Public Private Partnerships have their downsides

traffic_congestion.jpegThe wonders of the Public-Private Partnership (P3) have their skeptics, like columnist Frank DeFilippo here. What seems a handy way to offload expensive state projects (like toll lanes on I-495 and I-270) onto the private sector (wait, just why do they have all the money, again?) may turn out to cost users and leave the public on the hook for boneheaded decisions by private business.



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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, June 10, 2019

It’s summer; maybe you think it’s a sleepy time – but our issues are still on the front burner, and so is our activism. Our activists are training on the Shore this weekend to build power across the state; info about that and future training opportunities below; check it out.

 We work for environmental justice , reform of the criminal justice/policing system and cutting the school-to-prison pipeline, fair elections that loosen the grip of big money on our politics, and reform of the systems that keep our families trapped in poverty in the midst of wealth. Read more about our issues here.



 

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Maryland to Alabama, a "secret sauce" for progressive organizing develops

pm_folks_with_banner.jpgMoCo activists will remember Justin Vest, one of the first organizers in the PMD Montgomery chapter, who relocated his growing family back to his home state of Alabama a few years ago to apply his insights to organizing there. “As Progressive Maryland expanded into more rural areas after 2016,” Vest relates here,  “I started to realize just how similar rural Maryland was to places I knew very well in Alabama.” Leigh Friedman of Progressive Breakfast has the story.



 

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As Hogan interstate plan approaches vote, biggest local pushback yet

traffic_congestion.jpegA proposal to privatize the building of new lanes on I-495 and I-270 in Maryland – to be paid for with tolls collected by the private companies – is facing big-time local opposition in advance of a vote tomorrow (Wednesday, June 5). Three officials, including swing vote Comptroller Peter Franchot, will rule on whether a mixed-mode transit plan or a cars-only congestion infusion is in our Beltway future. Read more here.



 

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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, June 3, 2019

PM_Logo.pngPublic planning's importance, our next training (nearer the beach!) and activism in summer, when progressives get some fresh air. All in the Weekly Memo... check it out.



 

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Weekender: Co-Governing Puts Us ‘In the Room Where It Happens’

people's_action_logo.pngVeteran Chicago and People's Action organizer David Hatch examines what the emerging strategy of "co-PM_Logo.pnggovernance is coming to mean in practice:  co-governance means that once elected, officials will continue to listen to and actively work with our communities – rather than corporate lobbyists – to draft policies and move them forward, together. We don't vote and then turn our backs, and neither should the folks we vote into office. Thoughts for the first weekend of June, 2019 from Progressive Breakfast at People's Action.



 

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Financial Setup of Hogan Toll Lane Plan Raises New Questions

hogan_in_shades.jpgGov. Hogan's gauzy plans for a free Interstate upgrade courtesy of the slippery public-private partnership dodge has significant big risks for Maryland taxpayers written right into the contract documents, as transit activist Benjamin Ross outlines here in a Maryland Matters opinion article. All this free stuff may have a high price after all, and the Board of Public Works should definitely turn this scam down when it comes up next week.

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What we don’t think about when we think of incarceration as a solution

rusty_lock.jpgIf we think of incarceration as a solution to problems of criminal justice, we need to think about the whole picture, which amounts to a series of traps experienced by those who have "paid their debt to society." As we know, employers can still screen out criminal records with one check-box on the application -- and Gov. Hogan just last week vetoed a bill that would ban that practice. PM activist Dave Bazell gives a close-up picture of all the ways that a "debt to society" is very, very hard to completely satisfy, and how it affects poor and working families.

See also the Job Opportunities Task Force's detailed study of how Maryland carries out the "Criminalization of Poverty."



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Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Tuesday, May 28, 2019

MovementPoliticsTeambannermay2018.jpgSummer begins but our issues are no less urgent. Read about Gov. Larry's trickle of vetoes, a petition to stop private police forces, and news of our activities and those of our progressive allies.



 

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People's Wave next steps -- a plan for building power and winning

people's_action_logo.pngWhether you attended the People’s Wave (April 28-30), watched some or all on livestream or learned about it after the fact, it set a substantive agenda for progressive political action in the 2020 election cycle and beyond. And it's all at your fingertips right here.



 

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