Business says crime forcing it out of city
A Mid-town venture capital firm announced in an e-mail to the mayor last week that it was moving out of Baltimore because of crime. The mayor expressed doubts that was the true reason, but either way it's an economic loss for the city at a time when people are fearing a series of random attacks from Federal Hill to Bolton Hill.
While city leaders scramble to downplay the incidents and repeat stastics that crime is down, they are moving up to 50 cops, including undercover detectives, to the Inner Harbor and downtown areas.
Mayor Sheila Dixon, talking with me on Friday, noted that a recent reported attack on a youth at the Inner Harbor turned out to be staged as a gang initiation ceremony. The kids are from Federal Hill's Digital Harbor school, and while the scenario shows that this attack wasn't random, it doesn't do much to alleviate concerns that gangs are not downtown.
Here is the e-mail from New Enterprise Associates' general counsel, Louis Citron:
Dear Mayor Dixon,
My name is Louis Citron and I am the General Counsel at New Enterprise Associates. We are a venture capital firm located at 1119 St. Paul Street and have been located in the mid town/Belvedere hotel area for nearly 30 years. We have approximately 35 employees located at this office. I also live in Roland Park.
We would like you to know that New Enterprise Associates has decided to move its Baltimore city office to Timonium. We calculated that our decision will cost the merchants in this neighborhood at least $200,000 per year in revenue as we are terminating, among others, our cleaning service and security guard, and will no longer be paying for parking spaces in the local garages, and no longer buying our lunches from local restaurants and the Maryland Club.
Our decision was a result of the high level of crime in our neighborhood. Over the last several years, many of our cars have been broken into resulting in very expensive repairs, our employees have been robbed at gun point, drug needles and used condoms have been left on our front stoop, and psychotic homeless people have menaced our employees and threatened to kill them. We have voiced our frustrations to the local community leaders and police, but the environment has only worsened. The recent local beatings by roving teenagers during the day in this neighborhood, the raucous club in the basement of the Belvedere, and other gang violence throughout the city reinforces the appropriateness of New Enterprise Associates’ decision to move in order to protect its employees.
At this point, our decision is set in motion and cannot be reversed. However, we sincerely hope that you and the city council are able to rectify these problems as we are certain other businesses also will leave the city over time. Further, now that I no longer work in the city, I might move my family out of the city too if violence and crime continue to increase in the Roland Park area. I pay too much in taxes now to live in fear and to have sewer lines back up on a regular basis into my home.
We wish you and the city only the best of luck in addressing these issues and hope that you are successful. It is in no one’s interest to see Baltimore be viewed by the nation as a crime ridden and violent city that is totally out of control.
I would be happy to further discuss at your convenience.
A day after that e-mail was sent, on Thursday, the Downtown Partnership, the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association and the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore sent out a statement about crime:
Over the past month, a series of reports have made people uneasy about the level of safety in Downtown Baltimore. In truth, statistics show that both violent crime and property crime have decreased Downtown by 40% over the last nine years and that Downtown is still one of the safest areas in Baltimore.
On any typical day, there are at least 160,000 residents, visitors, and employees in Downtown Baltimore, going about their business without incident or interruption. The residential base continues to grow every year, outpacing most other cities and placing Baltimore 7th in the country in terms of the number of residents in a downtown area. Just in the last month, there has been an abundance of conventions, graduations, and business meetings – virtually all of which turned out to be positive experiences.
However, positive statistics can be no match for the power of perception. As a result, we would like to inform the metropolitan community about the steps that are being taken in response to recent events.
Most of the problems that have occurred involve disorderly behavior by groups of young people who are traveling between school and home, or occur very late at night after bars and clubs shut down. No particular group is being targeted and, typically, the interactions do not involve violence, only some form of intimidation. When violent acts do take place, most often they occur between people who know each other.
Any act of intimidation or violence is intolerable. That's why, as Downtown advocates, we are working with the Police Department to increase coverage in the affected areas. The department has quadrupled the number of officers deployed in Downtown and the Inner Harbor, including foot and mounted patrols, and additional steps, such as undercover operations, are being taken.
Additionally, our organizations are working closely with Federal and State law enforcement, as well as with private security, through programs like the Downtown Safety Coalition. There is an extensive network of surveillance and traffic cameras that allow more strategic placements of police officers and provide an extra tool to assist with prosecution. And, of course, there are 50 uniformed Downtown Baltimore Guides and 12 Waterfront Partnership Guides on the streets and along the harbor providing extra eyes for the police and a reassuring presence to pedestrians.
Mayor Sheila Dixon and Police Commissioner Bealefeld, along with committed business leaders, property owners, residents, and non-profit organizations, are united and working toward the same goal: to curtail future incidents in Downtown Baltimore. The reason is simple -- Downtown's jobs, investment, tax revenue, and visibility are vitally important to the entire region.
Like any community, we have come together around the current disturbances and are focused on ways to avert future incidents. Through it all, though, it is important to remember that the typical Downtown experience continues to be memorable, positive, and safe.
Categories: Confronting crime, Neighborhoods
Comments
1. RE: New Enterprise, Sheila Dixon
It is a loss when a business moves out of the city. Crime may not have been the only reason, but come on...it is still one of the reasons to leave rather than stay.
2. RE: Downtown Partnership
The root causes of the crime must be isolated. Cameras and more police in certain areas are not going to stop the problems from happening in other areas. You've got the downtown area which almost looks like a real city, but then you go a mile or so in certain directions and you've got some economic/cultural deadzones where most people do not want to go.
Root causes need to be figured out and dealt with so that we wouldn't even need cameras. One should really be able to walk from one edge of the city to the other in any direction and not run into touble from fellow citizens.
Where does crime come from?
Posted by: tom brown of baltimore | June 8, 2009 11:47 AM
Yet another fruit of The Great Society.
Posted by: William | June 8, 2009 2:26 PM
Baltimore is circling the drain, and this is letter is a gurgle as it empties out.
But, then, what should we expect? The Mayor is corrupt, her staff incompetent, and bureaucracy an active impediment to business formation.
Posted by: J.J.J.J. Jameson | June 8, 2009 2:29 PM
Crimes are down, but that's because city police either do no respond or yell at you for wasting their time.
A few weeks ago, people on my street called to report that the mirrors had been broken off all of cars along the street. Auto Insurance required that a report be filed on order for my $0 deductable to pay.
After 5 phone calls, an officer showed up 3 days after the incident and gave me the speach of 'how dare I waste his time' on the report.
Good luck Baltimore City, I'm moving to York, PA in 2 months.
Posted by: City Resident 33rd | June 8, 2009 3:31 PM
A most unusual and un-lawyerly letter: one wonders what the "rest of the story" is.
Posted by: Alexander Polsky | June 8, 2009 4:11 PM
30 years and they go now? Crime was a lot higher over the last 30 years than it is now. If there was ever a time to leave because of the crime it was 10 to 20 year ago. Now it's actually getting a lot better.
If I worked at NEA I'd write my own letter that I'm not driving way the heck out to Timonium with all that traffic.
And as for having the car broken into. How about riding the train?
Posted by: Lee Watkins | June 8, 2009 8:16 PM
My family and I have stopped going to Baltimore several years ago because of the out of control crime - and it is only getting worse. We discourage anyone from visiting the city for fear of becoming a victim of the rampant crime. I encourage everyone to boycott Baltimore until someone can take the situation into control. As of now there is no one capable or willing. Unless the criminal justice system is drastically changed there is no hope for a once beautiful city ... sad but true.
Posted by: PAFR | June 8, 2009 8:56 PM
none of these are really issues the city can fix, they are federal issues - no universal healthcare, prohibition on drugs, disinvestment public spaces, transit, and the urban form itself.
what do you get? black market cartels control the citys, schools, youth, lower classes. gang warefare. crazy people and drug addicts tossed out on the city streets with no care. Automobile dependence, and miles of sprawl as the only escape.
If you don't like the present situtation, you're going to have to legalize prohibited substances, extend universal healthcare coverage, house the sick and poor. Re-invest in public space and rail transit. And no more bailouts for the automakers or banker boyz.
Posted by: Lee Watkins | June 8, 2009 8:57 PM
I love how people like "City Resident 33rd" claim that they're going to move to York, PA because they're fed up with Baltimore. I have news for you: York is a dump. Don't believe me, then pick up a copy of Live's "Throwing Copper" album. There's a track on the album called "S--- Towne". Guess which city they were referring to. I'll give you two hints: it's not Baltimore, and the band hails from this city.
Posted by: Steve Langford | June 9, 2009 8:02 AM
Lee has part of the cure all wrong! Yes, maybe legalizing marijuana would lessen the numbers convicted with a criminal record, but I don't want to say yes to heroin, crack and cocaine use. As for reinvestment in mass transit, yes to this if itsupports a working class and their ability to get to and from work, but not as a place to harbor gangs to ride and prey on innocent victims. Thirdly, provide healthcare and housing for the sick and poor. The sick--Yes, the poor -NO MORE - it is these federally funded programs that have made it too easy for the sturggling poverty level class, to turn to all cash supported businesses (like drug dealing) rather than a hardworking, wage earning job, that provides them with health care. This part of your cure is so terribly wrong! History tells us, when this country was deep in the midst of the "Great Depression" with 25-30% of the population unemployed,did individuals look for housing vouchers and food stamps from their government? No. They looked for a respectful, hardworking job to be employed and provide for their own families. Federal programs were created to employ people. Do you see our federal and state programs of the day with free housing, the vouchers, and the food stamps creating an urban culture that yearns for such a job today? I SERIUOSLY DOUBT IT!
Posted by: city resident | June 9, 2009 9:19 AM
Citron should be embarrassed to have written this and that it got out. This company makes millions of millions of dollars and the role of a venture capital company in a community is to invest in businesses to build the economy. I'm tired of rich bratty businessmen complaining when their car gets keyed or that they have to look at homeless people.
Why don't we just be honest? NEA is giving up on Baltimore. You have plenty of money. Hire better security guards. It's the city, things happen, the same stuff happens in San Francisco and New York. Clearly Citron has an axe to grind with the mayor's office and to add insult to injury, bitching about his taxes.....embarrassing.....
Posted by: Mt. Vernon Business | June 9, 2009 3:42 PM
"The mayor expressed doubts that was the true reason."
What arrogance! Whether or not other factors were involved is irrelevant. Acting like being robbed at gunpoint, having cars vandalized, and watching customers being intimidated by roving thugs, is just part of city life is the attitude that is driving business out of Baltimore.
The first rule of customer service is to feel your client's pain when there is a problem. Empathy is free, Mayor Dixon. Would it kill you to acknowlege a real problem before going on autopilot with your stats and program portfolio?
Posted by: Chris N. | June 9, 2009 6:26 PM
Ahh, another fine example of the result of muti-cultural liberalism. The street thugs have plenty of time on their hands because they get generous welfare from those who work and the liberal city and state government lets them get away with crime. Time to wring those liberal hands, again, and again, and again...
Posted by: Doug Miles | June 9, 2009 8:38 PM
Doug Miles has the right tack on this, as have several others.
I don't know the history of your mayor, so I can't speak to facts.
But listen to the police radios in your city to get a gist of the truth on crime.
Again and again, we see the same exact problems echo around this country in EVERY large city.
Baltimore is no different, than Philly, Atlanta, D.C., or my city of Fort Wayne.
We're in the same boat - just at a different oar.
What IS different (over the past few decades) has been peoples' growing "uber-tolerance" to such activities.
One can even call it an "acquired apathy".
We chide those that point out such instances of crime (in the name of diversity), but at what cost to the city and it's inhabitants (those that do happen to OBEY the law and just want to live their lives)?
Gangs, cliques, or whatever other name you wish to call them by, continue to grow in numbers (latest DOJ stats have active gang membershiop at over 1 million), so WHEN are the politicians going to listen to the vast MAJORITY of the people that want this urban bane dispensed with, instead of pandering to the "select few" that hold court over these civil servants?
Posted by: Bob G. | June 10, 2009 11:30 AM
What this city needs is some good midnight basketball leagues. We should try to get some stimulus money for this purpose.
Posted by: White Cornerback | June 10, 2009 12:45 PM
RE: Gangs
Is gang membership illegal in Baltimore?
Posted by: tom brown of baltimore | June 10, 2009 4:26 PM
The reason crime statistics are down is because people are afraid to walk the streets! Statistics can't materialize if people avoid the the streets to avoid crime.
Posted by: factfinder | June 10, 2009 4:57 PM
I know I've been avoiding unnecessary wandering lately, but I still go out and have a good time in places that I usually go to. Don't let these dumb kids ruin our lives, but don't set yourself up as a target.
I carry pepper spray. It worked just fine on a guy my age at a bar one time, so I'm pretty sure it would work against a handful of kids if some kids ever thought it would be a good idea to endanger my safety.
Posted by: tom brown of baltimore | June 11, 2009 3:05 PM
On the upside, the Sun reported today that a commercial real estate firm with 20 employees is moving from White Marsh to the Sun Life building, which they recently acquired, downtown.
Posted by: justdafacts | June 16, 2009 9:54 PM