Urban Policy

Baltimore and Bridgeport have a lot more in common than the first letter of their names. They are troubled cities with more than their share of poverty, blight and crime. Like other urban centers they have been hurt by drastic cutbacks in federal assistance during the Reagan-Bush era and by the recession-spawned budget crunch that has suddenly beset state governments. They are surrounded by wealthy counties that have tax rates only half as high as those imposed on a dwindling number of city residents and businesses.

CBS is hoping that the mayor of Baltimore is ready for prime time. The network is not banking on Martin O'Malley, or at least, not exactly. For Mayor of Baltimore, a show he's pitching to CBS, executive producer David Mills envisions an ex-professional athlete who is a populist political neophyte with blue-collar roots. Network spokesman Chris Ender confirmed that CBS has signed a contract to produce a pilot for the proposed show. But that pilot will be taped later this month only if Mills and his collaborators at Spelling Entertainment are able to land a well-known actor for the title role, someone acceptable to CBS. So far, Alec Baldwin has already turned down the part, according to people involved in the project.

NEW YORK - Pledges to the 140 or so funds collecting money for Sept. 11 terrorism victims are nearing $1 billion, which experts say far outstrips charitable giving for any other single disaster. The nonprofit community is grappling with how to disburse the money. "There's been a vast upswelling of resources and very little coordination," said Ross Sandler, a professor at New York Law School. "It has to be pulled together. If it isn't, all of this might be wasted or never spent." New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer met privately last week with Vartan Gregorian, president of the philanthropic Carnegie Corp.

NATION OF ISLAM leader Louis Farrakhan is trying his best to use the Million Man March as a springboard. He wants to be acknowledged as THE black leader. But while Mr. Farrakhan may have gained new respect from African Americans and others initially skeptical about the march, that does not mean he should now be treated like an incarnation of Martin Luther King.Many marchers went to Washington wishing it had been planned by someone other than Mr. Farrakhan. Most left the event heartened by what had transpired and giving credit to Mr. Farrakhan for having conceived the idea, but no more willing to be counted as followers of the NOI leader than they were before.

The Sun continues its endorsements for the Sept. 9 Baltimore primary election with races in City Council northwest districts 5, 6, and 14. District 5 THE COUNCIL'S self-described dean, Democrat Rochelle Rikki Spector, has represented parts of Northwest Baltimore for 26 years. She's sitting comfortably, with her only Democratic opponent the colorful critic of local government, cable TV journalist Leonard J. Kerpelman, a former attorney who 40 years ago won the Supreme Court case against mandatory prayer in schools.

Margaret Oliver "Maggie" Feiss, a recent college graduate and volunteer, died Sunday of an epileptic seizure at her father's Locust Point home. She was 22. Ms. Feiss was born in Baltimore and raised in Lutherville and Cedarcroft. She graduated in 2004 from Bryn Mawr School, where she received the alumnae award for spirit. In May, Ms. Feiss earned a bachelor's degree in urban policy, planning and development from the University of Southern California. While at USC, she was a member of the Hellions of Troy, the women's flying-disc team, and had been logistics coordinator for the USC Relay for Life, which raised $89,000 for the American Cancer Society.

WASHINGTON -- By advance billing, President Clinton's address to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in San Francisco in late June, was to encompass the first comprehensive urban agenda of his 4 1/2 -year-old administration.Simultaneously, a ''State of the Cities'' report, prepared by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was called by Vice President Gore ''the most significant report on the condition of urban America in a generation.''But if you expected fresh vision on how America's cities and suburbs can prosper together into the 21st century, then Bill Clinton, Al Gore and HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo all let you down.

Since his election in 1999, Mayor Martin O'Malley actively has pursued a policy known as "order-maintenance" policing that has been responsible for tens of thousands of unlawful arrests each year in Baltimore, straining the already backlogged court system. Police are ordered to arrest residents for minor "quality-of-life" infractions, commonly making unconstitutional arrests for "loitering" and "failure to obey" a police order. In 2004, 20,974 arrests were made in Baltimore for which no charges were filed, representing over 30 percent of all warrantless arrests.

An article in yesterday's Sun incorrectly stated that Sen. Tom Harkin telephoned the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson to apologize after Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was harshly critical of Mr. Jackson upon being erroneously told that Mr. Jackson was endorsing Mr. Harkin. It was Mr. Clinton who made the call.* The Sun regrets the error.The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson took to the pulpit yesterday and urged the Democratic presidential candidates to stop attacking one another and start talking about those that have been left behind: America's cities, industries and family farms.

Tragic it is that it took the Los Angeles riots to compel President Bush to look in "dismay and horror" at what is happening in the black inner cities of his own country. What he brings to his stewardship from this emotional experience can scarcely be gleamed from his own "embarrassed" and "ashamed" mental state or the calculated leaks from self-serving presidential advisers pushing their own agendas. But it is good that Mr. Bush broke out of his comfortable, affluent isolation and went to Los Angeles to see and learn.