2014 and 2015 Grand Prix will be canceled, mayor tweets

“Grand Theft Auto. So many taxpayer dollars wasted on this debacle. A losing proposition from the start.”
– Michael Mitchell, via Facebook

“Can they go back in time and cancel the 2012 and 2013 ones too?”
– Jon Friedlander, via Facebook

“What a shame! The residents of this City don’t know how many steps backwards this is.”
– Jerry A. Williams

“‘We are a victim of our own success’ – SRB quote from the Sun article concerning the BGP cancellation. Is her Mayorness using the ‘royal we’”?
– Tom Gregory

“The Mayor called us victims, yet all you could hear was the cheering in downtown and City neighborhoods that the race is gone. We will never know how much taxpayers’s money was wasted on this race, but will celebrate nonetheless that ‘ding dong, the witch is dead.’”
– Lizzie 58

“So all it took was one Navy-Ohio State football game and a 2015 American Legion convention to rid us of the Grand Prix scourge? Who do we thank? Today’s Sun says it was not a person, place or thing that killed the Grand Prix, but the inanimate, faceless ‘calendar.’”
– Gerald Neily

“We have never seen, nor will we see, an honest and open accounting of this mess. There are untold millions spent on this that we will never know about.”
– Chris Sikora, via Facebook

“I am fully aware it’s not a scientific poll, but no one I know likes the Grand Prix. It’s disruptive, causes gridlock, costs gobs of money best spent elsewhere, makes using transit (especially Light Rail) into a debacle (and makes it very inconvenient for people south of Baltimore to use Light Rail to attend the State Fair). The Grand Prix is good for someone, but I venture to guess it sucks for most Baltimore residents.”
– aconcernedmarylander

“Yay! Maybe now we can see real improvements along Pratt St. Making it more pedestrian friendly and adding retail/food outlets will bring far more cash into Baltimore than the race ever would.”
– TimG
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“Hopefully one day we will be back”

“No Andretti….we’re breaking up with you & we DONT EVER WANT YOU BACK!!!!”
– Beth Hawked, via Facebook

“Take that Grand Prix shyt down to Georgia…plenty of space for it there.”
– Lee Patterson, via Facebook

 “Refund please.”
– Rhonda Wimbish, via Facebook
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Residents seek answers to potential health risks at Harbor Point

“It is time something positive is done with this waterfront eyesore! The EPA was so strict in their enforcement that they ran Bethlehem Steel out of business, so everyone can rest assured that they will not allow the hexavalent chromium dust to blow over on all of those Yuppies eating over-priced food at the nearby luxury restaurants! The Greenies will kill this project just like they killed the American steel industry at Sparrows Point.”
– Walter

“I don’t think the greenies, as you so condescendingly call them, want to stop the development, they just want it done in a manner that does not put the health of the community and indeed the harbor at risk. Breaching a contained chromium 6 site, containing over 2 million tons of material, with over 1000 puncturing piles using a technique never used on this scale before, should surely be fully scrutinized before potentially massive irreversible damage is done.”
– Robin Mudge

“I don’t believe you can ‘rest assured’ just because EPA wants to go along with things. With some of the events they have allowed to happen on their watch, Love Canal, the Erin Brokovich thing, you will more likely ‘rest in peace.’ For me, it’s caveat emptor and its up to the citizens to protect themselves.”
– David Mathis Johnson

“I think you should of interviewed qualified engineering, and construction professionals who have substantial experience building on sites like Harbor Point. Residents in the area certainly are allowed to be concerned about the safety of the site while construction is ongoing, however they are not authorities on [the] matter.”
– Jeff Walker

“It is amazing to me that this is the first time this is coming up. I have marveled at the idea that people are going to work and live on ground that will never be free of toxins. I keep asking myself if people realize this about Harbor Point.”
– Janna Rice, via Facebook
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Delegate crafting bill to crack down on ecoATM kiosks statewide

“You take a look at the police blotter in neighborhood newspapers and half of the crimes reported are for stolen phones.”
– Jamie Schott

“I don’t doubt that these kiosks have been used to fence stolen cell phones. But I’m skeptical that banning them within the city or state is going to have any real impact on the number of cell phone thefts. In addition to pawn shops, there are dozens of websites where you can print a postage-paid mailing label, drop the phone into a box, and within a few days receive a check — with even less scrutiny than it appears one receives at a kiosk. If citizens and politicians really won’t to put an end to cell phone theft, pressure needs to be put on the network providers and equipment makers to find ways to make sure that a phone that is reported stolen can never be used again.”
– Jon

“NBC News showed in May that it was possible to trick an ecoATM, sending two very-different looking producers who switched driver’s licenses and were still able to sell phones to the device, even though they basically had somebody else’s ID. Both women tried it and got past their system of video screening from San Diego  ‘Cash-for-phone ATMs may be fueling crime’.”
– baltimorebrew

“Duh – no accountability for the ownership of the phones, and so Baltimore residents get to be terrorized by little thugs for a few bucks.”
– Scott Meek, via Facebook

“Perhaps Baltimore City citizens should boycott the local malls who rent space to Eco-ATM until they agree to remove the kiosks.”
– Matt Gonter, via Facebook
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Do kiosks that pay cash for used cellphones promote theft?

“Why is no one talking about the fact that cell phone theft is part of a gang initiation rite? I personally know one of the victims and the detectives told her that the perp bragged about how he beat her up and took her phone to get into a gang.”
– C A Baker

“Just charge the kiosk operators with receiving stolen goods any time a stolen phone shows up in the bin. Sound reasonable?”
– David Taylor via Facebook

“Detailing my experiences dealing with ecoATM after a mugging earlier this summer: You also have to supply the ATM that accepted your phone, specific at least to the mall. They won’t know if your phone was retrieved until after their machine is full, which apparently can take a month or more. You of course need to supply your phone’s serial number, and optionally its IMEI. For all their technical savvy, ecoATM requires you to call their support line to report all of this information rather than fill out a form online that lets you track a ticket. Given the rigors of this process, its no surprise that ecoATM marks so few phones as stolen. . . My advice to other victims: never throw away the packaging for your phone, it’ll have the Serial and IMEI numbers. Call up ecoATM and file a ticket right away for all malls in the area. Lastly, call up your politicians and try to get this crap out of our state.”
– cbroome

“Hi cbroome, I work for ecoATM. I’m sorry to hear that you were robbed. I hope that we were able to help the police investigate and arrest the thief who robbed you. If the thief had sold your phone anyplace else, it may never have been returned and the police may never have known who had it. . . I’m sorry to hear how long it took to return your phone. It shouldn’t take a month.”
– Ryan Kuder

“I wasn’t able to get my phone back as of yet. After waiting two weeks for the phones in the ecoATMs in question to be ‘delivered to a lab’ so I could at least find out if mine was among them, I basically put my search on hiatus. I’m waiting for word back from ecoATM, though I’m not hopeful to get it. So far as the other measures your company offers, if the police have access to a database to track stolen devices, they don’t know about it. Since the city has no ecoATMs, I assume all transactions would be reported to the county? maybe to the state? Even under ideal circumstances this will take weeks to resolve. Bottom line, if the robbers weren’t confident they could get an easy payout I doubt we’d see the spike in street robberies in the city recently.”
– cbroome

(EDITOR’S NOTE: To read the full back-and-forth between cbroome and ecoATM’s Ryan Kuder go HERE. Any updates from company or theft victim are welcome.)
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Guns, fists, rope – tools of the trade for cellphone thieves

“This is pretty much a daily occurrence here in the Canton / Patterson Park neighborhoods.”
– Keith Robideau

“You know who else is complicit in these crimes? The cell phone manufacturers and vendors. . . If they were required to brick stolen phones at the request of the cops or the rightful owner, this whole lucrative bidness would end overnight.”
– mttwls
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BOE holds up award to contractor with history of MBE noncompliance

“As someone who attends BOE meetings regularly what I see is the use of MBE in an arbitrary way. Jolivet is right when he says that the board often allows businesses that are not currently in compliance with MBE to become compliant later. The entire process is tainted by subjectivity and Rule of Law and equal protection should not have a ‘best value’ list of objectives that are used arbitrarily to get the result the Mayor wants.”
– cwals99
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A heavenly profile of Baltimore’s sidewalk astronomer

“What a show of pyrotechnics the sky yields some nights! An astronomer’s eyes are fortunate to be so assailed”
– ushanellore

“Herman’s been cool for longer than a few neutron stars I know. But he ain’t dense. Indeed, The Force is with him!”
– davethesuave
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Baltimore history told with rock & roll & raunch

“Awesome show. Best show of the century (so far). Should go to the Big Apple, should go everywhere.”
– Michael Thomas Lynch

“Big Ass Flag. . . still humming that one from last night. Great (very loud) fun.”
– Rocky_Ground