The Baltimore City Council has certainly been busy in recent days. On Monday night, a majority voted to ban gas-powered leaf blowers beginning after the fall of 2026 out of growing concern over air and noise pollution. There is a new push to buy up blighted vacant properties, boosted in no small part by Gov. Wes Moore’s executive order, which was signed just last week, along with millions of dollars in state funding. And the council will soon consider a related measure to boost the property tax applied to vacant buildings to discourage investors who are content to see neighborhoods fall into rack and ruin. None of these are bad ideas. The goals of all are quite worthy, yet they are also potentially complex and challenging — particularly when considering other recent events in the news.

An underground explosion and fire on Charles Street last month has been devastating for local businesses like Viva Books and Mick O’Shea’s Irish Pub. “Closed, really due to the fact that the powers that be failed to maintain infrastructure. Not our fault,” explains a sign posted on the front door of O’Shea’s. Over the summer, the city’s inspector general found public works employees were put at risk as they worked during a heatwave without access to water, ice or fans, let alone air conditioning. Soon after, the city had to temporarily shut down trash collection to provide heat stress training. Meanwhile, nearly one-fifth of that same solid waste workforce lacks health insurance and it appears many were simply unaware of the benefit or how to sign up for it. By any standard, that’s an appalling combination.

Let’s throw in one more factor. Just this week, the inaugural poll of the fledgling Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, was released, and it found most Marylanders don’t want to see higher taxes. No surprise there, given the national economic mood, but it also found that most don’t want expanded state services either. Not only did 40% say they want taxes and services to stay the same, an additional 36% prefer lower taxes and fewer services. Given the current fiscal challenges facing state government — including a projected potential budget shortfall of $3 billion in the coming years — one can see the challenge of advancing Baltimore’s Red Line or even maintaining Blueprint for Maryland’s Future school funding. Maryland may be one of the nation’s more Democratic-leaning states, but its tolerance for expanded government is not limitless.

None of that is to suggest Baltimore should settle for less. It means city residents should really be demanding more — beginning with a government that is getting all the little things right. And let’s not mislead about how “little” those things are. Failing underground infrastructure is hardly the only sore point. There remain concerns about lead pipes, for example, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants all pipes made with the hazardous material replaced in the next ten years, a challenge for a city that isn’t even quite sure exactly where they are. Knocking on doors to get more residents to test their pipes isn’t sexy (it probably won’t be bragged about on campaign handouts like the expectation of billions of dollars to buy up vacants in the next 15 years will be) but it can have an enormous impact on public health.

It’s natural for politicians to look to the new, the bigger, the brighter, the bolder. And it’s certainly easy for Baltimoreans, particularly those whose neighborhoods have been victims of redlining and similar forms of racial segregation, to fear the acceptance of the status quo. We get that. But providing better services, getting those little things right, isn’t the status quo at all and that’s exactly the problem. We need a city where all streets are cleaned, trash is picked up everywhere, all water and sewer services are in good working order, and, yes, landlords are held to account when their properties are not maintained. This doesn’t always require reinventing the wheel. Sometimes, it requires city government, including its mayor and city council members, to hold their employees accountable.

As a certain impatient former mayor used to say: “Do it now!” But let’s make sure those employees know they can have decent, affordable health insurance, too, OK? When people are confident City Hall is firing all cylinders, that’s when they may be more inclined to commit to some upgrades.