City Services

MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake's vision of increasing Baltimore City's population by 22,500 people over the next 10 years is the kind of ambitious goal we should enthusiastically embrace. More and new people bring new energy, new ideas, economic vitality and, very practically speaking, increased revenue for the services that keep the city vital. There are many challenges to achieving this goal - after all, like many other former industrial cities, Baltimore has consistently lost population over the past 50 years.

It has been called the mayoral campaign's unspoken issue.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's successor will take office in December saddled with a projected $153 million deficit over the next four years.The problem is simple: City spending will exceed yearly income because of a leveling off of property taxes from families moving out. The solution, as mayoral candidates know, is anything but elementary.The Baltimore Homeowners Coalition, a citizens group that over the past four years has tried to focus attention on the problem, recently published a 32-page booklet pinning the mayoral candidates down on how they would deal with the city's financial woes.

The organizers of last year's Baltimore Grand Prix made their final payment on their overdue city tax bill this week, the state comptroller's office said Thursday. The payment comes as the city prepares for this year's three-day open-wheel racing festival from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, which is being organized by a new group of local investors and racing promoters. Baltimore Racing Development put on the inaugural IndyCar racing festival over Labor Day weekend last year. City officials expressed confidence in the racing group in the lead-up to the race, but soon afterward acknowledged that the group had fallen behind in hundreds of thousands of dollars of payments to the city and state.

The city has issued pink slips to 76 police academy recruits in order to prepare for layoffs that could occur if the city's budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 does not include sufficient additional revenue to keep them on the payroll. But before those two recruit classes would be let go, the city would first eliminate 110 vacant positions from the 3,200-sworn- officer department, Police Commissioner Kevin P. Clark said yesterday. "I'm cautiously confident that the City Council members recognize the importance of public safety," Clark said.

As Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake embarks on a full four-year term after Tuesday's election victory, she faces the challenge of forging a legacy in a city grappling with decades of decline and years of financial shortfalls. Some political analysts and civic leaders said Rawlings-Blake, 41, should set an ambitious agenda focusing on one of the city's persistent problems, such as blight caused by vacant houses, while others said she should focus on fiscal stewardship and management of basic city services.

Baltimore business leaders agreed yesterday to help Mayor Martin O'Malley in his attempt to improve city finances and services by conducting in-depth management studies of key city agencies.The city's leading business group, Greater Baltimore Committee, will join with the President's Roundtable, an organization of minority business executives, to evaluate city agencies for up to four months. Departments to be scrutinized include public works, housing, health, recreation and parks and fire.

BY SHEER volume, Baltimore's 311 number for city services is a smashing success. Just last month, it handled some 64,000 calls about city services and 42,000 nuisance complaints, freeing the 911 police and fire number to concentrate on 110,000 true emergencies. Cities around the country are copying the setup, the latest being New York. But after eight months of full-time operation, Baltimore must do more to ensure that the city's service delivery matches the promise of 311. Irene Smith, a lawyer at the Community Law Center, told a recent City Council hearing that it took eight months of persistent 311 calls for her to get a derelict minivan removed from Reservoir Hill.

TWO YEARS ago, 23 tax-exempt Baltimore nonprofits, led by the Johns Hopkins University, pledged to help the cash-strapped city by voluntarily paying $20 million over four years in lieu of taxes. It was to be a one-shot deal, but already whispers are being heard at City Hall about extending it. And why not? Why shouldn't huge nonprofit corporations pay their share of city services, even if their real estate is tax-exempt? Baltimore is not the only city confronted with this dilemma. As the number of nonprofits nationwide has exploded, their tax avoidance has increasingly become a political hot potato.

The city's latest downsizing announcement, closing branches of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, has sparked a wave of discontent in neighborhoods that recently lost their fire stations and are waiting on edge to learn which schools will shut their doors. The shrinkage, announced during the past 10 months, is part of Mayor Martin O'Malley's plan to make government "leaner and meaner" to keep pace with the city's plummeting population and budget restraints. "I'm not a happy camper. You pay the same taxes, and the city services keep getting lighter and lighter," said Carol Hartke, president of Patterson Place, Inc. a neighborhood association for the Patterson Park area.

When some Baltimore residents take to the War Memorial Building floor this evening to comment on next year's proposed city budget, the Taxpayers Night event will mark the 10th anniversary of the Baltimore Homeowners' Coalition.The homeowners' group of about 1,000 members formed in 1989 to stem the city's escalating tax rate. Members have watched the city property tax rate drop from $6 per $100 of assessed value to $5.82.Although the drop might not be viewed as dramatic, coalition organizers estimate that they have saved Baltimore property owners about $140 million by harping on city leaders to reduce spending and streamline city services.