Sometimes the city's a victim of its own reputation. Sometimes, City Hall doesn't help. Elliot Zulver knows. His Walbrook Mill & Lumber Co.'s been in Baltimore for 78 years, but not so that anyone currently in government seems to notice.
Nearly three weeks ago on this newspaper's editorial page, there appeared a letter from Zulver, which should have moved everyone at City Hall with an interest in Baltimore's economy, or its reputation, but apparently awakened exactly no one.
Zulver, vice president of Walbrook Mill & Lumber, wrote that he'd purchased a company in Timonium (Saco Supply Co.), most of whose day-to-day operations he wished to transfer to his city location.
"Therefore," he wrote, "I offered more than 25 employees of the Timonium location the opportunity to relocate. I was truly amazed to find out how many of these employees would not accept employment with my company because the job was located in the city. In no uncertain terms, these people would not work in Baltimore City."
"It wasn't the specific location of my business," Zulver wrote, "as they did not even know the neighborhood in which it is located. It's just that it was the city" -- 2636 W. North Ave. -- but, Zulver said yesterday morning, "It has nothing to do with the neighborhood. For people out in the county, even Lake Avenue's too far south. They're uncomfortable with the idea of the city."
Zulver was hoping for response from City Hall, a sign that someone's sensitive about the city's image. Along with the letter in this newspaper, there was a news item in the Baltimore Business Journal, noting his purchase of the Saco Supply Co., and a television report about his letter to the editor.
"I was amazed," Zulver said, "at the number of comments I got. Probably 50 different people, business people in the city and the county, and almost all of them saying the same thing: 'Have you heard from the mayor?'
"OK, maybe the mayor himself doesn't call, but you'd think some sharp economic development person working for the city would say, 'Let's call him up this guy and make sure he stays.' "
And?
Nothing.
"Ninety employees," Zulver said, "the majority of whom live in the city, and no response."
And that's not all.
Business in the city's pretty good -- so good, in fact, that Zulver's expanding his North Avenue operations. But he's having problems. A few times, people have broken onto the property, at night, and stolen materials.
To stop the stealing, Zulver wants to put up a wall, which will
cost about $20,000. No problem. He contacted the city, and was told he would need a permit, and a zoning ordinance, to put up the wall. Still no problem. Then he was told, it'll take several months -- months in which the stealing could continue -- before he could get the needed papers and begin to build his wall.
So Zulver wrote letters -- to Mayor Schmoke, to Housing Commissioner Daniel Henson -- asking if there was a way to speed the process.
He's still waiting for a response.
"Shouldn't there be a person at City Hall," Zulver asked yesterday, "to call on business people with this kind of problem? I don't have time for this. I'm not saying that I'm better than the process, but I pay about $25,000 a year in property taxes. We've been here 78 years. Doesn't anybody care?"
Yesterday, calls from this office to officials at City Hall were not returned.
Zulver, still wondering how to shift employees from Timonium to the city, has one last ironic story: Two weeks ago, he got a telephone call. Two guys drove onto the lot of another business Zulver owns in Timonium -- the Taylor Rental Store, which is located just across the street from his Saco Supply Co. -- and stole some equipment. A mechanic ran out and tried to stop them. They beat him up.
"I'll tell you one thing," Zulver said. "Nothing like that's ever happened at my North Avenue business."
The message? There are troubles everywhere, even in allegedly safe suburbia. Sometimes, the city of Baltimore's merely a victim of its own reputation. But sometimes, those at City Hall could help, only it never occurs to anybody to pick up a telephone.