Inside City Hall: Stokes defends unlimited Ticketmaster fees

“So if I pay ticketmaster $12 in fees I have to take a hit of $11.50 if I can’t use the ticket and have to sell it?”
– Robert Walshe

“Bottom line, Councilmen Stokes, Cole and Reisinger care more about business interests (Ticketmaster, Os and Ravens) than they do about the tax paying voters who elect them.”
– p johnson

“Baltimore, why do I let you do this to me?”
– badrighthand, via Twitter

“Is it possible to find out how much ticketmaster has paid the city in taxes on their fees? Just curious – I’m betting that they pay entertainment taxes as required on the ticket price but nothing on their fees. Interesting trying to use the argument that ticketmaster, which no longer exists as a separate company and instead is a brand name within the Live Nation Entertainment Big Conglomerate of hugosity, pays taxes. The corporation files in Delaware and they’re big enough that their returns as like mud to me. But, it looks like they ain’t paying much, what they do pay goes to Delaware AND they’re camped on like a billion dollars in cash. And which arts organizations are they worried about who pay taxes? If I think through most of the current concert venues in Baltimore City, I’m having difficulty coming up with any for profit entities. Possibly I don’t get out enough, but I’m thinking somehow the city is going to lose money or those arts organizations wrote contracts with Live Nation guaranteeing a set amount for Live Nation. So, if they can’t charge processing fees – does it come out of the ticket price? In any event, granting them unlimited fees seems a bit much. That said, 50 cents seems pretty much way too low in a time where almost all tickets are sold through 3rd parties.”
– bmorepanic

“Judging by how I have seen Baltimore City Council impose regulatory burdens here is how I see their logic: Handing out tax breaks like candy and exorbitant fees for tickets = good business, lets clear the path and mow down public housing that is in the way. Setting up a small sandwich shop or remodeling vacant homes = bad business, lets have them jump through 10 inspections and pay fees to the city equal to half their expected profit.”
-BmoreFree
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Dumped on, Baltimore deconstructs the debate

“Nice analysis in an otherwise tired debate.”
– Rebecca Messner

“A rust belt city in the 41st most business friendly state with 2x property taxes; rising fees; and a dominant voting block that has lived multiple generations in poverty, feels disenfranchised, has limited experience with the new economy, and has no relation or sense of identification with the people and companies that can drive economic change. . . a lot of reasons to be optimistic, though. Outreach by superb non-profits, improving schools (there are pockets of success, especially magnet & charter schools), new development and jobs in Harbor East and EBDI that help erase the grit and build the foundation for sustainability, nationally and internationally recognized hospitals and a plethora of healthcare jobs, and, of course, our winning sports teams.”
– Day Star

“I certainly wouldn’t expect any more out of a Washington Post writer than what Marc Fischer wrote. What’s far more distressing is that Baltimore’s own leaders don’t have a clue as to what this city is about.”
– Gerald Neily

“These leaders didn’t get to where they are on their own. They were elected to office by Baltimore’s residents – so one would have to assume that the very people who vote for these folks are okay with the way things are being done.”
– Baltimore Slumlord Watch

“Baltimore vs DC? Gotta choose the city where people actually talk to each other, hon!”
– nat_bur, via Twitter
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Inside City Hall: How an EWO grew by 4,285%

“The problem starts with the privatization of the public works department. When all this work was done by public work employees and we had the equipment to do it, we had the staff that would be qualified to do every aspect of the job and with that comes the ability to visualize the big picture. We also saved tons of money having the equipment and people who were paid well as public sector employees.”
– cwals99

“It sounds ludicrous when you frame it saying the adjusted EWO was 4,285% more than the origional EWO. Actually, the adjusted EWO was roughly 10% of the origional emergency contract. That sounds more reasonable considering you never know what you will find once you start digging into these 100+ year old water lines.”
– discer

“Which makes perfect sense until you put all of that into the overall context of the city’s contract EWOs and the process by which they are ‘vetted’, not bidded, and approved. The whole process is a money drain. We do not know when we are getting raked over the coals. We also can put very little confidence in initial contract awards. Many initial contract awards turn out to be have been far off the mark, even when the contracts involve very few of the unknowns of these dig projects. I would say the headline was sufficiently reasonable given the ludicrous contracting system in this city.”
– oliviarh

“This is a perfect example of the appropriate use of pre-arranged, on-demand contracts. When the highway falls in, or a sink hole opens up, you’ve got to fix it immediately. The mechanism has to be in place, you can’t go to bid in the middle of the night, if you did pricing would be much worse. So while the EWO caused the contract to grow massively, the per unit pricing doesn’t change, and was still the most competitive bid when it was submitted.”
– mc2012

“MC2012: Your premise that this contract ‘was still the most competitive bid when submitted’ is erroneous. There were no other bids. There was only one contractor. The story makes this clear.”
– baltimorebrew
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Thousands rally for city school repairs, with mayor as headliner

“I was a part of this crowd. It is always encouraging to see so many hundreds (thousands?) of my neighbors (cityfolk) join together for the greater good. Proud of us, Baltimore.”
– Rodney C. Burris

“Baltimore City has a 3 BILLION dollar yearly budget (that’s 3,000 million dollars). There is and has been money for school repairs, but the politicians have spent money on projects THEY like, not where the funds were needed. The Baltimore City Council and Mayor for years have over spent and over taxxed and that runs the middle class right over the county line.”
– William Hudson

“It took me five minutes on Google to prove that everything you said is basically wrong. Baltimore has a $2.305 Billion budget. . . the city is in a better financial situation of deficit to income than the county, and apparently fleeing the city will not get you schools that are in any less disrepair. I wouldn’t be surprised if Baltimore County does a similar school infrastructure bill next year should this one pass to confront their own, albeit less publicized, dilemma.”
– Big Stuff

“Wow, what universe are you all living in? The City pissed away all of the school construction money? Seriously? The vast bulk of school construction money in Maryland comes from the STATE, and I’m pretty sure the state keeps good track of how the city schools have spent their share over the years.The issue is that there has never been enough state money to meet the construction/repair needs of our aging schools. The city has to put up some money to partially match the state money, but as we all know, that’s a challenge as well. Yes, our city leaders have pissed away some money, but that is surely not the reason so many of our kids’ buildings are in deplorable condition. They are that way because we, as City residents, have not, until now, gone to Annapolis and demanded that the state honor its constitutional requirement to offer our kids a good education. An education that depends, in part, on having modern, welcoming, safe and comfortable buildings. We do NOT have those now.”
– Rocky Ground

“Take some time and learn about the proposed legislation. It does NOT ask for a handout from the state. It simply asks for a long-term commitment that the state will maintain its typical allotment for city school construction. The city (or perhaps the Maryland Stadium Authority) would use that funding and other local funds (again the city is stepping up) to float bonds to do the work NOW, rather than piecemealing it for decades. In other words, the city would be doing something innovative, efficient, forward-looking and cost-effective – taking advantage of low low interest rates – to meet an urgent civic need.”
– Rocky Ground
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Lack of audits “neither here nor there,” mayor says

“The casual dismissal of this important issue reflects poorly on SRB. It tells me she underestimates the intelligence of Baltimore’s citizens and she does not think the electorate’s opinion will influence any political outcomes for her.”
– ushanellore

“Did you hear the young lady call this $500,000 Philly-thingy her “Aspirational Vision” for Baltimore? Don’t sound like NO plan to me either Mayor Rawlings-Blake ~ I’m with you, lets call it your 10-Year Aspirational Vision and be done with all this debate, ok?”
– trueheart4life

“Audits are the intervention documents, or “papers” that the government willingly serves on itself, routinely, comprehensively and in a timely manner so the reality of the status quo of the fiscal affairs of a government can be clearly understood by officials and citizens alike. Without these documents – financial audits that cannot be impeached for reasons of incompleteness or misrepresentations – the city cannot fashion an end game for itself, even one year to the next, much less for ten years.”
– Chris T. Delaporte, The Park Advocate

“All you SRB haters need to come up with a plan if you think you can. All I hear is bitching with no solutions beyond audits.”
– discer

“Welcome to the peoples republic of Rawlings-Blake where poverty and despondency are an acceptable way of life. Furthermore, we don’t know if the city is broke or not and just today Ed Hale decided to move all of his business dealings out of the city to the county because he believes that he is getting ignored by the current city administration. If he is getting the cold shoulder, how many other job creating people are as well?”
– Matthew Reisner
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Honoring suffragists’ march through Overlea 100 years ago

“Thanks for writing this good report of the march. I was there also. I’d have liked to hear more from the podium on present day concerns of women. Senator Mikulski’s statement was the only thing I heard about the issues facing women today. We best honor the work of our foremothers by continuing it.”
– Joanntheresa

“As an fyi, according to the National Archives and Record Administration website, Maryland was not one of the 36 state legislatures that initially voted to ratify the 19th amendment in 1919/1920. It did not ratify the amendment until 1941 and did not transmit the ratification document to the State Department until 1958.”
– lshopes