Whose Money?

I was reading the “Sweepstakes Take” article (Mobtown Beat, May 9) and City Councilman Robert Curran’s quote that “I want MY $2,200 per machine” (capitalized by me for emphasis). Mr. Curran is a member of one of Maryland’s most powerful political families and has been on the City Council since 1995, so perhaps he needs a lesson on how the “real world” works.

It’s not YOUR money. It’s the people’s money and as an elected official you are merely a steward of it.

Given the city’s current financial mess—including a multimillion-dollar deficit and a shrinking tax base—you have not been a good steward of the people’s money, but the blame cannot be placed solely on you. Your fellow City Council members and the Mayor are just as complicit, if not more so. Please be careful as to how you use “my” and “money” in the same sentence given your current situation, sir. Now, more then ever, people are watching—and reading.

B. Scott Patrick

Owings Mills

Corrections: A caption in our May 9 feature about a mural project in Station North attributed a mural of two boys on bikes at Latrobe Street and Lafayette Avenue to Jetsonorama. It is, in fact, a collaboration between Jetsonorama and Nanook.

An article in the same issue, about artist D’metrius Rice, stated that Rice was mugged in February 2010 and spent a week and a half at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The incident in fact occurred in late summer 2010, and Rice spent three weeks at Hopkins. The pieces in his show date from February 2011, not 2010.

City Paper regrets the errors.

Not-the-Editor’s note: After more than 17 years with City Paper, Editor Lee Gardner has moved on. He is leaving to get the down low on the halls of higher learning as senior editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C. Lee first came to Baltimore from Knoxville, Tenn., where he wrote for the Metro Pulse. Over almost two decades at City Paper he was the music editor, the arts editor, and, for the last 10 years, the paper’s main editor. Lee’s love of the Baltimore art scene, particularly its music and film, left an indelible mark on both our coverage and the scene itself. Lee also showed a commitment to hard news and investigative journalism that is increasingly rare in the newspaper business. The Chronicle is gaining an insightful and creative writer and editor and we wish Lee as many happy and successful years there as he had with us.

A new editor is on the way.