is straining government and charitable resources and leaving Baltimore leaders scrambling for solutions. "People who were managing have now dropped into poverty," said Susan J. Roll, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

You might not think a reality TV series titled "Hillbilly Handfishin'" would have much to do with Baltimore and East Coast urban living. But that's not the case. The series that premieres Sunday  at 10 p.m. on Animal Planet will feature at least three couples from the area during its 12-episode run, according to John Jones, post-production supervising producer on the series and resident of Federal Hill. Here's how Animal Planet describes the series (and you can see a video below)

I enjoyed your article about the gifts given to Baltimore's elected officials by people the city does business with ("Tickets and city ethics law," Feb. 12). Here's my question: How is it not raising major red flags that the city's second most powerful elected official conducts himself in this manner? City Council PresidentBernard C. "Jack" Youngobviously knows what the rules are. He's been in the game long enough. Yet "oral approval" and "cash" (with no receipt) are obvious causes for concern in terms of the excuses and explanations he has provided.

Four Baltimore residents were arrested after Westminster police said they were seen searching vehicles on the Gill parking lot at Western Maryland College about 2 p.m. Wednesday.Two 15-year-olds, who had a pair of pliers and a screwdriver, lTC were charged with one count each of theft and being a rogue and vagabond by city police. The charges likely will be shifted to juvenile court. One was released to his parents and the other was held at the Charles H. Hickey school in Baltimore County.

Community leaders urged East Baltimore residents to ask their elected officials to preserve funding for family services programs yesterday. Meeting at Casey Family Services on North Caroline Street, they said they worried that funding to the programs will be cut to help reduce the state's projected $1.8 billion budget deficit. "We recognize the importance and difficulty of this task. But don't balance the budget on the backs of our children," Traci McLemore, director of the East Baltimore Collaborative, told the crowd of nearly three dozen adults, many with small children.

ANNAPOLIS -- Fed up with the stench and pollution from landfills, hazardous waste dumps, power plants, trucks, heavy industries and incinerators that burn medical waste, South Baltimore resident Vivian Vann said yesterday she wants to move into Anne Arundel County -- but without moving out of herhome.Ms. Vann and several dozen of her neighbors in the Brooklyn and Curtis Bay areas of South Baltimore begged a Senate committee yesterday for the right to secede from a city they believe has used their area as a dump.

The Baltimore CASH Campaign is hosting its 7 th annual Money Power Day Saturday, March 10. Consumers will be able to get a free credit report, one-on-one credit counseling and help with connecting to public benefits. Also, taxpayers will be able to get free tax preparation, provided household income is less than $50,000. Troubled homeowners will receive advice on avoiding foreclosure, and prospective buyers will get free housing counseling. Plus, there will be more than 45 nonprofits, government agencies and businesses that will provide financial advice.

Residents of Baltimore City and some suburban counties should know they could well see their sewer rates increase significantly in order to pay for the upgrade of the giant Back River sewage plant if the state legislature doesn't approve the proposed increase to the so-called "flush tax. " The flush tax was created to pay for improvements at the state's 67 largest sewage plants. But the fee hasn't brought in enough revenue to finish that job, and Back River upgrades will be in a financial jam without a fee increase.

I enjoyed your article about the gifts given to Baltimore's elected officials by people the city does business with ("Tickets and city ethics law," Feb. 12). Here's my question: How is it not raising major red flags that the city's second most powerful elected official conducts himself in this manner? City Council PresidentBernard C. "Jack" Youngobviously knows what the rules are. He's been in the game long enough. Yet "oral approval" and "cash" (with no receipt) are obvious causes for concern in terms of the excuses and explanations he has provided.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's inauguration speech last year laid out an ambitious goal of growing the city's population by 10,000 families over the next decade. Where are those approximately 22,000 new residents to come from? Clearly, the mayor hopes some suburban residents can be lured back by the attractions of city life. Others could be people from out of state who are moving to Maryland for the first time. But if the experience of other cities is any guide, it seems almost certain that a substantial proportion of potential new Baltimore residents - as much 40 percent - will be immigrants.

Most people, unless headed to a specific address, will simply drive past the two-story row houses that line the curb along Fleet Street in East Baltimore. Few are wider than 15 feet; their only mark of individuality is usually found in the variety of front doors. Many of these houses, dating to 1910, are examples of exterior brick restoration, while others still bask in the Formstone glory of 1940's exterior home improvement. Alex Dyadyura, a computer programmer with Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, purchased one of these houses less than a year ago. Secure in his position after almost three years of service, the time was ripe for moving from his rented house in Patterson Park.

Riley William Davis, whose sunny personality and quick wit sustained him and his family through his four-year battle with leukemia, died Wednesday at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. He was 13. Diagnosed with cancer at 9, Riley's life was turned upside down by treatment — including two bone-marrow transplants and hip surgery — but was not defined by it. The Hunt Valley resident loved to draw, creating his own comic strips and sketching characters such as Spider-Man with such skill that adults thought he'd traced them, said his mother, Mary Healy Davis.

Leaders of Baltimore's municipal unions -- whose future rank and file members will come under a new residency requirement effective July 1 -- are "appalled" and "upset" that Marlyn J. Perritt, director of recreation and parks, was seen last week commuting to her job from Prince George's County.Union officials say that Ms. Perritt's conduct demonstrates the hypocrisy of residency requirements. Some say it demonstrates the need for even-handed enforcement of residency rules, while others contend it shows that such rules are unnecessary and unenforceable.

A group of East Baltimore residents asked a City Council committee yesterday to ensure that officials are making affordable housing a priority as part of the 88-acre redevelopment project taking place near Johns Hopkins Hospital. The council is considering a series of bills that would allow East Baltimore Development Inc., the nonprofit organization created by the city to manage the project, to borrow $85 million to begin the second phase of development -- which will include a school, new housing and the renovation of existing rowhouses.

The three letters to the editor published in the December 27 edition of The Sun dealing with the recent series on the Homestead Property Tax Credit lead me to believe that either I or the writers of these letters are totally out of touch with what is going on in America, not just in Baltimore and Maryland. Bob Price states that tax codes should be "...simple, straightforward methods to generate revenue fairly and transparently. " Amen to that. But then he proceeds with the position that to accomplish this: "Programs that legislators deem to be worthwhile and affordable should be reviewed as part of the budgetary process, and each program's funding should be increased, decreased or suspended depending on the value of the program and the ability of the government in any given year to fund the program.

Here's the biggest reason Baltimore's property tax rate is the highest in the state and twice that of the surrounding counties: We have most of the region's poor people. About one in four Baltimore residents is officially poor, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. From 2006 through 2009, Baltimore's poverty rate was around 20 percent. But the Census Bureau's survey for 2010 put the rate at 25.6 percent. And that being 15 percentage points higher than the poverty rate for Maryland, and poverty being related to a thorny array of other problems, it follows that taxes would be higher in Baltimore.