Anti-Rate Hike Coalition to Hold Demonstration at Governor's Mansion

(The below is a press release from The Maryland Coalition to Stop the BGE Rate Hike)

On Saturday June 23, 2007 the Maryland Coalition to Stop the BGE Rate Hike will be organizing citizens from Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County to demonstrate and rally at the Governor's Mansion to demand that Governor O'Malley immediately re-regulate the electric utility industry in Maryland. The Coalition will be holding the demonstration and rally beginning at 1 pm at the Governor's Mansion in Annapolis, MD.

Last summer, when initial announcement of a 72% rate increase was made, then Mayor O'Malley negotiated a 15% increase and told the citizens of Maryland that he had stopped the rate hike. However under his watch as governor he has allowed additional increases in March and June that have since brought the increase to 67%. The Coalition believes that the Governor's recent announcement to set aside $57 million dollars to aid rate payers is nothing more than welfare and obscures the fact that the June 1st rate increase is unjust and unwarranted.

The Coalition is extending itsfight against BGE into more counties affected by the rate increase. The Coalition is taking their demands directly to the Governor and State Legislature to re-regulate the industry, restoring price caps and turn ownership of electric utilities over to municipal and state control.

The Maryland Coalition to Stop the BGE Rate Hike is an umbrella organization of various community groups, activists and concerned citizens who have been working together for over a year to stop the energy rate hike for over 1.3 million BGE residential customers. For information contact Leo Burroughs, Jr. - 410.523.6118 or Nnamdi Lumumba - 443.992.7276.

Regional Transportation Plan....Sure to be a major dust gatherer

CP testified before City Council on the finally, yes it has been released, Annapolis Regional Transportation Vision and Master Plan….known as ARTVAMP. Yes. ARTVAMP. Two years late. $600,000 later, but who is in charge? Who take ownership? Who will adopt it? Who will adhere to it? It is a state-county-city creation, but since the day it was signed at a ceremony at the Courthouse on Church Circle some four or five years ago, it seems that each of the three governments, some of which changed hands, lost interest.
CP told the City Council to do something, take action, follow a plan any plan, just do something!!! We are in a crisis. It seems that no local elected official is willing to be the champion for real transportation planning.
Alderman Sam Shropshire, the man now working to ban plastic bags in supermarkets, took the mike and well, he did a little bit of grandstanding promising to hold a super regional summit Annapolis. Sam also wants a third Bay Bridge crossing but had nothing to say about the city’s plan to stop its bus service over the existing bridge. Yeah-Sam, what we need is another meeting! Here is what CP wrote to him the next morning:

SAM: I think you were grandstanding last night. There have been more than enough transit summits. There were two major regional transportation conferences in April. Oddly enough, they were two days apart--even those organizers did not know what they were each doing. I informed you and others about them. I was the only Annapolitan at either of them--nobody from city gov't, no local folks, no ARTMA (for whatever that is worth...)
[note to readers…ARTMA or the Annapolis Regional Transportation Management Ass’n is a local know nothing, do nothing, but is a local group deeply, deeply concerned about creating an image that they are doing something…about traffic]
We do not fit into the larger regional transit picture. We are a bare blip on the radar and will likely always be that. What we don’t need is another meeting. We have been the tail wagging the county dog long enough. We cannot wag a state and regional dog. We are the end of the line (if there ever will be one) and this ARTVAMP thing does not even mention rail. It is not up to our city to push for a bay bridge.
It is up to us to have real bike lanes, a real bus system, real links to DC and Baltimore via bus, real bike and walking programs, real incentives to get people out of cars, out of driving to downtown, but you keep focusing on a third bridge and rail. What we need is to take the reins of our ailing transit system, replace the director, join up with the county and work on real funding and reinstating bus service to Baltimore, not dumping the Kent Island shuttle and quit talking about a third bay bridge span ( as is your favorite) and get real local and regional transit. Why is it so hard for you to understand what we as a city can do NOW...on our own???
We don't need a regional transit summit. We need a real city bus system and we need real commitments for walking, biking, vanpooling etc etc and the mayor has steadfastly refused any attempt to get city employees out of their cars!!!!! Instead, she and others rolled over while the state built a new garage in town!!!!