Bottle Tax

Sometimes less is more, more or less. Sometimes, less is all you have and all you have will do just fine. Sometimes, the small things, the short things, the bits and pieces are worth keeping because they might be one day useful; my father felt that way about stove bolts. Walter Hard, a Vermont folk poet of Robert Frost's generation, once told of the frugal Yankee woman - was there any other kind? - who left a bag in her attic labeled, "Pieces of string too short to use. " So, alrighty then, that's my preamble and I'm going with it. Here, forthwith, are pieces of column too short to use ... • Suggestion for the Baltimore merchants who oppose Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposal to increase the city's bottle tax to five cents to pay for school renovations: Turn what you see as a problem into an opportunity.

Don't drive too far to save that 24 cents on a six pack of sugary sodas. At $2.75 per gallon, a 20 mpg car will burn 13 cents to drive 1 mile. A 25 mpg car will burn 11 cents per mile and that doesn't include wear and tear. The federal government's standard mileage rate is 50 cents per mile. Howard Calk, Baltimore

As an owner of a retail food establishment, I am stunned at the mismanagement and lack of financial controls in the Baltimore City school system. If I ran my business that way I would be out of business. If the city kept an eye on its finances, there would not have been a need for the container tax that has hit small businesses and city residents with a 150 percent tax increase on beverages sold in containers. Now the city is looking at the state for even more money, yet it is the one that has mismanaged its books.

Baltimore City has a serious problem with run-down, antiquated school facilities. They represent a major impediment to progress in improving the education of Baltimore children and a drag on the city's efforts to shake off decades of decline. MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake's plan to fund a new school construction and renovation program through an extension and increase in the city's bottle tax may not be the perfect solution, but it is a good start. The beverage industry has mounted a campaign of opposition to the proposal that borders on the hysterical.

I will bet a bialy breakfast at Goldberg's that Baltimore's battle over the bottle tax — 4 cents per bottle of beverage (excluding milk and juice) sold in the city to raise $11 million for city services — pretty much ended with that City Council hearing featuring senior citizens on canes and in wheelchairs. Eight members of the council might have held hands with the beverage industry for a while, but when senior citizens rally for their recreation programs and predict dire consequences from budget cuts — "They'll just be sitting in their apartments waiting to die," one of them said — the anti-tax lobbyists can pretty much kiss their support goodbye.

Patterson High School became the latest political battleground in the effort to rebuild Baltimore's decrepit school infrastructure this week, with students throwing their support behind a proposed bottle tax that could help raise about $300 million for facility upgrades. The Baltimore Education Coalition led City Council Vice President Edward Reisinger and education advocates from around the city on a tour of Patterson on Thursday, where broken boilers and sweltering, cramped and ill-equipped classrooms offered a glimpse into the district's $2.8 billion list of repairs.

City grocers are asking officials to repeal a 2-cent tax on bottled beverages, saying that sales have dropped since the tariff was imposed four months ago. Rob Santoni, who lobbied against the bottle tax when it was considered by the City Council, said year-over-year sales at his East Baltimore store have fallen 3 percent since the tax was first collected in late July, and 600 fewer customers are entering each week. "They've taken away that competitive edge," Santoni said Thursday at a news conference in the beverage aisle of the store that bears his name.

Teachers, students, retailers and beverage industry lobbyists are preparing for a showdown Wednesday as the battle over raising Baltimore's bottle tax to fund school repairs moves to a skeptical City Council committee. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wants to increase the tax from 2 cents to 5 cents and use the proceeds to float bonds. The mayor, who saw her school construction initiatives wither in the General Assembly, is pushing the council to quickly pass the tax, although it would not go into effect for more than a year.

Three members of a key City Council committee say they oppose Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposal to more than double the city's bottle tax — enough to kill the bill. That has angered supporters of the bill, who accuse Councilman Carl Stokes, the chairman of the council's Taxation, Finance and Economic Development Committee, of holding back public education. The tax increase is part of the mayor's plan to fix dilapidated schools. Stokes is one of the three council members on the five-member committee who oppose it. "Councilman Stokes is standing as a roadblock toward improving the quality of our schools for our children," said Bishop Douglas Miles, chairman of the interfaith group Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake launched her campaign to repair Baltimore's long-neglected schools Monday, introducing a bill to more than double the city's bottle tax as part of a plan to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to fix dilapidated buildings. "This is something that we can use to help change the landscape when it comes to the physical needs for our schools," the mayor said of the tax. "Our kids deserve better, and sometimes it takes tough decisions to make sure that we provide a way forward for a better school system.