Statue of William Donald Schaefer overlooks the Baltimore Inner Harbor. According to retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a modern-day Willie Don
is what the city desperately needs for its future.

EMPHASIS SHOULD BE ON PREVENTION,
RATHER THAN TRYING TO AFFIX BLAME
AND FIND SCAPEGOATS AFTERWARDS

Cops on the beat are too often condemned
for the poor performance of their bosses.
Where is the training and supervision?

BALTIMORE NEEDS A 2016 WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER
PLUS MASS CLEANUP OF ITS HARBOR-AREA WATERS,
AS WELL AS AN IMPROVED PUBLIC-TRANSIT SYSTEM
TO INCLUDE AN IMMEDIATE FIX OF BUS ROUTES

Obama’s State of Union speech = usual mush

ORIOLES RE-SIGN DAVIS; NEXT SHOULD BE MACHADO
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering how many seconds it will take Maryland legislators to legalize fantasy gambling once they can figure out a way for the state to get a cut of the sucker money, it’s interesting to note the following:

 In the effort to reduce the number of racial incidents, where Baltimore police over-reaction in inner-city streets results in questionable and abusive treatment of suspects, the legislators and administrative officials in the city and state are taking a limited, misguided approach.

Instead of focusing on streamlining the investigative processes after incidents have occurred, the emphasis should be on preventing them in the first place.

Training procedures, supervision and accountability is where priorities need to be addressed.

As the court cases of police officers remain in the spotlight following the death of prisoner Freddie Gray, you can’t help but wonder if the law-enforcement people who really should be on trial are getting a free pass.

Shouldn’t there be accountability for a culture in the police department that has been allowed to exist where “rough rides” in paddy wagons are tolerated until a prisoner has to be hospitalized, and, in Gray’s case, dies?

WHERE IS THE TRAINING AND SUPERVISION?

With all the lawsuits the city has to settle for overly rough, unacceptable behavior when it comes to dealing with inner-city citizens, where is the training and supervision?

Call me naïve, but I honestly believe most of the police in the field are dedicated, well-intentioned and do a good job.

The problem, in the cases of the few cops who step out of line, is at the management level for not doing a better job of training, and falling down on supervision.

When signs of questionable behavior begin to occur, they have not been dealing effectively with the situations to send a message through the ranks of what is not going to be tolerated.

 Retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski is right on the money when she says what Baltimore needs is a Mayor like the late William Donald Schaefer, who was a cheerleader for the positive aspects of the city.

The subdued, cautious and furrowed-brow demeanor of Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the outgoing Mayor, has been one of her leadership shortcomings.

The comment, released from City Hall, in response to the spike in the homicide rate last summer, about the Mayor being “disheartened” conveyed a resigned, almost hopeless leadership tone.

HOW BALTIMORE CAN TURN ITSELF AROUND

 On a positive note, there have recently been a number of relevant solutions offered on how Baltimore can turn itself around. Plans, suggestions and proposals are being offered to deal with poverty, draw people back into the city, expand the tax base, and reduce crime.

Gov. Larry Hogan is offering a $700 million program to raze vacant homes and subsidize redevelop- ment. However, in all of the proposals, speeches, editorials and commentaries, three key areas do not receive the attention they deserve.

One aspect is the city harbor.

While impressive redevelopment plans are being announced, which include the Port Covington area, and we hear about remodeling of Inner Harbor stores and office space, addressing the pollution of the city’s waterfront areas is not being prioritized.

Does it make sense to attempt these mammoth, and necessary, development projects on the banks of the country’s biggest septic tank?

The city’s failure, despite federal warnings, to fix the waste-system plumbing, prevent sewage backups and halt the flow of pollution into the Inner Harbor, is unforgivable.

Looking into the future, the city’s harbor should be a valuable resource and play a major role in turning the economic picture around.

Baltimore’s ineffective and minor-league public transit system, especially its convoluted bus routes, is an overlooked factor holding the city back.

A second overlooked factor holding Baltimore back is its limited, ineffective and minor-league public transit system.

For a city its size, Baltimore has the most inadequate public transportation system in the country.

Even if numerous jobs were to be created and troubled neighborhoods refurbished, the limited access available to working people traveling back and forth to jobs, creates an insurmountable obstacle to lifting the city out of its economic doldrums.

Unacceptably long commutes keep parents away from home, limiting time spent with their families and, most importantly, their kids.

The strength of a city is usually accessibility to workplaces. However, in Baltimore, if you don’t have a car, transportation options are often as limited as living in a rural town in the middle of nowhere.

Despite Governor Hogan’s Republican infatuation with cars and highways, resources need to be put into developing city rail options.

That, after the Governor shortsightedly killed the most recent light-rail proposal, will take time. But on an immediate note, the dysfunctional bus-route system needs to be expanded and restructured immediately.

The third aspect Baltimore needs to utilize, is drawing more on the resources of its academic institutions, making them more active partners in revitalizing the city.

A number of people I have talked to keep bringing this point up. Boston, for instance, takes pride in promoting itself as a world-class city with famous medical institutions — but it also promotes the fact it is a college town with Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern and Suffolk, to name just a few.

The Baltimore area also has world renowned hospitals. Johns Hopkins is often ranked the No. 1 hospital in the country, if not also the world.

Johns Hopkins University’s beautiful Homewood Campus in North Baltimore is just one of the great educational assets that the city fails to take advantage of.

And we certainly have a wide selection of colleges and universities, which include Johns Hopkins University, the Maryland Institute College of Art, Loyola University Maryland, University of Baltimore, the University of Maryland system, Peabody Institute, Morgan State, Towson and Goucher.

Many of these institutions are already actively involved in Baltimore, expanding programs and their campuses. City leaders and officials need to encourage these colleges to offer more courses that may inspire students, as a part of their academic endeavors, to become part of an energetic work force, investing time in the community.

Boston has benefitted from its long-term harbor cleanup, a quirky but comprehensive transportation system, and utilization and recognition of its medical and college systems.

A focus on these three important areas would also be a huge boost in Baltimore, which, like Boston, is a historic city by the sea.

 Barack Obama promised an unconventional State of the Union speech. But what the President offered was the usual self-serving mush that he and most of his predecessors in the White House delivered in years past.

An unconventional State of the Union address, which we will probably never see, would be an honest and realistic assessment of the state of the country.

Rhetoric, hype and spin would be eliminated.

The Commander-in-Chief would talk to the people, not lecture them.

Mistakes would be acknowledged.

The Orioles defied all odds last week by re-signing Chris Davis (shown here) for seven years at $161 million. Next in line for re-signing should be Manny Machado.

The speech’s emphasis would be a display of constructive and poised leadership, always striving for, even though not achieving it, bipartisanship.

 Now that the Orioles, defying the odds, have re-signed Chris Davis, it would be great news if they negotiated a long-term contract with Manny Machado, their 23-year-old superstar.

After avoiding arbitration and signing Machado to a $5-million contract that also includes performance incentives, the Orioles should prioritize working out a long-term deal as soon as possible.

The 23-year-old superstar can become a free agent after the 2018 season. Now is the time to get him locked in.

It’s thrifty short-term thinking to take advantage of the fact that as a young player, Machado doesn’t have much negotiating leverage. Last year while he was winning his second Gold Glove, he played at the bargain-basement (for major league players) salary of $548,000.

In a few years, Machado’s price will rise drastically and the Orioles will pay a lot more, competing with other teams, if they don’t treat him generously now and commit to his being a long-term franchise player.

Signing him up now, after securing Davis, would end any questions fans might have of the team making long-term financial commitments to winning a championship.
 
davidmaril@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
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