donald c fry

As the City Council considers authorizing a record tax increment financing deal for Plank's Sagamore Development firm, many of the city's most influential pastors are taking sides.

Even after one of the deadliest year in Baltimore's history, violent crime is up this year. And in recent weeks, Baltimoreans have seen a spate of particularly frightening crimes that have risen above the usual drumbeat of daily crime in the city.

We are pleased to present the inaugural class of The Baltimore Sun's Business and Civic Hall of Fame.

Leaders of the Greater Baltimore Committee are calling on Baltimore-area businesses to embrace initiatives to hire ex-offenders and city youth as ways to build on slow but steady progress since last April's riots.

The Baltimore City Council is poised to attempt to override two mayoral vetoes tonight — the latest step in its campaign to try to weaken the city's "strong mayor" form of government.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation is pledging up to $1 million toward Baltimore's YouthWorks summer jobs program, which would provide nearly 1,100 of 6,000 jobs, the organization said Monday.

Baltimore's City Council voted overwhelmingly Thursday for a sweeping overhaul of city government — including two bills to strip to the mayor of near-absolute power over financial matters.

A bill to combine the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore is gathering support, but not everyone backs a provision that could put one president in charge of the two institutions.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called on businesses in Baltimore Monday to "think about safety first," saying some employees might have trouble getting to work.

The 2015 Transportation Report Card from the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance gave Baltimore's transportation system a D rating, based on 12 measures — not quite failing, but still an unacceptable score. The evaluation should serve as a wake-up call to the region's elected officials and civic leaders.

A Lockheed Martin executive has been elected chair of the board of directors of business organization Greater Baltimore Committee.

Baltimore area businesses are missing out on a crucial opportunity – exporting goods and services to a growing global market, a business advocacy group said in research unveiled Monday.

Baltimore Sun Media Group publisher Timothy E. Ryan has been chosen to lead the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, sources said Tuesday.

Gov. Larry Hogan has appointed two business executives as the newest members of the Maryland Port Commission, which is charged with keeping Baltimore's port competitive within the international maritime industry, officials said Wednesday.

The United Way of Central Maryland announced Tuesday that it named Donald C. Fry, the Greater Baltimore Committee's president and CEO, as the chair of its 2015 campaign.

The deadliest year

A summer jobs program for Baltimore youth placed a record number of workers this year, but that level of employment under the current model could be difficult to sustain, said Donald C. Fry, the head of the Greater Baltimore Committee.

Gov. Larry Hogan's top transportation officials will meet with elected leaders representing Baltimore Monday to discuss the city's mass transit needs in the aftermath of the governor's decision to scuttle the $2.9 billion Red Line.

The Hogan administration's meeting to discuss alternatives to the Red Line made clear that there is no alternative to the Red Line.

The Greater Baltimore Committee is urging business leaders to treat their employees to lunch on Wednesday, in hopes of helping city restaurants that lost money due to April's rioting and subsequent curfew.

Kevin Davis, who was thrust into the position of Baltimore's top cop on Wednesday, must confront problems on several fronts. Homicides and shootings have spiked in recent months. Meanwhile, he faces two significant rifts — one between the police and the community, and another between police leaders and the 2,800 or so rank-and-file officers.

Baltimore is at a pivotal point at which much is at stake — primarily more people's lives. And so the departure of Police Commissioner Anthony Batts should be quickly grasped as an opportunity for our elected leaders and the interim police commissioner, Kevin Davis, to begin acting and working together for the common good.

The city's youth employment program has 1,000 more applicants than jobs this summer, Baltimore officials said Wednesday, as they urged employers to help close a funding gap to hire more city teens and young adults. YouthWorks, the city's five-week summer program for 14- to- 21-year olds, needs $1.5 million to reach a goal of providing jobs for 8,000 young people.

About 40 people led by the Rev. Jamal Bryant briefly stopped traffic on I-395 Tuesday morning — — the first of what Bryant said would be "10 biblical plagues" unless state officials scrap plans for $30 million youth jail.

Greater Baltimore Committee's efforts to revive Baltimore through a second-chance hiring push deserves support

The proposed Red Line light rail project will deliver the sort of employment opportunities that Baltimore residents across the city rose up to demand during recent protests, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other elected officials said Tuesday,

What can the GBC do about fixing post-Freddie Gray Baltimore? Plenty.

The new board chair of the Greater Baltimore Committee said Monday the organization would put new emphasis on finding ways to boost employment chances for ex-offenders and people arrested but never convicted after the wake-up call of the riots.

U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said plans for a a new light rail line in Baltimore should move forward in a speech in Baltimore Monday that promoted the Obama administration's economic agenda.

Business advocates said they were relieved that cuts to Maryland economic development programs weren't deeper in Gov. Larry Hogan's first budget.

Gov.-elect Larry Hogan has chosen a prominent Baltimore-area entrepreneur and investment banker to lead the agency charged with fulfilling Hogan's core campaign promise to attract more business and jobs to Maryland.

Claim that Red Line is needed for Baltimore's future jobs is not supported by facts

With Maryland's long campaign for governor now over, the unexpected election of Republican businessman Larry Hogan has given rise to an intense new campaign now just beginning: The jockeying among advocates and interest groups for attention, jobs and influence in a rare GOP administration.

Industry growth and a tide of employee retirements in Baltimore's transportation sector will create or leave open thousands of jobs by 2020, but local job seekers aren't prepared to fill them, according to a study released Monday by the Opportunity Collaborative.

The city's plan to award naming rights to the Baltimore Arena to the Royal Farms chain of convenience stores drew praise Tuesday as a pairing almost as good as Western fries and chicken, though some still questioned the need to place yet another corporate logo on a municipal building.

Some say the struggles of the Inner Harbor carousel — which received a more forgiving lease this month — speak to the limits of smaller projects and the need for a bigger scope when it comes to changing the dynamic of the south side of the waterfront.

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz is balking at the price tag of the massive east-west Red Line transit project, telling state officials the county will contribute about half the funding it is being asked for — and only then if certain conditions are met.

Having the All-Star Game in Baltimore would give the Orioles a chance to tout the team's turnaround from years of dismal results, as well as give an incentive with season-ticket packages for 2015 and 2016 if the club ties access to the event to longer season plans. And it would pump millions into the local economy, while giving Peter G. Angelos one of his biggest moments as Orioles owner on a national stage.

Controversial legislation intended to help ex-convicts find jobs is headed to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for her expected signature after the City Council gave the measure final approval Monday.

It's still not too late to address business' reasonable concerns with a measure designed to help ex-offenders — but it will only happen if Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake gets involved.

Supporters of a proposed law to help more ex-convicts land jobs in Baltimore scored a victory Monday when they fended off efforts by the business community to block the measure indefinitely.

Legislation limiting criminal background checks in hiring may not be a job killer, but the business community still has reasonable objections to Baltimore's "Ban the Box" bill as it's drafted.

Ban the Box' law represents a much-needed reform