Who is Otis Rolley?

If you're following the Baltimore mayoral election, you've certainly heard of Otis Rolley. He's making himself about as high-profile as you can. You can follow him on Twitter. He's been interviewed on radio stations. He's everywhere!

When I first heard of him, I Googled his name. I found his Wikipedia page, so I naturally read it. Normally, someone unassociated to the person writes an objective article about politicians. However, this article is so professionally written and glossy, I am confident that he wrote it himself or had someone write it for him. It is more subjective than objective. The article glamorizes the wonderful things that he did as a city planner. How does a former city planner get a Wikipedia page? The rules of Wikipedia state the a person must be notable. I don't think being the director of a planning department makes a person notable. If he gets elected as the Mayor of Baltimore, I think that would justify him getting a page, but until then, not so much.

So in order to spare you from the self-aggrandizement, I'll highlight some of the items.

He participated in Model Program, a series of challenging classes at Lincoln High School in New Jersey. Who cares? Nearly everyone who grew up in the surrounding counties of Baltimore participated in some sort of advanced classes, be they GT or CM or whatever was in fashion at the time. And who would know this other than him and his parents? And who would care - other than him and his parents?

He received the Buttonwood Scholarship. Everyone knows what that is, right? Yeah, me neither.

At the age of 25, he managed 100 employees and a $1 million budget. Okay, this is impressive, but is it Wikipedia-worthy? I really don't think so. This should be on his campaign website, not Wikipedia.

He notes when Martin O'Malley was elected mayor, then Governor, as if that is uncommon knowledge and important to his biography. Mr. Rolley, we all know when Marty got elected and followed up with massive tax increases.

Rolley managed the urban development and local government reform sectors of the Urban Policy Development (until recently). That solidifies it. If I lived in the city I'd vote for him because of his involvement in the urban development and local government reform sectors. Does this even warrant being on a resume'?

His Wikipedia page also notes that he is active on Facebook and Twitter. I'm starting to think that he is using his Wikipedia page as a free election website.

I'm sure Mr. Rolley is a nice person with great intentions, but this is total abuse of a free website. I invite the Wikipedia world to edit this page and bring it back down to Earth. This nonsense must be stopped!

Baltimore City Redistricting

The Sun has been running a series of articles about the redistricting that is going to be done as the result of the census. They have spanned from The Sun's joy of busting up one or both of the Republican Congressional districts in the state to the most recent articles about Baltimore City losing representation.

As a result of the continued mass exodus from the city, Baltimore's population no longer warrants the 18 state delegates and 6 state senators. This is causing an uproar in City Hall and in The Sun. Mayoral candidate Otis Rolley seems to be using this as one of his rally calls. The fact is Baltimore City lost another 30,000 people in the last decade. Most of them were killed. I'm kidding. Only about 3,000 people were killed in the last decade, though that's not really funny.

The majority of these people have moved into Baltimore County. The politicians, residents, and writers at The Sun are in angst because they realize that with less representation in Annapolis, they can't run to the Maryland General Assembly with as many hats in hand. Less hats means less money. As you can imagine, the tax base in Baltimore City versus the social needs requires that more money from taxes be sent back to the city than were collected. Imagine if you paid $1000 in taxes, then the state government gave you a check for $1,070 for such a good job you did.

Who is supporting Baltimore City? It certainly isn't Baltimore City. Montgomery County, Howard County, Anne Arundel County, Carroll County - more of our money is going to Baltimore City than anywhere else. And now Baltimore City is pissed off. Sounds kind of arrogant, doesn't it?

How do the greasy politicians plan to resolve this? They want to make the Baltimore City districts jut out into Baltimore County, but not so much as to allow the residents of Baltimore County to have a say in the election, but just enough to get their population totals to the minimum requirement. There should still be enough Baltimore City residents in each district to control the election. This will allow the city to have more districts begging for money than would be allowed if they followed the laws of political districts and made them represent natural boundaries or actual city lines.

This is nothing new. Maryland's former Governor from New York, Parris Glendening, tried it. He got sent to court and lost. Then the court had to redo the district maps themselves to make them fair. Do you think that we can rely on our elected officials to be fair this time? Of course not. They're already saying this is what they're probably going to do.

So residents of Baltimore County -be forewarned. Annapolis and Baltimore City want to make sure that your voice is not heard! Fight back!