By Peter Bowe is the publisher of DredgeWire and former CEO of Ellicott Dredges

Peter A. Bowe says Baltimore needs a fresh face in City Hall

It is an urban myth that Albert Einstein said “the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.“ He did not.

Unfortunately, Baltimore’s urban reality is that our city has suffered by electing members of the political class over and over. We have four unsuccessful mayorships in a row to show for our insanity. It’s time to try something new, electing someone who hasn’t yet served in City Hall, someone whose biggest paycheck hasn’t been as an elected official.

I have traveled to over 40 countries selling dredging equipment built here in Baltimore, and it’s disheartening, shocking even, to hear our reputation around the world. Other than Johns Hopkins, and perhaps crab cakes or the Ravens, when folks think of Baltimore they know us only for "The Wire," "Homicide," Freddie Gray, the riots and especially for our deserved reputation for violent crime. Like it or not, that’s what the world — not just America — thinks of us. That’s what people ask you about when you say you’re from Baltimore — not the Star-Spangled Banner or Under Armour or McCormick or Thurgood Marshall.

The Wall Street Journal this month published a scathing opinion piece about Baltimore noting that “America’s deadliest big city” has a murder rate higher than that of many Central American countries and double that of Mexico. Ouch! Worse, our trends are all getting worse per capita even while obvious comparison data points, like Chicago, St. Louis or Detroit, are improving. With publicity like this, it’s reckless to think we can solve even some of our problems by attracting new business from out of town. That won’t happen until we can show we are making progress on the public safety front.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE