Opponents of a plan to let people unleash their dogs in Baltimore’s Patterson Park during certain hours are characterized as “curmudgeons” and the “won’t somebody please think of the children” crowd, in this promising new neighborhood blog, Patterson Park Life.

The authors clearly have a point of view (they like the plan) but they do a pretty good job of describing a meeting at General Wolfe Middle School Thursday night to discuss it. The city is proposing to set up an off-leash dog area in the park on the flat area below the Pagoda. It would be open to leash-less dogs roughly between 6-10 am and 5-10 pm. There’s also talk of creating a fenced dog area on the empty knoll near the community gardens in the Northwest corner of the park.

The meeting was one of many that will be held in the coming weeks to discuss a proposal by the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks to create off-leash areas and hours at several parks: Riverside, Patterson, Herring Run and Wyman parks.

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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Activists from ACORN help foreclosee Donna Hanks break back into her home.

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 »