Unusually cold weather was offered by Baltimore Gas and Electric officials yesterday as the primary reason for the jaw-dropping increase in customers’ January bills.

But the blame-Mother-Nature argument did not seem to go over too well with some members of the Maryland Public Service Commission, who had summoned utility officials to Baltimore to explain the phenomenon.

“It’s not freakishly cold,” said Douglas R.M. Nazarian, commission chairman, at the hearing before a packed crowd of media and ratepayers.

((Bonus reading for bummed-out ratepayers: Unbelievable puff piece on Mayo A. Shattuck III, the CEO of BGE’s parent Constellation Energy Group Inc., from The Washington Post in 2006.))
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Story and photo by JENNIFER BISHOP

Hundreds are expected in Annapolis today to support a bill to help pay for vital services for people with severe disabilities.

They’re hoping that when they tell their stories of families struggling to stay together, people will hear them.   Read the rest of this entry »

By MELODY SIMMONS and FERN SHEN

     Donna Hanks’ history of trouble making house payments, ripe for the picking on public databases, hit the blogosphere over the weekend like sirloin in a piranha tank. The tart-tongued East Baltimore grandmother is firing back, meanwhile, and ACORN is defending its vetting process.

UPDATES: Hanks is arrested and charged with 4th degree burglary (Baltimore Sun 2/25/09) ACORN activist who helped Hanks break into her old house is arrested.  (Baltimore Sun 2/23/09) City Council considers bill to slow evictions (Baltimore Sun 2/24/09)

  PLUS: Video of the break-in.

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By JOAN JACOBSON

The Sun’s editorial of 2/22/09 went a bit overboard, condoning a City Council bill that would raise $5 million in annual revenue from illegal video gambling. It’s bad enough they want revenue from legal gambling with a proposed slots parlor. Here is the letter to the editor I sent them today: Read the rest of this entry »

 

By MELODY SIMMONS

A participant in ACORN’s national civil disobedience campaign found that after camera crews left, her situation remained bleak. Read the rest of this entry »