Baltimore Brew

24/12/2025

The Brew is taking its annual holiday break.

Joy to all and to all we'll be back, rested, recharged & ready, in 2026!

Does Evil Santa know if you’ve been bad or good? We’re not sure, but you might want to be your best self because we’re letting him watch over the Brew shop during the holidays.

23/12/2025

AFSCME Local 44 has a slate of officers critical of AFSCME Maryland leadership.

Clarence Thomas was voted vice pres in a Saturday runoff, joining President Stancil McNair.

Both vow to improve conditions for Baltimore sanitation workers.

Clarence Thomas is elected vice president of the local that represents sanitation and other blue-collar city employees.

22/12/2025

Q & A - Dan Rodricks interviews States Attorney Ivan Bates about crime and justice and what his office is doing (other than feuding with the mayor) to further shrink Baltimore’s historic 50-year low in homicides.

https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2025/12/22/enough-with-the-beef-my-qa-with-states-attorney-ivan-bates-about-everything-else/ey the

The spat between Baltimore’s top prosecutor and its mayor has hogged the headlines, but I wanted to hear more about the mission they share: increasing safety and honoring justice.

22/12/2025

In light of the news that KEVIN PLANK will leave the fate of hundreds of acres of undeveloped land at Port Covington in the hands of an Arkansas bank, here is a 2021 "we told you so" commentary from two city activists.

++++ Port Covington was hailed as “Dubai on the Patapsco” …..

Plank’s team, Sagamore Development, not only promised high-end living for the “creative class,” but tens of thousands of jobs for a struggling city…….ads portrayed the project as part of some epic heroic urban revival.

Skeptics worried that the project would resemble the real Dubai, a wealthy enclave serviced by poorly compensated workers shuttled in from crumbling neighborhoods.+++

https://tinyurl.com/yhxnbpwf

19/12/2025

Bill Henry kicks off a City Council hearing on the Baltimore Children & Youth Fund by saying it’s been subject to unfair media coverage.

He apologized that he and other architects of BCYF “completely ignored the optics” of a taxpayer-funded entity that would make it vulnerable to media scrutiny.

He said they ignored that

"there were going to be people – and some of those people would control media outlets – there were going to be people who felt empowered to pay closer attention to the details of how the money was spent because it was originally tax dollars in a way that quite frankly nobody in the media pays attention to the specific spending of mainstream philanthropic sources.” https://tinyurl.com/58rnueuc

18/12/2025

The community takes its case against Johns Hopkins University's DSAI project to City Hall, and loses.

Saying residents' concerns about the Data Science & AI Institute were being ignored, Councilwoman Odette Ramos had wanted deferral of the approvals Hopkins sought:

“The lack of transparency is astounding.” she said.

The project, she said, "is going to have a lot of impact on our residents that is unnecessary, especially from an entity that does not pay property taxes." https://tinyurl.com/4evcxj2

18/12/2025

Could today’s hearing on the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund could lead to much-needed accountability?

Right now, sketchy grantmaking and lack of meaningful outcomes reporting make it hard to say if the funds are going to grassroots groups as intended. [OP-ED]

The funds are supposed to go to grassroots groups. Is that happening? It’s hard to say due to BCYF’s sketchy grantmaking and lack of meaningful outcomes reporting. [OP-ED]

17/12/2025

City Council President Zeke Cohen confirms Baltimore Brew reporting, telling us that weirdly-high locksmith contract was inflated by $3 million.

The Department of General Services told him:

“There was an error in the calculation,” resulting in a 340% price increase that somehow city agencies and the mayor’s and comptroller’s offices ... didn't catch. https://tinyurl.com/yse4r2hj

17/12/2025

BREAKING Despite passionate pleas from residents and
Councilwoman Odette Ramos, the Board of Estimates approves an MOU allowing Johns Hopkins to make stormwater improvements on Wyman Park Drive to include tree cutting and, during construction, shutting the road down tinyurl.com/mwsb759v [this story to be updated]

17/12/2025

City asked to approve stormwater upgrades for Johns Hopkins'
planned data science and AI buildings that will require tree cutting.

Neighborhood critics of the DSAI project have targeted two items on today's Board of Estimates agenda. https://tinyurl.com/mwsb759v

16/12/2025

Outgoing Inspector General Kelly Madigan calls for more transparency and higher standards in Baltimore County, in remarks last night before the Council.

As she heads out the door, we recap some of her investigations that ruffled feathers ... and the harsh attack from two council members that she survived.

"I think it was important for the council – and the public – to hear my concerns before I leave,” she said today.

“I don’t think there’s an appetite on the part of the council [for reform]. I asked for simple legislative fixes they could easily have done.” https://tinyurl.com/5enjrkr4

16/12/2025

BREAKING - The Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) cancels plans to sell the Sisson Street Drop-Off Center to a private developer.

"We cancelled the RFP," Otis Rolley, BDC president and CEO, told the Task Force last night. https://tinyurl.com/muhyptuj