With the mayors of New York, Oakland and many other cities using riot police to disperse their Occupy Wall Street encampments, it seems only a matter of time before Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake brings the hammer down on Occupy Baltimore.

Her recent icy remarks (“We will deal with it at a time of our choosing”), the finger-wagging editorials from the Baltimore Sun (“Time for ‘Occupy’ to grow up”) and the vulture-like circling of local television news trucks are powerful clues that the days of the McKeldin Square campout-for-a-cause may be numbered.

While asking for permission to stay put through the middle of April, the Occupiers have also been anticipating eviction by the city and debating resistance or alternative strategies as their movement evolves, or perhaps just takes a winter sabbatical.

Reasonable-sounding (to us) arguments about why Occupiers should be left alone (free speech, democracy, they’re not harming anybody) have fallen on deaf ears elsewhere. Still, in Baltimore, maybe it is time for the Occupiers to freshen and focus their protest, figure out what’s important aside from where they lay their heads at night.

Whatever happens, by choice or force, it would be a shame for all that passion and energy go to waste. It’s been refreshing to see something at the Inner Harbor besides whizzing traffic and plastic crab keychains. People willing to act audaciously to call attention to outrageous problems – crony capitalism, rogue financial institutions, raging unemployment – who’d a thunk it? In sleepy Baltimore!

Here’s our Ideas, What are Yours?

Anyway, here are some ideas from us, both micro and macro, some cerebral, some physical, for how the Occupiers could put all their skills, passion, creativity and high dudgeon to use this winter, right here in Baltimore.

We invite Occupy participants to share their thoughts and ask readers to offer suggestions as well. No doubt there are resources we haven’t considered so please, anyone, suggest them too.

1. Rebuild Something. Lakeland Elementary School in south Baltimore, for example, had a bad thing happen recently: vandals torched their play structure. The slide, the climbing structures, were all melted and wrecked. Call the principal and offer to help. The kids were devastated when this happened. If not this project, keep an eye open for others where a little goodwill and muscle are all that’s needed.

RESOURCE: Lakeland Elementary School, principal Najib Jamal, 410-396-1406.

2. Monitor City Spending. Sit in on a Wednesday Board of Estimates meeting (9 a.m., 2nd floor of City Hall), the place where – Ka-Ching! – millions of public dollars are spent in the blink of an eye. If nothing else it will startle city officials, since only a small cluster of bureaucrats and contractors typically show up, and the meetings are often concluded in under 10 minutes. To really make the trip worthwhile, though, bone up the night before on the BOE agendas, available online, where the agencies, vendors and expenditures are listed.

RESOURCES: Here’s the BOE website and read The Brew, particularly Mark Reutter’s “Inside City Hall” feature (latest).

3. Help Document the Cruddy State of Baltimore Schools. A couple of groups have really been pushing political leaders lately to tackle this $2.8 billion problem of dilapidated city public schools. They’ve had kids parading photos of cockroaches overflowing toilets down near City Hall, brought busloads of demonstrators from city churches to Ritzy Harbor East. Help them document the need in video, photographs and presentations.

RESOURCES: Transform Baltimore / Baltimore Education Coalition (BEC), Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD).

4. Shame a Slumlord. Do research and identify the city’s worst slumlords and set up protests outside their homes, which are not likely to be in the city. Same goes for the lead paint violators, responsible for failing to protect residents of their rental units from old lead-based paint that flakes off and causes brain damage. Our own Housing Authority of Baltimore City, historically, was one of them. Their lead-painted public housing units resulted over the years in poisoned residents now owed $12 million in judgments. But HABC has refused in court to pay what the residents’ lawyers say they are owed. Maybe a visit from you is in order?

RESOURCES: Baltimore Slumlord Watch. There are links to State of Maryland databases to help you search court cases, property records, the lead registry, etc.

5. Help City Youth Make Their own Career Paths – You think you’re having a tough time finding a job? High school drop-outs and even graduates from Baltimore city schools are often, in this broken economy, ill-prepared for the workforce, much less college. A few hours of “training” or a resume-writing workshop don’t cut it. Some are finding new ways to help people generate their own jobs and careers, like New Lens, which teaches media and video production skills to city public school students. Check out the conference planned on Jan. 28 at Coppin State University about how young people could lead and take ownership of employment systems.

RESOURCES: New Lens, Baltimore Algebra Project and Wide Angle Youth Media.

6. Get Serious about the BDC. The Baltimore Development Corp. is the quasi-public agency where the city sets its development priorities and the nexus where developer tax breaks (PILOTs, TIFs) and politics meet. An offshoot of Occupy Baltimore, Another BDC is Possible, held a demonstration earlier this month in front of BDC offices. So what’s next? More is needed than a future chitchat with the BDC’s president.

RESOURCES: The Task Force on Baltimore City Public/Private Development Financing Efforts, a report (with appendices) available from Councilman Carl Stokes, The Brew’s continuing series on campaign contributions and developer tax and rent breaks.

7. Scrub Away Some of the Dirt in Alleys and City-Owned Vacant Houses. Declare a “filth-free” zone in any of the hundreds of residential blocks north, south, east and west of downtown. Ask City Hall – which has expressed great concern about your sanitary habits at McKeldin Square – to help you clean up municipally-owned property. You’ll find many blocks so bombed-out that you might have to, well, occupy to get the job done.

RESOURCES: Your own eyes on just about any MTA bus out of downtown. Try the 1 and 15 routes for starters. Then contact the community association or neighborhood leaders in the area to clue them in to your idea and seek their input. LiveBaltimore has a handy list of neighborhood profiles (and map) to lead you to the right group or person.