City Of Baltimore

Elated city leaders were fast to spread the news: For the first time in decades, Baltimore's population has increased, reversing a half-century of decline, according to revised estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Mayor Sheila Dixon announced the revised estimate yesterday, calling the nearly 900-person gain between 2005 and 2006 a "reversal of fortune." The new figures come after Baltimore officials challenged the city's 2006 estimate, released in June. The adjusted figure puts Baltimore's population as of July 1, 2006, at 640,961, up 897 from the 2005 Charm City count of 640,064.

Well, we're not getting Bloomberg. Fuhgedaboutit. He's mayor of New York and, while he's donated a ton of money to the Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater, he's not about to pull up stakes, establish residency in Baltimore and run for mayor here. He's far more likely to run for the White House. So we're not getting Bloomberg. (And the Orioles probably won't be getting A-Rod if he opts out of his Yankees contract, either.) Day after tomorrow, there's an election in the City of Baltimore, where Democrats rule and the winner of the party's ho-hum 2007 primary will be the next mayor.

On Friday, August 24, 2007, CHARLES E. GORDON SR.; beloved husband of Mozell Gordon; father of Charles E. Gordon, Jr. (Jack), Gilda Brown and late sons, Wesley and Anthony. After finishing public school in Baltimore City, he joined the U.S. Army and Air Force. He retired in 1994 from the City of Baltimore Abandoned Vehicle Section. Services will be held on Wednesday, August 29, 2007. Wake, 10 A.M. followed by Funeral at 10:30 at The Estep Brothers Funeral Home, 1300 Eutaw Pl., Balto., MD.

Few things are as tiresome as listening to a couple of middle-aged suburbanites, neither of whom live within 30 miles of Baltimore, trash the city, smugly ridicule efforts to improve the social conditions at the heart of its most challenging problems and dismiss the idea that some people might actually want to live here. I heard such prattle the other day, after Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, a young politician not yet infected with cynicism, staged a series of news media events to promote Baltimore as a place to live for some of the thousands of families expected to move to Maryland in the next five years as part of military base realignment.

City Charter changes won't curb council John Fritze's article on the amendments to the City Charter proposed by the Department of Finance turned into an article full of political spin and editorializing ("Mayor seeks spending changes," June 20). I think reporting on such legislation should deal with the substance of the legislation rather than seek to connect it with "criticisms of the spending practices" of the mayor when she was City Council president. This proposed legislation is in no way connected to that issue.

The American Basketball Association announced yesterday that it would return to the city of Baltimore in the fall under the leadership of businesswoman Kia Feaster. "We've always felt that Baltimore could be, should be, a premier city for the ABA with the right ownership," ABA chief executive officer Joe Newman said in a news release. "Kia attended the ABA league meeting in April, and we have no doubt about her ability and commitment." Baltimore native Kirk Mitchell will be director of operations and head coach.

What is the beef with police overtime in Baltimore, one of the most violent cities in the nation? There were three more fatal shootings Friday morning. Homicides are ahead of last year's pace by 10, and there were 263 nonfatal shooting victims through May 19. That's 73 more than last year at this time. And certain members of the Baltimore City Council, who get a sweet pay raise just in time for Christmas, have concerns about police compensation? Get a clue, people. The mayor of this blood-splattered city, who also gets a nice raise this year, says, "The violence is unacceptable, and it has to stop," then announces that she will start allowing police overtime again, but just a teeny-weeny bit so that - what?

One of the nation's leading bond-rating agencies upgraded the city of Baltimore's rating yesterday - a relatively rare occurrence that analysts said was based on the city's continued economic growth over the past several years. Standard & Poor's, which visited Baltimore this month, moved the city up one position - from an A-plus bond rating to an AA-minus. The action will make it less costly for the city to borrow money and could save taxpayers millions in interest payments. In upgrading the rating, the agency noted the city's increased reserves - which have grown in past years in part because a real-estate boom produced higher-than-expected revenues - as well as a more financially stable school system and new residential and commercial development.

As real estate brokers report the first trickle of what promises to be a torrent of military employees and contractors pouring into Maryland, the state is assembling a package of incentives to encourage first-time homebuyers and renters to move to Baltimore, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown said yesterday. State leaders want to make the city, with its affordable housing stock and varied transit options, a bedroom community for an estimated 60,000 defense workers and contractors who are predicted to move to Maryland from across the nation to work mainly in and around Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground.

People started to get out of Maryland in a big way last year. Yes, the Census Bureau estimate for 2006 shows the state gained in population - but that's because births far outnumbered deaths, and more than 21,000 immigrants arrived here from abroad. There's another category, though, and it tells a different story: 25,000 more people moved out of Maryland than into Maryland from elsewhere in the United States. The biggest losers? Montgomery and Prince George's counties. The likely culprits?