Baltimore Brew

09/01/2026

REDUCED TO STUMPS - Despite protests, poetry and a last minute cease-and-desist letter accusing Johns Hopkins - and Baltimore city - of stonewalling the community, JHU yesterday went ahead and cut down those trees on Re*****on Ave. for its Data Science & AI Institute project. https://tinyurl.com/4srfr5nk

08/01/2026

Baltimore DPW is authorized to hire 45 more trash and recycling workers to improve service following intense criticism of working conditions and route reliability.

+++ Stancil McNair, the new president of Local 44, said he welcomes the prospect of more sanitation workers, saying they will provide a much-needed “bench” to improve route and service reliability.

DPW is also seeking four supervisors to inspect and improve the truck fleet and sanitation yards and plan other capital improvements. McNair said these positions should be open to current employees to create a pathway for workers to advance.+++ https://tinyurl.com/537pfuca

07/01/2026

REVEALED: the final cost of fixing the Lake Montebello sinkhole . . .

. . . three times above the original cost, with $20 million of the $30 million never disclosed to the Board of Estimates or to the public.
https://tinyurl.com/ytd785au

05/01/2026

Exaggerated reporting about squatters benefits landlord profits over tenant rights.

Unlicensed landlords, property flippers, abusive partners and scam artists falsely accuse families of being “squatters” to obtain a quicker eviction.

Are there true bad-actor squatters? Sure. But anyone who breaks and enters into a home can already be arrested and prosecuted under current criminal law. (Plus, the General Assembly already acted, last session, to create a swifter process for removing people who truly are illegally squatting.)

Maryland lawmakers should reject the Evict-First-Ask-Questions-Later legislation being pushed by conservative media and think tanks here and across the country.

[OP-ED by the Maryland Public Justice Center and the Maryland Women's Law Center]

Evict First, Ask Questions Later laws – being pushed in Maryland by conservative think tanks and media – will unfairly target vulnerable renters, including domestic violence survivors, families with small children and the elderly [OP-ED]

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