I love my hometown of Baltimore, but we have our many problems. One of the biggest is waste disposal. Baltimore Democrats hated it when Donald Trump brought attention to the rat-infested and crumbling West Baltimore, part of Maryland’s 7th Congressional District. But it was a long time coming and it needed to be done. We soon learned other things, like how private companies were just illegally dumping trash in the alleys there and DPW was doing virtually nothing to stop them.
Other stories however just fly under the radar until they are practically under the nose, or in my case in my line of sight after having been right under a scooter. I am a huge critic of poorly managed left-wing cities like San Francisco where the streets are apparently paved in poop, but this past Saturday I learned the hard way that my home city of Baltimore has sunk lower than that. I mean at least in San Francisco they clean up when people poop in the streets. In Baltimore however, city services apparently is not responsible for clearing human feces from the streets and sidewalks. But let me backtrack a bit and give some more detailed background into how I found this out.
This past Saturday I was sign-waving with Candidates in Downtown Baltimore, although this bit is unimportant. When everything was wrapped up, I began walking west on Pratt Street to catch the Light Rail home. It’s a pretty familiar walk for me, past Harbor Place, through McKeldin Square, past the 2 blocks occupied by the Convention Center till I get to Howard and cross to the side occupied by the Hilton and the Convention Center Light Rail stop. I am not usually surprised by much during this walk. Maybe there is a convention going on, or maybe new construction. But otherwise, it was usually the same old thing.
Not this Saturday though. As I walked under the awning of the Convention Center’s entrance at Howard and Pratt, almost at my destination, my nose was assaulted by an unpleasant but not unfamiliar odor. I began to scan the sidewalk for the source, relived at this point because I knew I hadn’t yet stepped in anything, but anxious to locate the source and confirm its origin. And then I located it on the sidewalk, a sizeable bowel movement, not of a dog or horse, but of clearly Human origin based on its size. To add insult to injury, I was clearly not the first person to encounter it. The feces had clearly been run over by one of those rentable motorized scooters, most likely an intentional action as the bowel movement would have been easily spotted by any pedestrians. Just another proud moment for Baltimore.
I probably don’t need to retell this next part as you can guess what happened from this post’s title as well as the last few indignant paragraphs, however for posterity’s sake I will. My next natural course of action was to call 311, supposedly city services. I pay my taxes for it after all, so the least they can do is send someone out to clean the street. To my dismay, however, after spelling out what happened and where I was given some shocking news. According to the lady at the 311 call center, apparently, Baltimore City doesn’t believe they are responsible for cleaning up human waste on the streets. Shocking yes, but not surprising.
Baltimore has always been abysmal about waste management, but it has been especially horrid in 2020. After waste management strikes and such things, the city has virtually cut back on all waste disposal. Scheduled trash pickups are being missed. Bulk Trash has been suspended indefinitely. Recycling pickup has been suspended till November. Our city gets dirtier while Jack Young and the gang cut themselves big fat paychecks, and Brandon Scott tells people to elect him Mayor while dodging debates along with his responsibilities to his constituents. But maybe we deserve it, after all, we keep electing these same dirty politicians who leave our streets dirty.
William Hellmann 