Westport Lease Controversy

As reported in the anti-business Baltimore Sun, Baltimore officials are basically giving a free lease to developer Patrick Turner to develop a park in Westport. This decision has the dime bags of some corrupt elected city delegates all twisted up.

I used to work in Westport from 1995 until 1997. At the time this crime-ridden ghetto in South Baltimore contained several businesses on Kloman Street - the Westport Power Plant owned by BGE, Carr-Lowrey Glass Company, and another manufacturer whose name escapes me. All three are gone now. While I worked at Carr-Lowrey the company employed about 800 people, mostly folks from the surrounding areas.

Oh, the stories from those 2 years. One day I came to work and about 10 police cars followed me through the electronically controlled 12 foot barbed-wire gates. There was a floater in the water. By floater I mean dead body. The police thought that was funny because they suspected it was a homeless man. I recall driving home from work through the extremely dangerous neighborhood of Westport to see foot chases of police chasing drug dealers, assaulters, and murderers. The broken glass, needles, barbed wire surrounding the plants, stolen hubcaps. A friend's husband delivered mail to that neighborhood. On Social Security check day kids and crack-addict mothers would chase down the postal employees looking for their check. Got to hurry up and get their taste! It was great! Those were the days.

I was laid off in 1997 much to my delight and the factory closed several years later. The firm couldn't compete with the likes of Saint Gobain in France, Rocco Bormioli in Italy, and Wheaton Glass in the foreign country of New Jersey. Then the factory lay in waste for several years. Finally someone tore everything down and instead of a factory laying in waste, it is now a field of gravel laying in waste.

Patrick Turner has plans to develop the area into a multi-use site, with office and residential space. This would be occupied by businesses and residents that would pay taxes. In addition to purchasing this space, the city is now leasing some joined land for no money. In return Turner will clean up the space and make it a park and incorporate a bike trail over a derelict bridge across the upper part of the Middle Branch River. The Westport Association has even endorsed this plan. But not the vocal ballot seekers.

Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway of the notoriously corrupt Conaway family, has voiced criticism of the plan, demanding the Turner pay property taxes to the bankrupt money-sucking city. I heard that the Conaway family is notorious for running with convicted drug dealers, not living in the districts in which they serve, and one of them has even been accused of being mentally ill in a child custody battle.

Also entering the war of words is 12th District Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes, who along with Lawrence Bell fought like idiots in the 1999 mayoral race to the point that Martin O'Malley decided to sit there with his mouth and ended up winning. And now look what we're stuck with.

So why are Stokes and Conaway firing such harsh criticism at Turner? The obvious answer is class-warfare. In a city of poor people, it's easy to attack the wealthy people. It's the fault of hard working rich people that so many in Baltimore are crack-addict criminals. If we could just take the money from the rich people everything would be okay. In the end the only thing that really matters to these politicians is getting reelected. They honestly don't give a rat's butt about the districts they serve. They couldn't give a dime bag for Westport. The area has been blighted for decades. And now they want to stop some progress? For what cause?

Let's put some perspective on this. How much money is Baltimore City currently collecting in property taxes for this land? If the city owns it, then the answer is $0. Nothing. Zilch. A developer is going to come in and spend his own money to clean it up, something that Baltimore City has FAILED to do. He will then convert the area into a park in which Baltimore City residents can use. What has Baltimore City's government done with the area? Nothing. They let the drug dealers and the garbage dumpers take over the sight and make it a burning eyesore. This is an area in which you'd expect episodes of The Wire to be filmed. This is where you'd expect to find dead bodies.

So does it really make sense to demand that he pay property taxes on property that he is going to improve FOR the city? Instead, Patrick Turner could tell the Baltimore City Council to go back to beating their wives and children and stick it.

In that end, Baltimore's choices are to keep their toxic dump with no park and no tax revenue OR get a people-friendly park and no tax revenue. But in the eyes of Baltimore City government, it seems that two dead birds in the bush are better than a live bird in the hand.