City needs to make better use of BOPA and similar organizations

The decision to defund the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts seems to have been a longtime coming (“Baltimore moves to terminate its contract with financially strained BOPA,” Oct. 16). The fact that Mayor Brandon Scott talks about BOPA’s setbacks as having taken place “in recent months” means either he was out of the loop on a longstanding problem or his staffers were unaware of it or unwilling to alert him to the problem.

This means the structure of a process that has long served the citizens of Baltimore needs careful recalibration. The article points out the long history of the “quasi-public” non-profit agencies utilizing baseline public funding to reach civic goals while raising millions more in private support. They were used in Baltimore by clever mayors to implement public policy goals outside the constraints of bureaucracy and to do so they recruited staff and volunteers on boards who met deadlines and acted creatively because they were talented, non-corruptible, beyond politics and trusted to think outside the box.

Goals were created for downtown development and community improvement and festivals and educational innovation, as well as broad-based arts programs, and these goals were most often met and exceeded. I write from experience serving in such activities for Mayors Thomas D’Alesandro III, William Donald Schaefer and Kurt Schmoke.

There were inevitable showdowns with some mayors but they were largely done quietly. The product mattered much more than anybody’s political reputation. And the people hired to run things were usually beyond first rate. Bill Gilmore, who had retired from BOPA, was a typically able boss. Why were his replacements unable to continue his success?

If times are changing and newly structured administrative ideas are available, we need to know specifically and clearly what’s being done and who is in day-to-day control. The “quasi publics” such as Charles Center Inner Harbor Management created our downtown renaissance, and BOPA helped broaden community access to arts and culture. Those are just two of many examples. Mayor Scott owes the citizens a clear and open plan and to demonstrate clarity and broad-based administrative savvy in who he puts in charge and who he recruits to fill volunteer advisory boards and committees.

— Stan Heuisler, Baltimore

Wrong to provide undocumented help not extended to all

Regarding Elizabeth Anne English’s recent letter to the editor, “Catholic voters face moral quandary on immigration” (Oct. 25), Pope Francis may well have said that “the potential treatment of immigrants is a moral issue of equal importance to that of abortion.” I haven’t read the Pope’s statement myself but, for the sake of argument, I will take her word for it. Nor have I read of the mistreatment of any immigrants. Perhaps she could site examples of when and where this mistreatment has occurred. If it has happened, that is, indeed, unacceptable!

However, I noticed that the author doesn’t differentiate between immigrants who have entered our country through legal avenues and those who have entered illegally. And that is a very important distinction. And before anyone makes an incorrect assumption, I’m not suggesting that anyone should be mistreated. I just haven’t heard of that type of behavior occurring — at the border or elsewhere. In fact, the undocumented receive humanitarian aid in addition to many benefits.

When they enter the country, such individuals are often given housing, cash or gift cards and bus or airfare to requested destinations. Other benefits are extended as well. In California, by way of example, all undocumented qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program, and are able to get a driver’s licenses. I would say that this “treatment” is more than fair considering these immigrants have entered the United States illegally.

Furthermore, I’m quite certain that immigrants who’ve entered the country legally do not receive these same types of benefits. And to take it one step further, many current U.S. citizens do not receive them either. In my mind, that is the most blatant example of “mistreatment” I’ve ever heard!

— Theresa Toni, Street