Kudos to The Baltimore Sun’s Lorraine Mirabella for exposing the abuse of taxpayers embedded in the latest plan to rejuvenate Baltimore by subsidizing downtown development (“Harborplace developer estimates $400M in public money needed for Baltimore’s re-imagined Inner Harbor,” Nov. 5).
 

Kudos also to Dan Rodricks for questioning the even-greater subsidies allocated to improve the bottom lines of sports teams owned by billionaires (“Why do the Orioles and Ravens need $1.2 billion in stadium improvements?” Nov. 7). That accounting should include the giveaways embedded in the state’s memorandum of understanding awarding the Orioles’ owners incredibly valuable development rights on public lands.
 

It’s shocking that such extravagances are in the works when many of our city’s schools need major repairs (and some still lack air conditioning), when our police department is poorly equipped and chronically understaffed, when the city’s public works department lacks resources to maintain crucial infrastructure or even fill potholes and paint line markers.

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