The Greater Baltimore Committee is urging gubernatorial candidates Gov. Robert Ehrlich and Baltimore Mayor Martin O?Malley to support initiatives ranging from expanded business tax credits and greater state investment in biotech work to support for eminent domain-based commercial development and BRAC-related project streamlining.
In a 36-item list of recommendations, titled “Setting the Agenda: Governing Through Leadership and Accountability,” the GBC board and member CEOs outlined issues of specific concern and forwarded them to both campaigns.
Both Ehrlich and O?Malley have been invited to address the recommendations at consecutive meetings with the GBC board Friday.
“The governor, in the past, has opposed taking private property for economic development purposes,” Ehrlich campaign spokeswoman Shareese Deleaver ? who had not seen the GBC document ? said of one of the report?s more charged recommendations.
The report includes such GBC priorities as enhancing the role of minority- and women-owned businesses in joint venture enterprises and creating a line item in the state?s general fund operating budget for funds related to base realignment and closure projects.
It also calls for updating the state?s consolidated transportation plan to handle impending BRAC-related pressures on the regional infrastructure and investigating “non-traditional” ways of recruiting, employing and retraining public school teachers and principals.
“The mayor is on board with all those recommendations,” O?Malley campaign spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said of the summarized report items, adding that his candidate was in favor of the “select” use of eminent domain in blighted urban areas.
With a projected, BRAC-related infusion of nearly 40,000 jobs pending for the region, GBC President Donald Fry was quick to point out the public-private challenge looming for local decision-makers and how the report relates.
