Problem

The last man to take a horse to Belmont with a chance to snag the elusive final gem in the Triple Crown has some advice for Doug O'Neill. Stay true to the horse. "I think trainers going around asking other people what they should do, looking for how to handle it, that's stupid," Rick Dutrow, trainer of Big Brown in 2008, said in a phone interview Sunday. "It's got to be about your horse. Whatever anybody else did doesn't matter. You know your horse. " O'Neill, trainer of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another, has already disregarded common wisdom over the past three weeks.

State Del. Pat McDonough was right to complain about violence among black youths at the Inner Harbor over theSt. Patrick's Day weekend, and it took his words to get Baltimore City MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake to visit the harbor months after the problem arose. Ms. Rawlings-Blake visited the area with her security detail. If the mayor were really concerned by what happened there she should visit the place without her bodyguards. I have experienced the problems and the foul language on display over the holidays at the Inner Harbor, and Delegate McDonough told it like it is. J. Michael Collins, Reisterstown

The woman who says she represents North American Power is not telling the truth about the benefits of buying electricity from her company. "You can save up to 10, 15, 20 percent of your bill, depending on your usage," she says in a telemarketing call to my house. But the rate she eventually quotes is only about 7 percent less than the standard price offered by Baltimore Gas & Electric — something the average customer would have no way of knowing. And of course the percentage savings won't vary even if my "usage" goes up to that of a steel mill.

For the fourth consecutive year, Baltimore officials are proposing a 9 percent increase to water and sewer rates — and the charges will continue to grow indefinitely to cover the costs of major projects, they say. The proposed rate increases come as the Department of Public Works has been grappling with high-profile billing problems that have been attributed to faulty water meters, outdated computer programs and, in some neighborhoods, fictitious meter...

Navy Lt. Mark Tedrow has no problem reconciling an air show with a commemoration of the War of 1812, an era that precedes flight by almost a century. The Blue Angels pilot said he looks forward to flying over the Inner Harbor, Middle River and Fort McHenry - birthplace of the national anthem - during a bicentennial celebration in June. "It will be outstanding to perform multiple maneuvers over Fort McHenry," he said. "It will show just how far we have come. " Tedrow and his co-pilot flew into Martin State Airport in Middle River on Thursday to give a small preview of what the Navy's renowned flight team will do for the bicentennial maritime and air festival that kicks off June 13. "Stake out your places on the waterfront so you don't miss a thing," said Lt. Cmdr.

Haven't paid your city property taxes? Then you're on the city's list of owners whose properties could end up in tax sale this May, along with nearly 27,000 others who (as of last week) were behind on taxes, water bills or other city tabs. That's more than 10 percent of city properties, located in neighborhoods as varied as Poppleton and the Inner Harbor . If previous years are any judge, many owners will pay up quickly and avoid tax sale altogether. Here's an interactive map that shows where all the properties are. You can click on the dots for more details, including the address, who owns and how much the city says they owe. (Keep in mind that some may have paid already -- and at least one is an error .)

The thrust of The Sun's editorial and the approach of public officials for decades for improving Liberty Road and other secondary roads with aging retail areas has been to treat the problems as economic development issues ("Life on Liberty Road," May 23). The solutions have been to update failing areas with new buildings without dealing with the core problems. People need to be connected to their neighborhoods. Suburban Baltimore County communities were built around the love affair with the car. They became commuting communities.

Regarding Paula Simon's recent commentary regarding how vendors respond to a customer's thank-you ("The problem with 'no problem,'" Jan. 25), she might be interested to know that in French, Spanish, and Italian, appropriate responses to "thank you" are, respectively, "de rien" "de nada," and "di niente. " All of these phrases literally mean "it's nothing," linguistically closer to "no problem" than to "you're welcome. " Does that make these cultures deficient in civility relative to English-speaking cultures?

Maryland revenues have steadily increased over the last four years, yet Gov.Martin O'Malley's administration continues to bemoan budget shortfalls. Maryland doesn't have a revenue problem; this administration has a spending problem. A spending problem that Governor O'Malley intends to solve by raising taxes. He's also proposing a 6 percent sales tax on gas while prices at the pump are topping $3.75 a gallon. Governor O'Malley, please stop trying to solve Maryland's budget shortfalls by loading the burden onto the backs of Maryland taxpayers.

Cry me a river! It's inconvenient to have neighbors applying for jobs in the defense and intelligence sectors because you might get interviewed ("Secrecy industry hits home," Commentary, July 26)? You blame the loss of neighborhood camaraderie on the fact that local children grow up to work for NSA, etc. Let's be real, the historic decline in citizens participating in civic life and neighborhood exchanges is nationwide and cannot be solely attributed to the presence of the intelligence and defense industries.

State Del. Pat McDonough's news release alleging that "black youth mobs terrorize" downtown Baltimore has certainly set off a firestorm of debate. But what about the nature of that discussion, particularly as it relates to race? Without an inclusive, candid and wide-ranging conversation about race, such discussions tend to inflame rather than enlighten. And instead of getting smarter as a community about our feelings on race, we can get more confused and polarized. One thing that has bothered me for several days is the way that various parts of the community tried to silence McDonough in the immediate wake of his Wednesday news release.

Seven students from the private GreenMount School in Charles Village will travel Tuesday to Knoxville, Tenn., to compete in an international problem-solving competition. The team – dubbed Soul Seven – participates in Destination Imagination, a program that presents challenges to students, from kindergarten through college, and judges their solutions on effectiveness and creativity. The competition has six categories: technical, scientific, fine arts, improvisational, structural and community service.

Good news, bad news: New mortgage-delinquency problems are back to normal levels in Maryland , but the older cases -- borrowers seriously behind on their loans -- aren't receding. Worse news: The state has the nation's 15th highest share of borrowers in the foreclosure process, awaiting auction, and second-highest percentage of borrowers not yet in foreclosure but at least 90 days behind on payments. That's as of March, the newest figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Two city water meter readers turned in phony numbers in at least two neighborhoods in recent months, the Department of Public Works acknowledged Tuesday, leading to more inaccurate billing by an agency that has been troubled by aging infrastructure and high error rates. As the Bureau of Water and Wastewater tries to correct the mistakes, residents who were undercharged are seeing a spike in their water charges - and officials say they must pay. The latest twist in the city's water billing problems, which have affected at least one in 10 local homeowners, did not go over well in the North Baltimore neighborhood of Homeland, where residents were already angry about the unusually high charges.

Europe's single currency is a bust. With unemployment reaching depression levels in the Mediterranean states, time has long passed to negotiate an orderly return to national currencies. Euro advocates argue a single currency is essential for creating a unified continental economy, and the euro is falling short of expectations because monetary union was initiated without fiscal union - namely, sovereign taxing and spending authority for Brussels. Those arguments are little more than polemics from politicians, public servants and pundits who have staked their reputations and careers on a failed economic idea.

After the power failed in an Essex neighborhood earlier this year, BGE officials discovered that someone had been stealing copper wire from the tops of utility poles. Oddly enough, however, they found no marks on the poles indicating that the culprit had climbed roughly 40 feet to reach the wire. Baltimore County police figured they might have their suspect when an officer on patrol in Dundalk spotted an unmarked white Ford van equipped with a bucket lift, and a man alongside the van stripping insulation from copper wire, according to a police report.

Regarding the answer by Helen Glazer to Paula Simon's commentary on "no problem" ("The problem with 'no problem,'" Jan. 25), I agree with Ms. Simon's judgment of this phrase, but I would go even further. The problem with "no problem" is the idea that what you did may indeed have been a problem, but I have generously judged that it is not, or it is but I forgive you. This implies that you might be at fault, and I am somehow morally superior to you. As to Ms. Glazer's response, I think she is missing the point.

It looks like this election will be close, but not because two centrist parties are both making persuasive arguments about how to best lead our nation toward peace and prosperity. Referring to the great recession and two unfunded wars, the pitch of the party out of the White House seems to be: "President Obama failed to clean up our mess fast enough, so put us back in. " The fact that the obstructionist party was more determined to defeat the incumbent president than to do what was best for the country is rarely mentioned.

Your recent article about Truck Company 10 accurately portrayed the role this and other units played in the rescue of three young children from an early morning apartment building fire on West Lexington Street ("Union lauds fire co. set to disband," May 7). Truck 10, which along with Truck Company 15 and Squad 11, is slated to be closed permanently on July 1, has already taken 2,212 runs this year, including 79 reports of fire. Each of these three companies responds to thousands of calls from citizens every year.