BADUL Mounts BMore Day of Outrage at City Hall - By Ron Kipling Williams

image: 

"Everybody benefits from Baltimore City but the citizens who live in Baltimore City."

---

As Baltimore City Hall employees were exiting the building for the day on Monday, November 2nd, one organization was ramping up its protests.

Members of the Black Anti-Defamation United League, Inc. (B.A.D.U.L.), poised with brooms and signs with slogans, voiced their opposition to City employee furloughs, lack of health care access, homelessness, education funding, and other critical issues, placing the blame squarely at the feet of local government and calling for citizens to clean house.

“We have to get rid of the greedy and put the needs of our city first,” said B.A.D.U.L. co-founder Bro. Daren Muhammad.

BADUL was founded in Baltimore on May 16th, 2009 by Muhammad and Leticia Fitts. Its objectives include protecting the Constitutional Rights of all citizens and holding the elected government accountable; educating individuals of such rights; and seeking enactment and enforcement of federal state and local laws in securing such rights.

Mayor Sheila Dixon was also the focus of the day of outrage. Her city corruption trial that began on Tuesday, November 10th, involving alleged theft of city gift cards, is one sign for many of the ongoing systemic fleecing of the city’s public trust by elected officials.

“We are paying the highest BGE and property taxes, and elected officials are getting free cars,” said Vicki Harding. According to Harding, under the PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) program, private developers have received millions of dollars in tax breaks.

Former Baltimore City School Board head Brian Morris, in partnership with Doracon Contracting, received $7.2 million over 15 years for the Zenith, a downtown project. Harbor East residential development Spinnaker Bay received a 20-year tax break worth $13.6 million, a joint venture between H&S Properties Development Corp., Bozzuto Development, and Doracon.

Doracon is headed by developer Ronald Lipscomb, who was convicted but given a light sentence to testify against Dixon, who is accused of giving tax breaks to Lipscomb in 2003 as City Council President while they were engaged in a personal relationship.

“Everybody benefits from Baltimore City but the citizens who live in Baltimore City,” said Muhammad, host of the radio talk show “State of the City” on 1590AM radio.

As winter temperatures continue to set in on Baltimore, it is clear to many that clear leadership must be in play to provide the least fortunate citizens – whether it is food, clothing, housing, health care, or utilities – so that no one is left out in the cold.