Baltimore

Baltimore Is Setting A National Standard For Diversifying Its Economy

November 8, 2024 Ilana Preuss, Next City. Create! Baltimore, Local Economy, Manufacturing, Maryland, Worker Rights and Jobs

One of the crucial economic lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is the importance of diversifying local economies, even in America’s largest cities. New York City continues to struggle with an economy too heavily reliant on tourists and commuters; Las Vegas saw its entertainment industry shut down when out-of-state visitors stopped traveling; vacant storefronts are prominently visible in major business districts and on main streets nationwide. Diversifying often implies attracting new industries by luring them from elsewhere – often a zero-sum game, if the industries are simply shifting locations within the United States.

The Baristas Who Took Over Their Café

September 15, 2024 Osita Nwanevu, In These Times. Create! Baltimore, Cooperatives, New Economy, Worker Rights and Jobs

In July 2023, early morning visitors to Baltimore’s Common Ground coffee shop found a sign taped to the door⁠. With a thank you to the Hampden community that had sustained it for 25 years, owner Michael Krupp announced the shop would be ceasing operations “effective immediately.” Common Ground employees released a statement saying they had only been notified themselves the previous afternoon and, notably, had been a few months into forming a union. According to Common Ground barista Nic Koski, the effort was sparked by “general workplace concerns in terms of people wanting more fair, equitable wages, especially between in front of house and back of house, and better treatment — wanting to look into health care and benefits.”

Baltimore Lawsuit Alleges Shale Investments Fueled Price Fixing Scheme

August 27, 2024 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. Resist! Baltimore, BlackRock, Drilling, Energy, Maryland, Oil and Gas, Shale

The city of Baltimore filed a class action lawsuit on Saturday, alleging that major U.S. shale drillers colluded to fix oil prices, the latest in a series of lawsuits filed this year claiming that U.S. oil producers conspired with each other and with OPEC to drive oil prices up. The new lawsuit, filed by the mayor of Baltimore and its city council, is notable in part because it alleges Wall Street investment firms played a role by pressuring shale drillers to coordinate their output to prevent fueling price wars with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other oil producers abroad. Wall Street companies were among the largest investors in multiple competing shale producers at the same time — and pushed them all to engage in “capital discipline,” the lawsuit alleges.

The Dali Disaster Is What Profit-Driven Economics Looks Like

April 4, 2024 Bob Hennelly, Work Bites. Educate! Baltimore, Dali, Finance and the Economy, Worker Rights and Jobs

On March 26, the day after the commemoration of the 113th anniversary of the Triangle factory fire that killed 146 mostly female immigrant garment workers in lower Manhattan — a crew of a half-dozen immigrant men in a non-union paving crew fell 185 feet to their deaths from Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge after it was rammed by the Dali, a rudderless massive cargo ship that was trying to leave the port without a tug escort. Police were able to close the bridge to traffic just before the catastrophic collision took place after the powerless and adrift Singaporean-flagged Dali got out a mayday call at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Feds Recently Hit Maersk In Baltimore Disaster For Silencing Whistleblowers

March 28, 2024 David Sirota, The Lever. Educate! Baltimore, Maersk, OSHA, Retaliation, Unions, Whistleblowers, Workplace Safety

The company that chartered the cargo ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was recently sanctioned by regulators for blocking its employees from directly reporting safety concerns to the U.S. Coast Guard — in violation of a seaman whistleblower protection law, according to regulatory filings reviewed by The Lever. Eight months before a Maersk Line Limited-chartered cargo ship crashed into the Baltimore bridge, likely killing six people and injuring others, the Labor Department sanctioned the shipping conglomerate for retaliating against an employee who reported unsafe working conditions aboard a Maersk-operated boat.

Baltimore’s New $1 Billion Jail Will Be Most Expensive State-Funded Project

March 27, 2024 Ben Conarck and Pamela Wood, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Baltimore, Budget, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Maryland, Mass Incarceration

Nearly nine years after former Gov. Larry Hogan shuttered the old Baltimore City Detention Center, a new centerpiece facility for the city’s pretrial jail population is poised to rise from its ashes. But it’s going to cost you. The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which has run the city’s jail system for decades, is pushing ahead with ambitious plans for the Baltimore Therapeutic Treatment Center — a sort of hybrid jail, hospital and mental health and substance use treatment facility for people facing criminal charges.

Baltimore: Cops Tried To Arrest A Whole Neighborhood

March 24, 2024 Taya Graham and Stephen Janis, The Real News. Resistance Report Accountability, Baltimore, Police, Police abuse

Former Baltimore Police Sgt. Ethan Newberg’s disgraceful downfall continues as new body camera footage reveals an incident in which the ex-cop made three illegal arrests, and then threatened to arrest entire block full of witnesses. Although they were initially responding to a neighborhood dispute, Newberg and his partner arrested a local resident who was not involved in the altercation almost immediately. When neighbors began to protest, Newberg escalated to arrest two more residents—and threatened to keep going until the whole neighborhood was in handcuffs.

Stillmeadow Peace Park Is Baltimore’s Tale Of Urban Reinvention

March 9, 2024 Ethan McLeod, Baltimore Magazine. Create! Baltimore, Forest Restoration, Sustainability, Urban Design

In the woods next to the Stillmeadow Community Fellowship church in Southwest Baltimore, Pastor Michael Martin has another sanctuary he eagerly shares with visitors. The church leaders poses meditative questions—”What do you hear?” “What do you see?” “How does it make you feel?”—as he walks parishioners, neighbors, and other participants in Stillmeadow’s “daytime retreats” through the 10 acres of once-neglected, church-owned property overlooking busy Frederick Avenue. Here, freshly planted and fast-growing saplings, carefully carved-out walking trails, and streamside sitting areas invite each person who passes through to pause.

Why Did Baltimore Lavish Tens Of Millions In Tax Breaks?

March 7, 2024 Taya Graham, Stephen Janis and Jayne Miller, The Real News Network. Educate! Affordable Housing, Baltimore, Maryland, Poverty, Tax Breaks, wealth inequality

Baltimore is often maligned as a shrinking city beset by crime and intractable poverty. But take a walk down President Street just south of Little Italy on a Friday night, and you will enter a world that appears far removed from the idea of a city that is terminally in decay. Past the empty pavilions of the Inner Harbor and east of the city’s increasingly troubled downtown business district, a cluster of towering high-rises emerges from the harbor like a defiant mountain range of concrete. A cobblestone boulevard leads to a European-style thoroughfare dotted with a dazzling array of upscale restaurants and outdoor dining patios.

Baltimore’s Media Nightmare And The Billionairification Of News

February 22, 2024 Justine Barron, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Baltimore, Billionaires, Maryland, Media, Public Opinion

David D. Smith, leading stockholder of Sinclair, Inc., announced on January 15 that he was purchasing what is left of the Baltimore Sun, once regarded as the crown jewel of the Maryland city’s media (AP, 1/15/24). Sinclair is a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 company and one of the largest owners of television stations in the country. The company has been criticized for its conservative and not always accurate TV news coverage (Salon, 7/21/17; New Yorker, 10/15/18). In 2018, the company compelled local TV news anchors around the country to read on air the same copy parroting President Donald Trump’s claims about “fake news” (Deadspin, 3/31/18).

Baltimore’s Co-Ops Show There’s Another Way To Work

February 16, 2024 Working People, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Baltimore, Cooperatives, New Economy, Worker Cooperative

Baltimore has become what many consider to be ground zero in the emerging “solidarity economy” and the formation of worker-owned, cooperatively run businesses. There’s something important going on here, and there’s a lot that we can all learn from our fellow workers who are in the cooperative space—people who are living, breathing proof that there’s another way to run a business, that there's another way to run our economy, and that there are other ways we can treat work and workers. At a recent event hosted by the Baltimore Museum of Industry titled "Work Matters: Building a Worker-Owned Co-op," Max moderated a panel including workers and representatives from Common Ground Bakery Café, Taharka Bros Ice Cream, A Few Cool Hardware Stores, and the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED).

Baltimore’s ‘Downward Spiral’ Of Poverty, Disinvestment, And Policing

February 12, 2024 Mansa Musa, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Baltimore, Disinvestment, Maryland, Police, Poverty, Public Health

The crisis of mass incarceration is about more than the conduct of police officers—it’s a question of public expenditures, and how pouring taxpayer money into incarceration at the expense of other, more humanizing ventures takes a toll on society at large. As public schools and public health programs across the nation grapple with a host of preventable problems arising from underinvestment, state and local governments across the nation spend over $200 billion each year on prisons, jails, and police. Now, a new report from the Justice Policy Institute, “The Right Investment 2.0”, takes a detailed look at the “downward spiral” low-income, predominately Black and Brown communities across Maryland are forced into by this imbalance in public expenditures.

State Senator Seeks To Unearth Hidden Costs Of Developer Tax Breaks

February 6, 2024 Taya Graham and Stephen Janis, The Real News Network. Educate! Accountability, Baltimore, Development, Tax Breaks, Transparency

For decades, Baltimore has doled out tax breaks intended to spur development. But the increasing use of incentives has not been matched by scrutiny of how much they cost the city, and who is benefiting. State Senator Jill Carter intends to correct that imbalance with a bill she has introduced to study a variety of tax breaks in-depth, with the purpose of determining if their use is both equitable and cost effective. “I think it’s important that people pay attention to how much money is thrown out to wealthy developers with no accountability,” Carter said. The bill would authorize a task force to gather data and recommend processes to increase transparency and accountability for how tax breaks are used.

Here We Go Again

December 23, 2023 Brandon Soderberg and Andrew Friedman, The Real News Network. Educate! Accountability, Baltimore, Criminal Justice and Prisons, History, Police, Zero Tolerance

It was about to get dark. In the summer of 2003, Devin was 19 years old and living in West Baltimore with his mom and two brothers, just a few blocks away from the Western District Baltimore Police station. Every night around 9 or 10 p.m., Baltimore cops patrolled the area heavily. They drove in marked and unmarked cop cars searching for signs of disorder, ready to round up people for mass arrest. It was all part of a policing strategy introduced in the late ’90s called “zero tolerance.” “It always happened around sundown,” Devin told The Real News. “The police see you out with even just one or two people and they just looked at you and you knew they were gonna wild out.”

Baltimore Joins Over 100 US Cities In Endorsement Of Medicare For All

November 24, 2023 Ruth Milka, Nation of Change. Create! Baltimore, Health Care, Maryland, Medicare, Medicare for all, Resolution

Baltimore has officially joined the growing list of over 100 U.S. municipalities advocating for a nationwide Medicare for All healthcare system. This significant endorsement, led by Democratic City Councilmembers Kristerfer Burnett and Odette Ramos, aligns Baltimore with major cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in supporting a federally funded universal healthcare program. Burnett expressed gratitude to advocates who have been instrumental in advancing these resolutions nationwide, highlighting the importance of accessible healthcare for thriving communities. Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr., a local pastor, emphasized the critical need for healthcare as a right, especially for those facing tough choices like affording insulin or groceries.

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