We have no inkling on how this is going to turn out

“I was a proud member of the USW for 38 years, this past year has made me become ashamed of the USW. I retired on June 1st because I had become so disgusted with what the USW was allowing to go on. By the way USW, thanks for giving Ira another 6 month extension on that pension contribution, I’m quite sure that I`ll never see that money, felt that way from the get go. My gut tells me that this is going to have a bad ending for everyone involved with RG Steel, but after all hasn’t this become the American way, screw the workers.”
– Palkie2

“Welcome to your RG WORLD HEADQUARTERS!!!! Take a look at the gateway entrance sign to RG Steel’s World Headquarters.  What do you see?  The old Bethlehem Steel sign recycled like an old Route 66 Billboard.  More tumble weeds than in a Death Valley ghost town.  Ira’s estate looks like Ladew Topiary Gardens but his World Headquarters at Sparrow Point looks like a zoning code enforcement violation for overgrown noxious weeds.”
– TACO

“By not talking to anybody, they have spread panic out in the streets.  Suppliers who do not get their bills paid, or returned phone calls, or even the courtesy of an ‘F-You’ are shutting them off.  At least when Bethlehem went Chapter 11, they talked to suppliers and worked with them.  Anybody who is saying ‘customers are not jumping ship’ is naive.  With the gang who couldn’t shoot straight running this place, no customer in his right mind would NOT be lining up an alternative source and placing those orders. . . NOW.

It is going to take A LOT of money to make the suppliers whole. . . How RG intends to make come up with that sort of cash while it continues huge losses is a mystery.  Even if Big Boy sells off all his gold chains that’s still not going to be enough.”
-DrillingForRollingOil

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Ore ship arrives at steel mill, suggesting liquidity crisis has eased

“We could ask the union what this means. Their answer will be as always ‘We don’t know whats going on’. It’s their job to know what is going on. Members dues continue to rise and we still get no answers except through The Brew.  This week nearly a thousand steelworkers will be laid off while the leadership dodges phone calls.”
– Jason

“OK now we have official proof that Walter and George were not completely full of BS on the ship spotting reports.  But Warpig is right that we have unloaded ships just to have them loaded again and shipped out.  Here is a sickening thought that I hope is not so. Could Morgan Kinder just be using our piers and unloaders as a bulk terminal and the material goes elsewhere?”
– TACO

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Sparrows Point will continue to idle blast furnace, run limited operations

“You are beating up Mr. Ira because he is visible and this is wrong, why did you look  the other way when the Ivy League Lehigh  invisible big wigs at Beth Steel walked off with our future?  You are beating the wrong horse . . . I will only point my finger at Beth Steel and no other owner, as they have had the same rough road as all of us. “
– Walter

“Mark Reutter go find something better to report on!! Sparrows Point on none of your FUCKING BUSINESS. I know a bunch of union brothers who would like to get their hands on you and let you know what’s really happening.”
– F’theBrew

“Well F’theBrew, i for one am not one of them. If it wasn’t for the Brew giving us information we all would be like mushrooms. You know kept in the dark and fed shit. Instead of having those union brothers go after Ruetter, maybe have them go to the hall and tell all of us whats going on.”
– Hanging on by a Thread

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Brew exclusive: Steelmaking has been suspended at Sparrows Point

“I cannot believe all the childish bashing that is going on here. We are all in the same boat. I too have had to deal with layoffs. Sparrows point was a part of my income too. My husband was layed off from there. I am a member of the steel workers also, before anyone gets any bright ideas. You know we all feel bad when other companies are shut down. We are not impervious to to feelings of  blight, unemployment etc. Any contract we get from the steel workers suck, mine included. Who do we have to blame? Our union officials. That is who. They are so deep in the companies pockets that they cannot see daylight.”
– STEELGIRL

“Dig up Karl Marx and make him the president of USW 9477 for all the good that will do you.  The union didn’t put SP here, RG Steel management did .  .  . The bottom line is that there is excessive steel capacity in the US and high cost producers simply can’t compete.  SP’s only hope is to have upper level management talented enough to implement major cost reduction initiatives.”
– H S

“It is horrible here in  Sparrows Point, all of us been thru so much as union workers at this mill. We need to stick together and hopefully someone else buys us because i dont see us starting back up again if we dont have a buyer. I need a job i will work for anyone who buys this mill even if it is AK steel. . .  Well, Merry Christmas to all my union brothers and sisters. . . “
– steelworkingmtm

“The new ownership was suppose to offer not only hope to the SP steel community (which includes the company’s customers) but should have provided an infusion of much needed cash and maybe more importantly a ray of sunshine. If the company fails to deliver on any other their outstanding orders (and customers are currently not sure whether they will get their steel or not) it will be very difficult to get them back – AT ANY PRICE.”
– An OBSERVER OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY

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Questioning $900 million plan for”limping” Convention Center

“I question whether we have the audience levels for another large capacity venue as well as enough convention business to warrant building either project.  Ask the Hippodrome how they currently feel about if-you-build-it-they-will-come.  It doesn’t seem possible that we will will not get stuck with a pair of projects resembling the hotel.  I do not want more professional sports teams that are subsidized by the city.  I have other priorities – clean water, sewers that don’t leak, crime reduction, education and child care.  Building more facilities for entertaining rich people or for county people isn’t one of them.”
– Bmorepanic

“NYC, which already has the gi-mormous Javits Center in Manhattan, is looking to go bigger in another borough: http://www.newsday.com/opinion…
– James Hunt

“Glad you raised New York’s Javits Center, James. It’s instructive that the modest High Line has been more instrumental in attracting interest in Manhattan’s previously forlorn Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea neighborhoods than the convention center ever has. People are more interested in a quality urban environment than ‘gi-normous’ convention facilities.”
– Gerald Neily

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Baltimore cuts ties with Grand Prix organizer, demands $1.7 million

“Between the Grand Prix and the parade of clowns the city is trying to sell the rec centers to, I’m starting to think that due diligence is not this administration’s forte.”
– MJ

“Two words: default bond. The problem isn’t that the city expected the party is contracted with to pay its obligations. The problem is that this was a brand-new organization with no financial history and no assets. Any reasonable contract would have included the requirement that the BRD obtain a default bond to insure creditors against something like this happening.

“The fact that city cooperation for the race or anything else must be purchased with campaign contributions is more an indictment of our eternal one-party rule than a criticism of this particular endeavor. But the failure to make a default bond a party of the contract is a shameful lapse on the part of the law department and the Board of Estimates.”
– Lex Apostata

“I hope the Baltimore Brew will do a break down of the true financials around this boondoggle. It’s been shameful to watch the Mayor’s figures go unchallenged. Even more shameful to watch the political establishment including The Baltimore Sun and figures as venerable as Elijah Cummings close ranks around SRB to provide cover for her administration’s complete incompetence in negotiating this project.”
– Bryce

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Housing Authority vehicles to be seized to pay for lead paint judgment

“6 million in legal fees to avoid 12 million in compensation.  Fight the victims all the way to your own bankruptcy.  Did the agency know lead’s far reaching toxicity when it used lead paints?”
– ushanellore

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A homeless man’s story: jobs, jail, a stroke and “one bad thing after another”

“If he’s been living there for over a year, that’s a pretty damning statement about the quality of services Health Care for the Homeless is providing. Mr. Lindamood should be ashamed.”
– Jtaverner66

“While society should be ashamed for the realities of homelessness in this the wealthiest nation in the history of history, I have no shame for everything Health Care for the Homeless has done for people experiencing homelessness.”
– Klindamood

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Homeless sleep outside of Health Care for the Homeless building

“So what?”
– cleancut77

“Well, cleancut77, we’ll tell you what. A quarter of the people in this city are living in poverty and a step away from homelessness, and you could very well be one of those people next week, next month, or maybe next year. What happened to having a little humanity and caring about humankind?”
– Human being with a whole heart

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Homeless have been sleeping on clinic’s porch for months

“One can stand on their head to try to help someone, but if that someone doesn’t want the help, it is a waste of time.  There is a huge difference between people who can not help themselves and those who will not help themselves.”
– A very concerned citizen

“there are at least 4 types of homeless:
[a] those who prefer it [a minority, to be sure],
[b] those who will not follow the rules [more of them than you would suppose],
[c] those who cannot follow the rules [mental instability],
[d] those who have been hit hard by the latest economic fallout.
. . . I speak from experience, for whatever that’s worth.
The central point is real: there were at that time [mid-80’s] plenty of overnighters who would spend the morning at the McD’s on Fayette, then mosey on up to St Iggies on Calvert or Daily Bread on Franklin, then work their way back to Central Avenue for the evening repast.  The majority could have worked, they had no [discernable] mental or physical issues.  On the contrary, many were in better shape than me.But….what do i know?”
– David Kennedy

“I am a Christian weary of all of our non-biblical rhetoric when I hear this association of shelter, work, and worth. Matthew 25:35 ‘. . . for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave mc clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
Jesus didn’t require an application, a picture i.d., a W-2, or even a sign that says ‘will work for food’ in order for help to be given to the suffering and the marginalized. The Bible overwhelmingly sides with the poor, the hunger, the bereft, and (yes) the unemployed. Ever read the Book of Ruth?”
– Coolrevchick

“The rich, as they cavort, feel condemned by the holy books and feel utterly rejected by verse and song.  We may shun the poor but nevertheless we are convinced the gods love the poor unconditionally.  Apparently the rich envy the poor their imagined place in the kingdom”
– Unellu

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Fenced-in Inner Harbor offers safety absent from everyday Baltimore

“I take no issue with your observations about the perception of the fence and how it is an illusion of safety and not necessarily a guarantee of one.  I think you made some very articulate and intelligent points but the waffling between complaint and compliment that was the overall tone of the article is a disappointment. I think the city was smart to make an effort to erect the fences and offer the perception of a safe zone.”
– bmoreguy

“Maybe Mark or Fern could’ve talked to the police to get their perspective on the fence. They might have learned that the BPD is constantly assessing threats — ranging from local morons with guns to not-so-local morons with an axe to grind against our country and an inclination toward high-visibility mass casualty events — and trying to determine the appropriate response.”
– James Hunt

“How stupid is this? Let’s count the ways:  1. Unless there are going to be bag searches, etc, there’s nothing to stop anyone from bringing a weapon into the cage. Or for unsavory characters to walk in, and now, yay, you’re in a cage with them!  2. One bullet or spritz of pepper spray in the cage, you have a riot.  3. Even if people feel safe in the cage, they still have to get from the cage to their cars, cabs, etc.  4. It costs money to erect and take down and finally,  5., it’s a muthascratchin cage!! There are no fireworks fantastic enough to make me want to sit in a freezing cage to watch!”
– Penny Pringle