Blogs: Author Archive

Sam Daniels (pictured), the executive secretary of the Board of Liquor License Inspectors and a fixture for decades, has announced his retirement, effective July 1 in the wake of a critical state audit of the agency. “OMG……………is it Christmas? Today? Pinch me, seriously!!!” Beth Hawks, a west-side small business owner, wrote in an email...
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The Maryland state government quietly announced its brand-new online open source data trove last Wednesday. Gov. Martin O’Malley (last seen burying his head in the sand over corruption in state prisons) called the portal “a movement away from ideological, hierarchical, bureaucratic governing and toward information-age governing that is fundamentally entrepreneurial, collaborative, relentlessly interactive and...
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A 38-year-old cab driver and citizen journalist known as The Baltimore Spectator pleaded guilty to possession of a sawed-off shotgun today, receiving time served and three years probation in a closely-watched case that began last December with a live-tweeted standoff with a Baltimore SWAT team. Apollos Frank-James MacArthur, who has been held without bail...
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Two years into his new four-year contract and six years after he arrived from New York, Baltimore School Chief Andres Alonso confirmed he’s leaving the job to spend more time with his parents and teach at Harvard University. Alonso has been a controversial superintendent. He’s closed many schools and recast the teachers contract to...
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As his sister Cheyenne Ward looked on, Demetrius Smith was set free today by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams. The move came at a sentence reconsideration hearing. Smith, about five years into a 10-year sentence for assault, was re-sentenced to time served with three years of supervised probation. In February of 2011 Smith...
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Backed by the non-profit Community Law Center, six Baltimore neighborhood associations have sued a Texas-based property speculator for $8 million, saying his business model presents a nuisance that “threatens the well being of the communities.” The defendant, Scott Wizig, owns about 140 city properties, plus dozens more in Houston, where he is based. In...
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The release this week of Vital Signs 11, the annual compilation of relevant (and sometimes not) statistics in Baltimore’s neighborhoods/census tracts brought to CP’s mind a question: How are things looking, 10 years on? The Vital Signs project has produced reports regularly through changes in leadership and address (it is now housed at the...
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If harried Sun reporters and editors thought things could only get better after half a decade of bankruptcy following the diabolical mismanagement of the evil gnome Sam Zell, they were in for a rude awakening Sunday when the New York Times did a piece about how Charles and David Koch, cackling heirs to an...
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The appraiser who was crucial to an east side mortgage fraud scheme was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison this afternoon as more than 30 supporters looked on, some sobbing. “Oh my God,” someone in the packed courtroom shouted as the judge, James K. Bredar, sentenced David C. Christian to a sentence well...
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 Tax Evaders  is one of the more amusing lefty efforts on the national budget to come across my email in a long while. Based on the old Space Invaders game, you blast away corporations that make billions in profits, hold billions of dollars off shore, and yet pay little or no income taxes. The...
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The Maryland General Assembly did an amazing thing last night: they passed a campaign finance reform measure that progressives and good government people actually like. “It was a difficult vote because it was in many ways against their own interest,” says Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, a lobbyist for the non-profit Common Cause. “I’ve been a lobbyist...
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The Office of Legislative Audits dropped a thick and scathing performance audit on the Board of Liquor License Commissioners, the Baltimore-based state agency that polices the bars and liquor stores in the city. Among the April 3 findings: The liquor board has no written policies and procedures for its inspectors. It also has two...
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