Baltimore ranks high on the “shithole” list for its widespread death and destruction. The city’s population hit a 100-year low in 2017, as residents are fleeing neighborhoods to escape the violent crime. The federal government stepped in last year at the request of the mayor to get the city under control. Intelligent agencies are circling above with light aircraft using optics and other spy-tech to monitor residents, meanwhile, a network of cameras on the city streets use facial recognition software to track citizen.
Furthermore, Baltimore’s homicide per capita is on par with Venezuela, a country that is suffering from an economic collapse in South America.
Combined with violent crime, the opioid crisis is adding fuel to the fire signaling that the most violent days are just ahead.
To say that the city is in a state of decline would be a major understatement. Everywhere you look there are abandoned buildings and homes, and as you drive through some of the worst areas you can actually see drug addicts just lying in the streets. Just like so many other communities all over this country, decades of liberal policies have taken a brutal toll, and now the city is just a rotting, decaying shell of the glorious metropolis that it once was.
There are some sections of Baltimore that you simply do not go into once the sun goes down. And actually it isn’t a very good idea to go into those areas during the day either.
Being a Baltimore resident these days doesn’t seem to be that enticing a proposition. Unfortunately, crumbling water infrastructure has only added to the agony of residents that occupy what increasingly looks like a failed city. As The Baltimore Sun noted in December, a series of water bill hikes, an effort designed to raise money to repair the city’s crumbling water infrastructure, has left the poorest residents facing bills equal to 20% of their monthly income.
In 8 percent of the city’s census tracts, the poorest fifth of households face water bills costing more than 20 percent of their income, Colton estimated.
In a quarter of the tracts, the poorest fifth face bills amounting to between 10 and 20 percent of their income.
“People just genuinely can’t afford to pay ever-increasing water rates,” she said.
Not surprisingly, few Baltimore households have actually budgeted 20% of their annual income for water expenditures which has resulted in many simply skipping payments and others even losing their homes… events which have prompted local city council officials to consider sweeping reforms on how water is priced.
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So having said all that, it may surprise residents of this city that their mayor – amid desperate budget problems – somehow found $200,000 to pay for lawyers to help illegal immigrants.
As HotAir.com’s Jazz Shaw reports, in their recently completed 2018 budget negotiations, Baltimore wound up having to make cuts so deep they eliminated funding for things like new street lights and trash cans.
And all of that was happening at the same time as they struggled to fund law enforcement efforts aimed at tamping down their historic murder rate.
But somehow, in a bit of financial legerdemain, they came up with $200K to pay for attorneys for illegal aliens fighting deportation orders.
Baltimore’s spending panel is expected to approve $200,000 on Wednesday to pay for lawyers who will represent immigrants who are facing deportation.
The head of the mayor Catherine Pugh’s immigrant affairs office said the approval would allow the first lawyers to get work within weeks.
The money is scheduled to go before a vote of the Board of Estimates. Half of it is in the form of a grant from the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit, and the other half is from the city’s coffers.
There’s a lesson here about priorities somewhere, but I get the feeling that the City Council wouldn’t listen even if someone stopped by to brief them on it.
As Shaw concludes, with all the problems Baltimore is trying to wrestle to the ground (and actually making some progress on lately, much to their credit), is this really where you want to be expending your energy and resources?
Too many illegal aliens wind up involved in gang violence and Charm City already has more than enough of that. They also tax the city’s resources in a place where the safety net is already strained to the point of rupture.
If you’re assigning these attorneys to fight deportation orders, that means that ICE has already looked into the matter and the individuals in question are here illegally. Why would you be fighting their removal? There’s no question that they don’t belong here. Shouldn’t your first loyalty be to the citizens of your city? Not to put to fine of a point on it, but… seriously.
Just ask Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf?!!