City Of Baltimore

You really couldn't ask for a better kickoff weekend to the Dew Tour than this one. Baltimore played host to the Panasonic Open, the second straight year the tour's first stop came here, and fans flocked to the Camden Yards Sports Complex on a sunny weekend. And it looks as if they will have a chance to flock there again next year. The Maryland Stadium Authority signed two one-year contracts with the Dew Tour for 2008 and 2009. Having the Dew Tour return next year is contingent on the Orioles' schedule, but it appears the Panasonic Open is here to stay.

"They all seem to be random acts of violence," a city police spokeswoman said about the nine shootings in 4 1/2 hours last Friday and Saturday ("9 shot in city in 4 1/2 hours," June 15). This must not be the response of the police or of the community. We must not dismiss it as bad luck when bad things happen or good things happen. Everything has a cause. The harm done last weekend to the victims and to the communities may in part have been caused by the weather or, as the mayor suggested, by the moon.

Does Baltimore need to be "remade," as some have recently suggested? The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health is on board, insisting that the basic social organization in the city is out of date, that human capital has been stripped away, and that we need to reinvent something (again). As a concerned city resident and taxpayer, I disagree. I see a world-class city that has been infected by a drug culture that has been allowed to not just survive but thrive here, causing an expensive public health problem.

The Color Purple, which affirmed that black-themed plays can draw huge black audiences to Broadway, will open at the Hippodrome Theatre next week with help from a city-backed campaign to attract a larger and more diverse crowd to Baltimore's stages. The push comes as large theater companies across the country are reaching out to black audiences as never before. Mainstream productions are taking on black themes more often, crossing racial lines in casting, and enlisting public officials and local church leaders to help to get the word out. Yesterday, Mayor Sheila Dixon and a group of clergy members held a news conference at City Hall to announce their "endorsement" of the production and unveil an unconventional marketing campaign for the musical, which begins a three-week run Tuesday at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center.

The city of Baltimore can't put a price tag on the repair and replacement needs of its public buildings because no one knows the extent of the costs. Mayor Sheila Dixon is trying to get a handle on the problem. It's not a flashy part of her job, but it's an essential one that got little attention in the past. As part of her plan, Ms. Dixon expects to increase the amount of money the city borrows to finance these projects, but officials should make sure that any increase doesn't impair the city's hard-won credit rating.

When the Senator Theatre holds a Wire screening Saturday, the night before the acclaimed HBO series begins its fifth and final season, someone a little surprising will be in the audience: the mayor of Baltimore. City leaders have never been big fans of the show, complaining that the gritty urban drama scares off tourists. In 2002, the City Council even considered a resolution calling for an ad campaign to counter the negative publicity. The council scrapped the measure after creator David Simon threatened to move production to another city.

When Ayodeji "Deji" Dawodu's car broke down a few years ago forcing the Washington resident to take the metro to work, he came across something that would make him pack up and move. What he saw on the metro was an advertisement by Live Baltimore Home Center enticing Washington residents to relocate to Charm City. "I never really contemplated Baltimore before," Dawodu said. "But going through their Web site and seeing the incentives the city offers was really good help." Dawodu now owns two Baltimore homes, both found using Live Baltimore's services.

Baltimore's property values are growing faster than anywhere else in Maryland, while the rate of increase in wealthy Montgomery County trails the state, according to 728,185 reassessment notices to be mailed today by state officials. The topsy-turvy results showed the smallest percentage increases in the state's most prosperous places -- such as Montgomery and Howard counties -- while areas that often lag economically saw much greater gains, despite a sluggish real estate market. "Anyone who's been paying attention to the city of Baltimore has watched it become a much more desirable place to live," said Sterling Clifford, a spokesman for Mayor Sheila Dixon, referring to recent news of a slight increase in the city's population after decades of population declines.

Minority-pact law will set compensation targets in city Baltimore will set specific targets for how much money black- and Hispanic-owned subcontractors should receive from companies that bid on city work under legislation signed yesterday by Mayor Sheila Dixon. At a City Hall bill signing, Dixon praised the law - which will reauthorize and revise the city's minority-owned business program - as an important measure to ensure that minority- and women-owned businesses receive a slice of the wealth generated by city spending.

Five years after Baltimore began a major effort to take control of thousands of abandoned properties, city officials are expected to announce a new program that would make it easier to sell them for redevelopment. The land bank concept, which will be unveiled today by Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration, would eliminate red tape faced when a city-owned property is put up for sale - such as the requirement for an appraisal - to speed a process that some say can hamper redevelopment. In a city where thousands of vacant homes and lots have come to define certain neighborhoods - leading to further decay and crime and falling property values - the effort could help the city bring pockets of blight back to life.