Cisneros

WASHINGTON -- There comes a time when a city has to play hardball to protect its political interests. No more hand-holding. No more sweet-talking. No more kidding around.There comes a time when a city has only one choice: Bring out the go-go boots and the marching band.That's exactly what Baltimore did yesterday. Baton twirlers and high-steppers jumped and gyrated in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in a high-decibel effort to win a $100 million federal grant for an empowerment-zone project.

WASHINGTON -- Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said yesterday he will apply for funding under a new federal program to construct middle- and low-income housing to replace hundreds of abandoned homes slated for demolition.Schmoke's comments followed a news conference at which Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry G. Cisneros announced a $100 million "Homeownership Zone" program to encourage the middle class to move back to cities.Up to $10 million will be awarded to as many as 12 cities after a competitive review, Cisneros said.

U.S. Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros yesterday announced awards totaling $4 million to aid nine historically black colleges in reviving their surrounding neighborhoods, including a $500,000 grant to Baltimore's Coppin State College."

President-elect Clinton's appointment of Henry G. Cisneros as secretary of Housing and Urban Development and of Federico F. Pena as secretary of Transportation attracted most attention because of their Hispanic roots. In time we suspect another thing they have in common will prove more significant: They are both former mayors.It is rare for two former chief executives of cities to serve in a president's cabinet. It occurred at the end of the Carter administration. But not even one has graced the table in the past two administrations.

When Daniel P. Henson III, a successful private developer, was brought in to rescue Baltimore's troubled housing bureaucracy in March, 1993, one of the first things he did was to declare an emergency. That way he could award repair contracts without time-consuming competitive bidding and get vacant and vandalized public housing units occupied in a fast-track fashion.Mr. Henson was the first to acknowledge that his action enabled him to circumvent cumbersome federal rules and would earn him subsequent criticism from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration is drafting an executive order to allow surplus military bases and other excess federal property to be used as shelters for homeless people.Henry Cisneros, the new secretary of housing and urban development, says he is studying selected buildings on decommissioned bases near urban areas, including old barracks and officers' quarters, as part of the administration's plan to convert defense facilities to civilian use.Appearing on NBC's "Today" show yesterday, Mr. Cisneros said "not all military bases . . . make sense.

ABC, NBC and CBS all make some version of the on-air claim, "More Americans get their news from (fill in the blank) than anywhere else." Fox and ESPN also make the same kind of claim on sports coverage.But when it comes to the news that will be made at Camden Yards tomorrow night when the Orioles play a Cuban all-star team, the network with the most legitimate right to make the claim is one you might not recognize: Univision, the nation's leading Spanish-language network.Now under the leadership of Henry Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Univision reaches 92 percent of Hispanic households in the United States -- a market of 30 million and growing at five times the rate of the non-Hispanic population.

If United Way is 10 percent below last year, so is Central Maryland.Secretary Cisneros thinks Lexington Terrace is a swell place to visit but wouldn't want to live there.Investors have regained confidence. How come no one else has?Her colleagues forbid everyone from calling Marge Schott a Red for nine months.Bill will shrink the armed forces, make them take unwanted recruits, drop gravy from their budgets and load them with dangerous missions. In return, he expects them to salute. He better not expect them to smile.

WASHINGTON -- Henry G. Cisneros, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, yesterday laid out plans that would dramatically alter the face of public housing by giving poor people vouchers that would allow them to live anywhere they choose.The restructuring of HUD is intended to help President Clinton pay for his proposed middle-class tax break, but it's also part of a larger effort at "reinventing government" begun 20 months ago by Vice President Al Gore. The effort took on urgency after the Nov. 8 elections, when President Clinton told Cabinet officers to examine their agencies as part of a budget- and tax-cutting initiative.

Atlanta -- Empowerment zones, crime and gun control, homeless initiatives, tax credits for the working poor -- are they adding up to something? Does the Clinton administration have a set of pro-city policies which, by any other name, would be known as a national urban policy?Henry Cisneros, the Housing and Urban Development secretary, claims it's so. The comprehensive set of urban initiatives that city leaders have long sought is finally taking shape, he argues.On the law-and-order front, Mr. Cisneros himself took part in a drug raid recently in a Boston public housing project.