Hotel would be an unwise use of special space
The American Institute of Architects' Urban Design Committee has long believed that the undeveloped space in front of Camden Station between Eutaw and Howard streets should be converted into a first-class urban plaza.
In his article on the recent proposal for a new hotel to be put in this lot, Edward Gunts identified how a "Thicket of issues lies in path to new hotel" (Nov. 24). We believe building the hotel in this location would be short-sighted, and would forgo the area's potential to accommodate an open space and a hotel.
A great public open space would provide many benefits to the "west-side renaissance." It would also provide an appropriate foreground to the historic Camden Station building, a grand entrance to the baseball stadium, an effective "front door" to the city and a visual link to downtown from both the interior and the exterior of the ballpark.
And it would create a breakout space for the convention center and a location for all the activities, vendors and impromptu assemblies at the entrance to Camden Yards.
Baltimore deserves a gathering, relaxing, playing and reading place for visitors as well as for the people who live and work in our great city.
As architects and urban planners, we realize it is tough for a city government to put valuable land to public use when it could generate tax revenue, particularly in these difficult economic times. But we also know that land adjacent to well-designed urban spaces increases the value of its neighbors. Mount Vernon Place is a perfect example.
And this space is one of the few downtown sites with the potential to become a great urban "place-making" success story - a space people really use, remember and talk about long after visiting Baltimore.
The right decision for the city is to put the hotel on an adjacent or nearby less-critical site (of which several are available) and give this parcel back to the public to improve our common urban experience.
Klaus Philipsen
Baltimore
The writer is co-chairman of the Urban Design Committee of the American Institute of Architects - Baltimore.
Transit systems enhance urban life
As a resident of Washington who uses the Metro daily, I see firsthand the great things the system has done for the Washington area. It has spurred development in the city as well as new urban centers in the suburbs (Bethesda, Arlington) and attracted a new wave of residents.
Yes, building a comprehensive rail system in Baltimore will be expensive. And yes, the plan has detractors who claim no one will use it. But the Washington Metro had its share of suburban detractors 30 years ago, too.
It is important to realize what rail transit will and will not do. It will not reduce traffic in the area in and of itself. It will, however, offer a viable alternative to the sizable number of people who live and work in Baltimore, enabling them to avoid the congestion.
It will also attract new residents to the city as well as the new development projects that, as a rule, spring up around major transit stops.
It will not reduce air pollution in and of itself. It will, however, encourage new businesses to locate in the city and existing ones to stay.
The choice for Baltimore is stark and simple. Do you want the city to flourish, with a stable presence of middle- to upper-income residents, businesses and cultural institutions and be a great place to live, work and play like Boston and Washington?
Or do you wish to abandon the city in favor of sterile, sprawling suburbs?
Rob Kogan
Washington
Stokes verdict offers no justice
The search for justice is a complicated one. However, there is no justice in allowing a man to arm himself, seek the man he feels has wronged him and shoot him in the street ("Acquittal of Stokes is a case of moral - not legal - justice," Dec. 21).
Allowing such vigilante justice is an affront to the sense of justice we strive to uphold. And after such a verdict, is anyone safe from a person who thinks he or she has been affronted in some way?
At what point is the grief or abuse suffered terrible enough to warrant a violent response? And who determines what response is appropriate?
The verdict in the Dontee Stokes trial is a perversion of the jury system our Founders relied upon to protect us from abuse by the state.
We are a nation of laws. The rule of law and the equal protection of the laws must be guaranteed to all citizens. There is no instance, save cases of self-defense, in which shooting another person is an acceptable solution.
I am sorry for the pain Mr. Stokes allegedly endured (and I do believe him), but I cannot excuse his behavior.
Stephen M. Chittenden
Baltimore
Prison alternatives can save millions
The writer of the letter "Jails are best way to control crime rate" (Dec. 14) suggests Maryland should increase its prison capacity by "a minimum of 10,000 beds," because "prison is the most cost-effective crime control that we know of." However, every piece of data we have shows that prison is the least effective and most expensive way to deal with crime.
Look at what we spend: $900 million a year, $24,000 on average per inmate. Virtually all these prisoners will be released someday, and when they are, 43 percent will wind up back behind bars after one year and 67 percent after three years. And most of these recidivists are nonviolent offenders whose crimes are the result of their drug addictions.
While education and rehabilitation programs exist in Maryland prisons, there are not enough of them. Waiting lists are long. And an inmate serving a short sentence for repeated nonviolent, drug-related offenses is not eligible for many of the programs.
Incarceration without rehabilitation is a huge reason why most inmates are rearrested shortly after their release. Another reason is lack of community support.
People with past felony convictions are discriminated against by employers, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City and numerous social service programs. The inability to acquire employment and housing stacks the deck heavily against them.
Drug addiction is a disease for which prison is not the cure. Other states (California, Arizona and Texas, to name a few) have taken the lead and have begun to divert drug offenders into treatment programs in lieu of prison.
The result is hundreds of millions of dollars saved every year for taxpayers.
Thomas V. Quayle
Baltimore
The letter was also signed by five other members of the staff of Alternative Directions Inc.
Prostitution makes all women a target
The recent letter "Prostitution isn't pressing crime issue" (Dec. 15) expresses exasperation at the residents of Bolton Hill who seek to stop prostitution in their neighborhood, and dismisses it as a trivial crime on the order of "hubcap theft and truancy." I disagree.
In the 1970s, as a 21-year-old Maryland Institute College of Art student, I rented a studio apartment in the 1200 block of St. Paul St. I soon realized why it was such a bargain - at dusk each night a parade of prostitutes circled the block.
They never gave me any trouble, but the men who came looking for them did. I would walk down the street in the standard art student attire of the day - wire-rim glasses, worn sweater, flannel shirt, paint-spattered jeans and construction boots. Dressed in this fetching ensemble, I was often harassed by men who accosted me on the sidewalk or pulled over in their cars.
Because it was an area known for prostitution, all young women, no matter how they were dressed, were considered fair game. I couldn't relax with a soda on the front stoop; I cultivated a blank stare when walking alone. And I worried about being assaulted by one of the men drawn to the area.
When my lease was up, I moved to Charles Village, and I'll never forget the first day in my new apartment - I walked to the store in cutoffs, and noticed gratefully that no one gave me a second glance.
The point is that prostitution is not a "victimless crime."
It has the same effect on women and girls in a neighborhood as all crime does: It eats away at their sense of security, compromises their independence and affects their ability to live a normal life.
Helen Glazer
Owings Mills
Environmentalists serve public interest
Business lobbyists and Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s transition team are gleefully stating that business interest groups, rather than environmentalists, will now have increased access to the governor ("Ehrlich transition concerns activists," Dec. 15).
Implicit in their statement is the view that the two groups are simply opposite sides of the same coin. This view is validated when the press refers to all groups uniformly as "interest groups." But all interest groups are not equal.
The "interest" of business groups typically revolves around activities that put money in the pockets of their constituencies. The benefits of these activities often accrue to very few people.
Yet the issues promoted by environmental interest groups - providing clean air and water and preserving agriculture and fisheries and the integrity of the ecosystems upon which all life depends - do not generate profits for environmentalists.
Consider the story of the rockfish. Environmentalists persuaded the government to impose a fishing moratorium on the rapidly vanishing fish, despite the wishes of commercial groups. This successful measure brought economic benefits to the very groups that opposed it, along with recreational and ecological benefits for everyone in the area. Environmental groups didn't make a cent.
Poll after poll shows public support for environmental activism. The fact that stronger environmental laws have not passed testifies to the importance of money and contributions in our electoral system.
If Mr. Ehrlich wants to be perceived as tapping the goodwill of the people rather than the pocketbooks of contributors, he should include the environmental community in his decision-making.
Jim Emberger
Baltimore
Cross Street Market is on the right track
The upscale grocery store proposed for a second floor addition to Cross Street Market is a flawed concept ("Market daze," editorial, Dec. 9).
The market's existing merchants do an admirable job of serving customers from Federal Hill and South Baltimore, as well as visitors from around the metropolitan region.
If a need does indeed exist for an upscale grocery in gentrified Federal Hill, there are surely better places for it than on top of the current market. The Light Street Business District is pock-marked with vacant commercial space that could be renovated to serve as a grocery.
My family opened a lunch counter in Cross Street Market in 1964. In the 38 years since, the business has grown every year. Our clientele genuinely reflects the neighborhoods we serve.
And since the Baltimore Municipal Market Corporation took over responsibility for the city markets, there has been vast improvement in the condition of our facility, and more improvements are on the way.
Cross Street Market is certainly on the right course.
John Nichols
Baltimore
The writer is the owner of Steve's Lunch.
Not all 'faith groups' support Bush plan
Under the headline "Faith groups get boost in Bush order" (Dec. 13), The Sun's article on the president signing an order "allowing taxpayer money to flow to organizations that discriminate in their hiring on the basis of religion" begins: "In a victory for churches and other religious groups ..."
Faith groups did not get a "boost," and this event is not a "victory for churches." The American separation of church and state protects religion, and the establishment of religious organizations approved by the administration is destructive of religious and other freedoms.
The religious groups the administration favors are those that teach hatred of homosexuals and nonsense about pregnancy. This order is really about putting federal money into their activities.
I am a faithful member of a "faith-based group" not favored by the present administration, the Episcopal Church. I am also a U.S. citizen, and I think it is in the interest of our society to help those in need.
Since I belong to a church, I contribute to my church's programs that contribute to this effort. And since I am a taxpayer, I want my taxes to contribute to the same goals.
But I do not want them allocated by the Bush administration to groups that exclude citizens it does not like.
Edna E. Heatherington
Baltimore
Rejecting vaccine sends policy message
In addition to the medical risks, there is a political reason to refuse smallpox vaccinations ("Public may receive smallpox vaccine in '04," Dec. 15). If large numbers of us refuse vaccination, it will send a blunt message to the administration that enough is enough and it must clean up its foreign policy act, beginning in the Middle East.
Americans are potential targets of a smallpox attack not because of anything we, as individual citizens, are doing overseas. It is because of what our government is doing, allegedly on our behalf.
With its global diplomatic and military empire, financed by an apparently bottomless pit of money (we spend billions for new bases in Qatar and the Horn of Africa, while our cities and states slowly go broke), the U.S. government is constantly stirring murky political pots and crawling into bed with corrupt autocrats, especially the oil-rich kind.
The smallpox threat is blowback from decades of such behavior.
As individual Americans we can lodge a strong protest against our leaders' international machinations by refusing to be vaccinated for smallpox. The government would then be forced to decide which is more important - pursuing its same-old dangerous policies or the safety of its citizens.
Herman M. Heyn
Baltimore
Venezuela's protests endanger democracy
The Sun's article "Protests resume across Venezuela" (Dec. 27) reminds us that a nation is a fragile construct that requires a healthy habitat. And that the clock is ticking not only against left-leaning President Hugo Chavez but Venezuelan democracy.
The opposition is perverting the right of petition and redress. It confuses mobocracy with democracy. And having suffered from Mr. Chavez's inept administration, recent droughts, natural disasters and a legacy of civic corruption, local authorities are ill-equipped to handle the food and fuel crisis precipitated by the daily street marches.
The anti-Chavez strike violates multiple laws. Yet opposition leaders express indignation when their actions result in mild punishment. If errant U.S. soldiers were to rebel as some members of Venezuela's military did last April, they could be court-martialed, while striking federal workers can be jailed and heavily fined.
No matter how odious the opposition finds Mr. Chavez, its solution to the impasse must be in harmony with the country's constitution. Moderation is essential on both sides to advance democracy. And the opposition's shrill and shifting ultimatums, answered by Mr. Chavez's contempt, are of no help.
But the opposition's actions are the antithesis of lawful deportment, and purposely destroying the economy is hardly a worthy engine for democratic change.
Sarah Birns
Washington
The writer is a research associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.