Baltimore History Collaboration
Mayoral candidate questionnaire
 
The Anthem Education Project (AEP) and Friends of Ft McHenry
Baltimore having a slogan-----Baltimore----Birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner.
 
Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore responds:
I want to start with two statements in your opening to this questionnaire.  First, Rawlings-Blake declaring Baltimore ---Birthplace of Star-Spangled Banner mirrors a mayor declaring Baltimore ----A City that Reads.  The mayor to the former statement made that declaration at the same time all Federal and State funding to our Baltimore City Schools was failing to reach Baltimore; failing to reach our public school system; and/or failing to reach the classroom and after that declaration of City that Reads came the lowest level of ability to read in modern history.  This occurred because the same mayor now calling for a slogan ----Baltimore ----Birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner works for a Baltimore Development Corporation that promotes a Master Plan of Baltimore as an International Economic Zone operating here in the US as International Economic Zones overseas operate.  This means ignoring US sovereignty and US Rule of Law and Constitutional rights and allowing global corporations to operate free from all that is tied to the American Revolutionary push to freedom from an autocratic England and a global East India Corporation.  Today, we see politicians like these mayors of a few decades working for those very forces from which our American Revolutionaries----and this is the history of THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER-----fought to be freed.  We today have global Wall Street and global corporations controlling our government as was the case in colonial days.
This is particularly true of our current Mayor Rawlings-Blake who advanced International Economic Zone and global corporate campus as development more than any mayor so far.  Will Fort McHenry even survive under this global corporate campus Master Plan promoted by Baltimore Development Corporation?  Not for very long.  This is prime real estate that global investment firms will want to purchase.  So, as the City that Reads fell to a deliberate inattention to funding our Baltimore City Public Schools, so too will this slogan Birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner fall if we keep the same politicians tied to a Baltimore Development vision of Baltimore as an International Economic Zone filled with global corporate campuses and global factories.
Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore has a platform based on reversing all these policies as well as removing Baltimore Development Corporation as the driver of Baltimore’s economy.  I place rebuilding of each community and its economy as the basis of economic growth and restructure our Baltimore Development Corporation appointees with community banks, community small businesses, local non-profits such as historical ones like yours, citizens and community activists.  This is when we will see attention to our valuable Baltimore history be protected.
The respected historical community includes many sectors of Baltimore’s history.  When one says the Freddie Gray riots gave Baltimore unfair national exposure then we are not recognizing Baltimore’s national reputation of ranking at the bottom for quality of life, unemployment, education, housing----all of which was behind this riot.  All this is known nationally and if we are not talking openly about this the people across the nation know we are not actively working to resolve these inequities and injustices.  That is what freedom meant during this American Revolutionary War.  We must move past the old-school idea of landed gentry for example being those made free or having rights under a US Constitution because we as a nation passed several US Constitutional Amendments making clear that Equal Protection has all citizens in the US as having the same rights.  Magna Carta infuses our Founding Father’s motives in writing a Bill of Rights and We the People guaranteed the rights of legislation.  This is what Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore believes; it is for what I have fought for years in Baltimore to attain; and it will be what reverses these global policies that seek to kill any idea of what it means to be Baltimore and its history.  It is critical historical societies in Baltimore reveal ALL of Baltimore’s history including the injustice to black citizens and I think many in Baltimore do this but can strengthen this stance. 
 
I am the only candidate for Mayor of Baltimore not tied to Baltimore Development and a Master Plan of Baltimore as an International Economic Zone.
 
Relating to The Peale Museum----my platform places are arts, humanities, and history institutions high in receiving funding whether coming from Federal, state, or city revenue and I see all of this Revolutionary history vital especially in these times!
 
Thank you for caring to fight for historical Baltimore.
 
Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore