Baltimore Activating Solidarity Economies (BASE)

2016 MAYORAL & CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE SURVEY:
BUILDING A MORE INCLUSIVE AND EQUITABLE BALTIMORE

With a national spotlight on our most economically disinvested and racially segregated neighborhoods in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray and subsequent protests, Baltimore City wants to know—what will you do, if elected, to build a more inclusive and equitable economy?
As voters get ready to go to the primaries, we’d like to help them make informed decisions about the kind of economy you want to support if elected to public office this November. Based on our ongoing conversations with movement partners and social enterprise innovators, Baltimore Activating Solidarity Economies (BASE) has compiled the list of twenty questions below.
Please take a moment to answer the questions below—you can email your answers to surveyteam@basebaltimore.org, or contact us if you’d rather supply answers over a quick phone call. We will be releasing the results of our candidate survey on March 14th; to make sure your responses are included, please contact us with your answers no later than March 9th.
BASE is happy to answer any questions you might have, either about this survey project or about any of the specific strategies mentioned in the survey; please do not hesitate to be in touch at info@basebaltimore.org.

Ensuring Affordable Housing

Will you promote permanently affordable housing with tools like community land trusts to stabilize neighborhoods faced with new development projects? YES

Land Trusts have always been used to build small pockets of affordable housing in communities undergoing development and I would see that as a tool. What we do not want are Land Trusts tied to global corporate campuses that are simply extensions of employee workplace housing. Baltimore Development has a plan that uses Land Trusts taking large parcels of real estate in our Baltimore communities under the guise of home-ownership but with the goal of having that real estate reverse into the hands of corporate campuses. This occurs when we attached financial instruments like credit bond debt to this development at a time when Wall Street and the economy creates great manipulations and booms and busts. This is not a wise use of Land Trusts and this is towards what our U of M Baltimore connects Land Trusts.
Land Trusts can be good community development tools when used in developing all communities with mixed-income housing placing a co-op multi-family housing unit with a Land Trust arrangement without ties to Wall Street fluctuation---ergo, no credit bonds adds to a mixed-income format for housing without threats of losing the intent to keep it citizen-owned and community oriented.

Will you connect mechanisms for the disposal of city-owned vacant properties to community ownership and stewardship tools like community land trusts that ensure permanent affordability? YES

My entire platform is redeveloping all surrounding communities and with that will come the funding Baltimore already has at its disposal to build the construction economy needed and to allow for several years of funding to move these community projects to completion. As we demolish the houses that cannot be rehabbed and inhabited by those with housing insecurity---as we haul away all of the concrete infrastructure tied to all this downsizing---we are opening up lots of real estate to designate as a GRAND PUBLIC GREEN SPACE. Using this as a central community common space allows these communities to annex that public real estate as it grows while using it as a healthy, fresh food and recreation common space. If we do this we will not need Land Trusts for our green spaces---only for our multi-family housing real estate. This is important in keeping this property under citizen control as corporate non-profits often end with leadership with different motives than those who start. The Grand Public Green Space will attract that mixed-income family our underserved communities need and foster an essential fresh food economy in each community.

This means current vacant lots and vacant and neglected housing will either be re-purposed or rehabbed for citizens ending that cycle of neglect. Each community must have a unique recreational venue serving as a tourism tool for local small businesses. A MOTO-X track, skate-boarding/roller skating park, rock-climbing park, swimming center, etc will serve to bring citizens from one community to another fostering inter-connectivity of communities. These will be public recreation spaces and will spur more small businesses to augment that venue.

Also, I see using rent-control with a percentage of our housing in each community. Not only market-based as that means affordability is relative to rising real estate values but fixed rent maintaining a presence of low-working class housing in all communities.

Will your administration insist that developers that benefit from public subsidies provide inclusive affordable housing that meets the needs of all Baltimore residents? YES

First, I will limit the amount of real estate tied to global investment firms and assure we use our local and regional developers who want to tie to a community development project and with that community banks. Any public subsidy from my administration will follow Federal Equal Opportunity and Access guidelines for race, disability, gender, and income. A developer will see these projects as opportunities for citizens to create small businesses, become employed by development operations, be made homeowners in the process of working to rebuild these communities, and have the same mixed-income focus for that community.

What standards will you use to judge the success of these programs and public subsidies?

My initial goal in developing each community is building a platform for the lowest-income citizens so that means those citizens will be hired and working at the start and will benefit from the recycled demolition debris in rehabbing houses for their ownership. Building this construction economy moves that platform for those with the most housing/employment instability in place to advance into self-sufficiency. A developer partnering in these housing projects will see this as a goal and design operations and schedules around these goals. As well, a developer would not see himself/herself as competing against the creation of small businesses spurred by rebuilding our communities but rewarded for success in doing just that. My focus will initially be tied to rebuilding Baltimore City Public Works so citizens will be employed by the city using city vehicles and tools with the expectation some will be spurred to private small businesses with public subsidy helping to do that. Outsourcing of public works will be minimal as we rebuild a core of this agency in each community and will provide steady employment for those most at risk.

Making Responsible Public Subsidies

Will you require all businesses that receive large public subsidies or nonprofits with large exemptions from local property taxes to contract, hire, and purchase locally? YES

Again, my goal is not to have large public subsidy going to a few business entities but spread to dozens who will be for the most part citizens from that community. When we do this we don’t need to give corporate tax breaks or subsidy and we are assured of just what you ask in this question----that people are hired and all construction materials be purchased locally. I will go one more step in saying my platform of rebuilding a strong, domestic, local economy for Baltimore includes small business manufacturing plants geared to producing just those products we will need in all this development. These will include worker co-ops of all sorts as owners of manufacturing businesses and yes they will be tied to producing for the city and region and paying a strong wage.

Will you ensure those contracting, hiring, and purchasing decisions have enforceable targets and meaningful, transparent benchmarks? YES

I will ensure all contracts are enforceable and enforced. We will reform and restructure the current Baltimore Board of Estimates which has allowed for guidelines with loopholes used frequently to undermine all those equal opportunity and access laws and contracting awards that should have been spread to all communities and focused on building and maintaining each community’s economy. Each city agency will have the oversight and accountability needed to assure these goals are met.

What other strategies for community benefit will you pursue to ensure that subsidized development translates to broad prosperity?

The US was taken these few decades from what was several decades of legislation based on value-added policies taking public/social interest first before considering corporate profit margins. Installed was a value-added legislation looking primarily for corporate profit and this created the huge inequities and ‘winners and losers’ business environment we have today. My Baltimore Board of Estimates will return to that public interest/social benefit contract award standard seeing the value of a healthy, stable, small business economy as benefit over targeted awards allowing a few businesses to take all market-share. When you set that standard and when you are truly intending to enforce Federal equal protection laws there will be broad prosperity both in personal wealth and employment stability.

Supporting Women- and Minority-Owned Local Businesses

Will you instruct agencies like the Baltimore Development Corporation to ensure that locally-owned small and medium sized businesses, especially those owned by women and minorities, receive the support they need to build a resilient local economy? YES

I will diminish the power of Baltimore Development Corporation in controlling how ONE BALTIMORE will look in the future. We do not want a future as an International Economic Zone with global corporate campuses and global factories with the rich of the world tied to these corporate campuses filling our city center as is the current goal---we want a ONE BALTIMORE seeing today’s citizens as benefiting from development of communities as they exist. When you remove that connection to global corporations and global investment firms you are able to focus strictly on that small business economy with all our citizens employed and housed. Any projects Baltimore Development does embrace will be held to the standards of all Federal, state, and local funding requirements and I will revisit our Enterprise Zone, corporate subsidy, corporate tax break history to assure any funds that needed to be used for low-income housing and business development comes to these communities.

Will your administration work to ensure that such businesses are prioritized for municipal procurement? YES

Absolutely---that will be what drives our local, small manufacturing plants ---local procurement for community development AND our public agencies.

What other steps will you take to build a thriving, resilient economy grounded in local and inclusive ownership?

When you are dedicated to rebuilding all surrounding communities and public agencies out into each community it is not only about housing and business/employment----it is about building culture and arts. Baltimore has the best in the world music and arts colleges with grads wanting to be those small business owners whether as teachers in our public schools, as crafts-persons tied to a co-op manufacturing factory or an emerging technology business, as public artists, musicians wanting space for street performance. Building a fresh food economy in all communities will be spurred from that GRAND PUBLIC GREEN SPACE with public greenhouse, barn with animal husbandry, and fish-farming. From there you will have small businesses to make food products, to distribute the fresh food, to own a fresh food store, and build a local farmers’ market. It is amazing how quickly all this falls into place once development funding comes to each community.

Rebuilding Baltimore’s Infrastructure & Creating Good Jobs

Will you aggressively explore solutions that help upgrade Baltimore’s infrastructure to meet pressing environmental challenges? YES

I am committed to keeping all of Baltimore vital public infrastructure PUBLIC and remove much of the outsourcing to global corporations that drain our revenue and take from employment in the city. When the city takes back control from corporations it can then control how infrastructure development flows and I am the most environmental candidate in this race….maybe in this city. All development will be done with ecological and environmental justice in mind. This is why I move away from global corporate campuses and global factories and instead move to build a stable, local economy with small manufacturing plants instead. The first will devastate our environment and public health and the later protects it. I do not like the connection of SMART METERS to our vital public infrastructure as the goals are not really about conservation. I will fight to end what is a questionable requirement for everyone to be connected to BGE and soon to come water SMART METERS.

Will you promote the development of community-owned solar, especially in low-income communities? YES

Solar and wind are the only REAL green energy sources as natural gas is fracking and battery technology is lots of toxic chemical waste. All of those green energy credits that were supposed to come to homeowners ended in the hands of huge developers and investment firms building high-rise complexes and corporate offices. So, I will first review how all those green credits were distributed to see if we can move those back to our communities and homeowners and then looking forward see these are directed to our low-income communities along with the small businesses we can create.

Will you make sure that efforts to meet Baltimore’s storm water remediation obligations create good jobs for local residents? YES

The delays in rebuilding our public water and waste was a great mismanagement of our city revenue and resources. The loss of fresh water as water becomes more scarce and the pollution of wetlands from raw sewage will need immediate attention as a public health concern. We also have citizens with home damages from this city neglect needing subsidies for repairing basements and pipelines from street to house. I will use current revenue resources to start immediately with an eye on Federal infrastructure funding coming in the next few years. We have lots of work in storm water remediation but we have as well lots of work in protecting our wetland from development over-reach and this needs to be considered as with rebuild each community. I will rebuild our Baltimore Public Works Department having it doing much of the work in rebuilding our huge water and waste system with good paying jobs for several years. We will hire from every community the people needed to do this and make sure small businesses are connected to this public works project.

Will you ensure that mass transit and bicycle transit solutions focus on connecting all of Baltimore’s neighborhoods, while making sure these solutions are responsive to communities’ specific transit needs? YES

I am a strong public transit advocate and will not only see all venues of public transit are addressed but will stop the privatization of all of MTA transit system in Baltimore. We want water-taxis and kayaking to move people from Federal Hill and Fells Point to work downtown. All road and alley repaving must come with greening and not only biking lanes but with pathways pedestrians will want to walk downtown or in their communities to and from work. Bike Share can be zoned as we do ZIP CAR with bike kiosks in each of those areas and giving public schools and community centers bikes they can allow be ‘checked-out’ by parents and students will grow the interest in public transit. I will rebuild our Baltimore MTA to one citizens will want to ride with corporations downtown encouraged to include annual MTA passes with hiring to increase light rail, subway, and bus ridership. We must keep fares affordable. Communities wanting options from buses as in trollies and Circulator-style shuttles for a community----are always a plus to diversity.

What other steps will you take to promote solutions to environmental challenges that also build community wealth?

There will be lots of toxic chemical mitigation in rebuilding all communities from asbestos and lead to testing soil for chemical content. Since we have so much of this with which to deal we need an economy built connected to demolition, hauling, and create suitable hazardous waste dumping sites. That in itself creates lots of jobs and businesses. Re-purposing some of our old industrial buildings for our small manufacturing plants and as lofts for our artist, music, youth communities is a must as livable space but these will need plenty of toxic chemical mitigation.

Growing Worker Ownership

Will you follow the lead of cities like New York and Madison by supporting policies that encourage the development of worker cooperatives as a strategy to create opportunities and wealth in low-income communities? YES

Worker co-ops are where I would like to go as we rebuild competition with what are monopoly corporations. I have encouraged our local union members towards joining in co-ops---local crafts people from our liberal arts colleges----and would subsidize community citizens wanting to join to do the same. This is how we will get our local manufacturing growing within the city and then expanding regionally.

Supporting Youth-Led Employment

Will you ensure that the young people of Baltimore City have the resources and support they need to create year-round peer-to-peer opportunities for youth jobs and neighborhood empowerment? YES

All of my plans for rebuilding each community will focus on our youth in gainful employment both during high-school as part-time jobs and as a career path right from high school graduation. I want youth working and earning wages while pursuing higher education whether that be vocational or academic. Youth were always the ones hired to our city public works and services and they will be the ones hired as we rebuild those agencies out into each community so there will be plenty of opportunity.

Using City Deposits to Advance Racial Equity

Will you leverage city deposits to create greater racial equity by advocating the passage of a Responsible Banking Ordinance that leverages municipal deposits to reverse patterns of discrimination and disinvestment? YES

Actually I intend to create a Baltimore City Public Banking system to allow citizens wanting to move away from Wall Street banking and/or for those whose income is too low and who moved out of traditional banking systems. All of the Baltimore City revenue would be placed in these banks and I would encourage our Baltimore City employees to bank there as well. Our city union now has a credit union which ties itself to the Baltimore Development downtown projects and I will encourage them to redirect their finances to our local, community development.

Will you follow the lead of cities like Santa Fe in exploring the direct public use of municipal deposits to fund public infrastructure, lessening the city’s dependence on the large Wall Street banks whose racially discriminatory mortgage practices have been disastrous for Baltimore City?

YES

I stated as such earlier----I will detach Baltimore from as many ties to Wall Street as possible and not look in that direction for future funding sources for public development.

Extending Broadband to All Communities

In the face of continuing intransigence and neglect of Baltimore City’s digital infrastructure from current private sector telecom providers like Verizon, will you follow the lead of cities like Chattanooga in developing a municipal broadband system providing world-class internet access to Baltimore City’s families and businesses? YES

Absolutely. I am dedicated to keeping Baltimore’s telecom conduit public and in using the business co-op model to encourage small telecommunication businesses to connect to our public conduit with the purpose of being that high-speed provider for our individual citizens, small businesses, and emerging technology businesses. People are not aware of how much high-speed capacity the current trajectory of Baltimore’s global health tourism and telemedicine AND the push towards global online education will take. These global corporations have their eyes on all high-speed access and I plan to keep global corporations at bay while we secure the needs of our citizens and small businesses making sure rates stay affordable. Verizon and Comcast are monopolies and I am committed to building competition in all industrial sectors as we rebuild our Baltimore economy.

YOUR NAME: Cindy Walsh

Best contact for followup:

Cwals99@yahoo.com
About BASE: Baltimore Activating Solidarity Economies
For more information about our initiative to advance solidarity economies in Baltimore, see basebaltimore.org