Former MSA chair Kelso: Don’t just save jobs, save Oriole Park oversight

I read with great interest Jeff Barker’s article, “As lease nears end, Orioles and Maryland may consider development rights separately” (Nov. 27), and I agree that the portion of the memorandum of understanding relating to development rights needs to be totally reconsidered. When and if such reconsideration takes place, the Maryland Stadium Authority must be a partner in any redevelopment, and the state must have an opportunity to benefit from any upside success.

While I also appreciate negotiators’ attempts to protect employees they had originally planned to dismiss, turning the MSA, or any state agency, into a staffing firm makes little sense. The only solution is to remove the provision of the MOU which creates the employee problem in the first place — the dismantling of the MSA’s role at Camden Yards.

Under current terms of the MOU, the MSA’s statutory role managing the Camden Yards complex is eliminated. By doing so, the Orioles will control how billions of taxpayer dollars are spent with no oversight by the MSA staff, the board of the MSA and, most importantly, the Board of Public Works. This is unheard of. Meanwhile, the Orioles would, solely, decide how maintenance on the stadium will be done and how much they will spend on it annually with no MSA oversight.

Eliminating the MSA’s and BPW’s historic functions means no state-run procurements, no goals for Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) participation and no requirements for prevailing wage.

If the Orioles do not maintain the stadiums properly, the taxpayers of Maryland will once again be on the hook for the additional money to correct these problems. Because of the parity clause in both team leases, the Ravens will derive this exact same benefit — from state coffers. Essentially, both teams will have the benefits of ownership of the stadiums without any controls by the taxpayers who actually do own them.

Rather than accepting adhesive bandages for employees, negotiators must address the most egregious issue — the elimination of the MSA and BPW oversight of Oriole Park. This should be a non-starter. MSA stands, and has stood, in the shoes of the taxpayers and protected their interests since it was formed in 1986. The results speak for themselves.

— Thomas Kelso, Phoenix

The writer served as chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority from 2015 to 2023.

Pay more attention to growing US debt burden

First, props to The Baltimore Sun for printing the commentary, “U.S. credit gets downgraded as signs of default become clearer” (Nov. 17). This issue, which might be understood by 1% of Americans, will hurt us way more than climate change within the next 25 years.

When tax rates have to go north of 75%, everyone will ask, “What the hell is this? Why didn’t George W. Bush have a war tax for his Iraq and Afghanistan invasions? Why was Barack Obama spending wildly and paying zero attention to the Simpson-Bowles fiscal responsibility and reform plan? Why did Donald Trump have a tax cut to help the well off that added $2.5 trillion to the debt? And why didn’t Trump and Joe Biden have a COVID-19 tax?”

Make no mistake, members of Congress are at fault for all this, too — both Democrats and Republicans!

I will be long gone when this day of reckoning happens, but I feel sorry for my kids and everyone’s kids.

— Lyle Rescott, Marriottsville

Give Sheila Dixon a chance

People in Baltimore are really big on giving criminals second chances. Criminals can be trained to do certain work and go on and make a good life of themselves and even better, a criminal that already has the experience, and proven experience, should be given a second chance to make amends for their transgressions.

I don’t like calling Sheila Dixon a criminal, but she has committed a crime (“Baltimore doesn’t need a criminal in City Hall,” Nov. 30). It wasn’t a huge crime, but it wasn’t that small a crime considering she was an elected official. Everyone makes mistakes, and I think we should give Sheila Dixon a second chance, besides, if not for the gift card incident, she would’ve gone down as one of the better mayors for Baltimore City.

I think we should give her a chance to go ahead and fix Baltimore, and finally realize our vision of Baltimore from way back when. She’s the best option I see that we have right now. So Baltimore, practice what you preach, and give her a second chance, and I think everything will turn out much better than it is now. I don’t see how it could get any worse.

— Jeff Rew, Columbia