East Hotel

With the backdrop of clanging hammers and whirring cranes, mayoral candidate A. Robert Kaufman criticized his opponents' fund-raising efforts yesterday and their alleged ties to big business.Kaufman, the Democrat founder of the City Wide Coalition, delivered his comments at President and Fleet streets, the site of the under-construction Wyndham International Inner Harbor East Hotel. Kaufman, 68, criticized the city's plans to grant its owners an estimated $85 million in property tax breaks as evidence for campaign contribution reform.

IT COULD RANK as the dumbest political move in recent local history, a misstep so egregious that it could play a role in next year's race for governor and the following year's race for mayor of Baltimore.By embracing a $137 million proposal to build a massive hotel south of Little Italy -- far from the Inner Harbor and the Convention Center -- the Schmoke administration has bungled a prime opportunity and placed the city's convention business in grave jeopardy.Even worse for Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, this inept move could have unintended consequences: an angry eruption of anti-city sentiment in the General Assembly next year; a heated issue in next year's state elections over taxpayer subsidies for this dubious undertaking; a city referendum that could prove deeply embarrassing and set the stage for an all-out challenge to the mayor in 1999's municipal elections.

MAYOR KURT L. SCHMOKE, like any good executive, should following the guidance of his expert advisers. That is especially true on the issue of building a new downtown hotel as a way to avoid a sharp drop in business at the recently expanded Baltimore Convention Center.The mayor last year brought in Carroll R. Armstrong, a highly touted marketing director, to lure more conventions to this city; persuaded a prestigious business leader, Roger C. Lipitz, to lead a new Baltimore Development Corp.

In the first attempt to put a legislative stamp on downtown hotel development, a West Baltimore city councilman introduced a bill last night to require a measure of minority ownership of any hotel receiving city funds.The bill by 4th District Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell did not specify a percentage, leaving it to the Board of Estimates, a panel of the city's top elected and appointed officials, to set the number.Current city law requires that minority contractors receive at least 20 percent and women vendors receive at least 3 percent of business generated by public development projects.

IT MAY BE set up like a miniature legislature -- 18 members representing six districts and a separately elected president -- but the Baltimore City Council writes few laws of significance these days. Indeed, were it not for its annual budget convulsions and last year's inadequate hand-wringing over the planned Inner Harbor East hotel, one might wonder what kept this council busy.Its proclivity for "constituent services" -- calling to get trash picked up and potholes filled -- again raises the question of whether the shrinking city needs a council this size.

Baltimore developer Otis Warren has until July 21 to decide whether to buy an Inner Harbor hotel or allow his partner, Michael W. Lasky, the owner of the bankrupt Inphomation Communications Inc., to sell it to developer John Paterakis Sr.Warren sued Lasky's Harbor Hotels LTD in Baltimore Circuit Court this month to block the sale of Harbor Inn Pier 5, in the 700 block of Eastern Ave.In the suit, Warren alleged that although they were partners for three years,...

Residents battling construction of the Wyndham Inner Harbor East Hotel headed back to the courtroom yesterday with their third lawsuit, this one challenging the legality of the hotel's tax exemption.Judge Richard T. Rombro took the matter under advisement, after about two hours of arguments.At issue is whether the city had the authority to grant a tax exemption under which the Wyndham is to pay $1 a year for 25 years -- an agreement that hotel opponents say amounts to about $85.6 million in lost property taxes over 25 years.

Peter G. Angelos, who is working to develop a hotel across from the Baltimore Convention Center, said yesterday that the start of construction of another major hotel downtown will have no effect on his $150 million project."

Patriot American Hospitality Inc. said yesterday that it would sell a 30 percent stake for $1 billion to an investor group led by financiers Leon Black and Thomas Lee, giving it cash to help repay $1.7 billion of debt coming due.The Dallas-based real estate investment trust said the Black and Lee group will purchase convertible preferred stock and be entitled to six of 15 seats on the company's board."

DALLAS -- Patriot American Hospitality Inc., one of the largest U.S. hotel companies, adopted a plan that would let existing shareholders buy stock cheaply in the event of a takeover attempt, making any acquisition more expensive.The Dallas-based real estate investment trust, which owns the Wyndham hotel chain, said the shareholder-rights plan wasn't adopted in response to any known imminent takeover attempt."This is not to discourage any discussions," said Patriot American chief executive Paul Nussbaum.