Thanks to Yvonne Wenger and all of other Baltimore Sun’s journalists who have been doing excellent, well-researched work on the ongoing saga of city government (“Baltimore City Council members seek charter reforms to allow removal of a mayor amid investigations into Catherine Pugh,” April 29). All of these proposed changes to the City Charter should go a good way in returning checks and balances to the legislative process.
However, there was no mention of scrapping the Baltimore City Board of Estimates. That is the back room arm of city government comprised of the mayor, City Council president and the comptroller. As long as this board continues to operate unfettered and out of public scrutiny, nothing will really change at City Hall. All of the power will remain in the executive branch and the cronyism and clandestine activities will continue like a broken record in Charm City. Baltimore is about the only major city remaining on the books to still have a board of estimates operating in basic secrecy.
When will we really wake up? It took this atom bomb of an epic to wake us up, didn't it?
I say eliminate the Board of Estimates altogether and eliminate the continuing temptation for greed. I feel that getting rid of the board will be essential to Baltimore in order to keep it a major city. It's time for city government to become totally transparent, don't you think?
George Hammerbacher, Baltimore