Board Of Estimates

The Baltimore Board of Estimates took a decisive step yesterday to begin redevelopment of the stalled superblock project on the city's west side, agreeing to sell 37 properties to Lexington Square Partners LLC, a New York developer. The move brings the city closer to a legal fight with the charitable organization that owns more than half the buildings. The five-member Board of Estimates, the city's spending panel, unanimously approved a $21.6 million sale of buildings that occupy 3.6 acres on West Fayette, Howard, Lexington and Liberty streets and Park Avenue.

In one of his first official acts as Baltimore's mayor, Martin O'Malley will push today for approval of a more than $5 million redevelopment project that would transform a vacant mall near the Inner Harbor into an entertainment complex.O'Malley said he will urge the city Board of Estimates to approve a 75-year low-rent lease to allow the Cordish Co. to put restaurants and nightclubs in the city-owned Brokerage at 34 Market Place.Advocates say the project would spread the Inner Harbor's success north, bringing thousands of visitors to outdoor cafes in what is now a little-used plaza in front of the Port Discovery children's museum.

A former assistant city comptroller who is suing Baltimore for up to $10 million in a claim of racial discrimination has been hired as a part-time adviser to Mayor Martin O'Malley.Erwin A. Burtnick, who served for 20 years as a chief assistant to former City Comptroller Hyman A. Pressman, will be paid $26,000 by the city during the next year to counsel the new mayor on spending issues.Burtnick has a lawsuit awaiting trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. After being elected in 1991, former City Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean dismissed Burtnick, who alleged that he lost his job because he is white and Jewish.

In an effort to reduce the number of places where drug dealers conduct business in Baltimore, the city's Board of Estimates voted yesterday to take down 71 more pay telephones.None of the outdoor phones has the proper permits, and city officials will charge $162 per telephone to remove them -- if their owners don't take them down first -- city public works officials said.Yesterday's action occurs five months after the city began cracking down on the more than 600 illegal pay phones in the city.

AFTER the mayor, the City Council president and the comptroller are Baltimore's most powerful elected officials. They are among voting members of the day-to-day management committee known as the Board of Estimates. And they are potential contenders for the mayor's job.Democratic Councilwoman SHEILA DIXON is The Sun's choice for the next City Council president. In her three terms representing West Baltimore's Fourth District, she has shown steady growth.In Baltimore's strong-mayor form of municipal government, the City Council president chairs the Board of Estimates as well as the meetings of 18 council representatives.

City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III returned to the council yesterday, saying that he canceled last week's session and missed the Board of Estimates meeting because he was out of town.Bell indicated that he was in Atlanta meeting with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but he would not elaborate."Contrary to published reports, I was out of town," Bell said at the beginning of the council meeting.E. Randel T. Osburn, executive vice president of the SCLC, said Bell did meet with them last week but declined to talk about the nature of the meeting.

A week after approving $250,000 in legal fees to defend Baltimore public works officials, Board of Estimates members are questioning a Law Department proposal to spend $500,000 for another case.The issue has been placed on the board's "nonroutine" agenda for debate today. The city has spent $300,000 in the civil suit against the city by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment, which filed a complaint over excessive dumping at the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant and Ashburton Water Filtration Plant.

Baltimore has filed suit against a Towson auctioneer it contends owes the city $744,636 in proceeds from the sale of surplus cars.City Solicitor Otho M. Thompson told the city Board of Estimates yesterday that the city has also asked State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy to review the debt owed by Auction Alliances Services Inc. for possible criminal violations.An audit by city Comptroller Joan M. Pratt's office revealed last month that the city had failed to collect $954,636 owed from surplus automobiles sold on behalf of the city.

With hopes of improving the way Baltimore police track crime statistics and case information, the city Board of Estimates approved a $1.5 million contract yesterday for a new computerized records system.As the board discussed the system, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke seized the opportunity to say that the city will have a more accurate way of tracking shooting statistics, which have prompted heated debate recently because of how the Police Department has tracked shootings."It sounds like it's headed toward solutions to a lot of problems we've been talking about," Schmoke said during the meeting.

Arriving 30 minutes early for his first day on the job, Mayor Martin O'Malley wrestled with everything from learning to work the office videocassette recorder to trying to stem a weeklong string of city murders.O'Malley walked through the City Hall front door at 8 a.m. with his daughters, Grace, 8, and Tara, 7, in tow. The girls were off from school yesterday for a Catholic holy day.As he prepared for his 8: 30 a.m. meeting before the Board of Estimates, O'Malley fidgeted with the VCR, trying to entertain the children before getting down to business.

The plans for Baltimore's slots parlor began taking shape publicly Wednesday as the Board of Estimates modified the original deal and permitted the facility to rise on valuable city-owned property that previously was considered off-limits because it had been promised to another developer. The Baltimore City Entertainment Group, the sole entity to bid for a gambling license in the city, now envisions a larger slots palace with access to 11 acres of additional property. It promises to transform a gritty section of the city into a destination, but has raised the eyebrows of developers who opted not to bid for a city slots license and were surprised that the terms of the deal could shift so significantly.

The financial woes of one of Baltimore's best-known development companies are rippling through government, with Baltimore lawmakers allowing the developers to walk away from $700,000 in loans on Wednesday and state officials growing concerned that the company will be unable to fulfill its commitments for a planned $1.6 billion office complex in midtown Baltimore. Struever Eccles and Rouse is known for its historic rehabilitation of city industrial buildings, including Tindeco Wharf and Clipper Mill.

City liquor board commissioners will receive a $10,000 pay increase in May, raises that board commissioners say put them in line with similar state agencies. On Wednesday, the city Board of Estimates approved an increase from $18,000 to $28,000 for two liquor board commissioners. The chairman of the three-member board will make $500 more. Noting that this is the board's first raise since 1990, Commissioner Elizabeth C. Smith also said the raises for liquor board commissioners were committed to last year by the state legislature.

The Baltimore Board of Estimates approved 5 percent pay raises for two of the mayor's security aides yesterday, including retired city police Officer Howard D. Dixon, who testified before a grand jury during an investigation into City Hall corruption. Dixon will be paid $27.53 an hour and make an estimated $60,566 a year. Bobby Potts, another retired city police officer, will make the same amount. Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, who is not related to Howard Dixon, abstained from voting on the raise, but defended it later at a news conference.

Baltimore's Board of Estimates approved a $100,000 increase yesterday to a city contract for agencies to purchase T-shirts and athletic clothing through May. The additional funds will bring the total authorized amount to $348,206. At yesterday's pre-meeting for the Board of Estimates, Councilman Robert W. Curran said the amount seemed high and asked for more information. "I'm just questioning this kind of expense during this time of austerity," he said later. The city contract is with Columbia-based Nightmare Graphics Inc. and started in February 2007.

Sheila Dixon, the mayor of Baltimore, attended the weekly meeting of the Board of Estimates, and the Board of Estimates rolled quickly through routine agenda items that included developers' agreements, reimbursement contracts, consultant agreements, grant agreements, disbursement of funds, transfer of funds, out-of-town travel expenses, contract renewals, contract extensions, pre-qualification of contractors, architects and engineers. It's the eye-glazing, complex and essential business of a municipal government with a budget of $2.94 billion.

A Baltimore historian who was killed Sunday when an Upton rowhouse collapsed was renovating the site into a neighborhood cultural center and had the city's permission to do so, officials confirmed yesterday. Alvin Brunson, 49, won approval to take ownership of the home at 562 Wilson St. last year and turn it into an extension of the nonprofit Center for Cultural Education, which he directed, according to Board of Estimates records. Brunson, named "Best Community Historian" by the Baltimore City Paper in 2005, had spent years working on the site as an attraction for young people and tourists to learn the history of the neighborhood, friends said.

Baltimore's long-stalled superblock project has cleared two of the last remaining hurdles, a move that city officials say should allow redevelopment of a blighted swath of downtown's west side to begin next year. The Board of Estimates approved deals for several properties considered crucial to the project after years of opposition from their owners. One of the owners also agreed to drop a lawsuit challenging the validity of the city's choice of developer Lexington Square Partners at a closed meeting three years ago. That suit, which was due for retrial in Baltimore Circuit Court, could have resulted in lengthy delays.

Taking his most direct shot at Mayor Sheila Dixon, City Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. will propose a detailed set of reforms today that would drastically change the way the city awards contracts, including eliminating two mayoral appointees from the city's Board of Estimates. The changes also focus on companies that contribute to city campaigns and attempt to bring transparency to the often-murky links between political contributions and contracts. Mitchell said he will introduce legislation next month that would reduce the powerful five-member board that approves city contracts and spending to three members.

The Board of Estimates approved yesterday a 5.9 percent pay raise for Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm, increasing his salary to $162,000 a year. Hamm was named acting police commissioner in November 2004, after Mayor Martin O'Malley fired Kevin P. Clark. Hamm's salary was set at $153,000 a year and had remained unchanged until now. "Mayor Dixon has faith and confidence in Commissioner Hamm," said Anthony McCarthy, a spokesman for the mayor. "She demands a lot from him; he's responsive to her."