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16 THE BALTIMORE SUN NEWS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2016 RESPOND EDITORIALS Is DeRay for real? Our view: Whether he is the best candidate for mayor remains to be seen, but the Black Lives Matter activist's platform deserves to be taken seriously I 1 hen DeRay Mckesson, a 30-year-old Black Lives Matter activist, filed at the last moment for Baltimore mayor, the city's political establishment was well justified in asking, is this guy for real? Is he going to run a legitimate campaign, or is he going to tweet a bunch and lap up the love in the national media? Tweet a bunch, he has done, though one gets the impression that's like saying he's breathed a bunch in the last couple of weeks. Love in the national media? Check. Starting with a story in The New York Times and, an hour later, a beyond-fawning profile of his decision to run by a Washington Post reporter who had embedded with his proto-campaign, and then including accounts in The Atlantic, Slate, NPR, The Guardian, he's been everywhere. But he's done something else, too, and that's issue an extensive set of policy proposals on education, economic development, public safety, health, the environment, arts and more that at least rival and in some cases easily surpass those from so-called mainstream candidates in their depth and scope. They are ambitious and leave gaps in some key points, particularly in terms of how the city is going to pay for them or get lawmakers in Annapolis and Washington to support them where necessary, though Mr.

Mckesson is hardly the only candidate to be guilty of that sin But what's surprising about the platform, given how recently Mr. Mckesson has arrived on the scene, is the depth of knowledge it displays about how things have been done in this city and how they could be done differently. His ideas aren't always the right ones or necessarily better than those proffered by other candidates, but they're no joke either. Though Mr. Mckesson is ranning as an outsider, his proposals are in certain respects less radical than what other candidates are proposing.

City Councilman Carl Stokes, for example, wants to require that all developments awarded incentives like a payment in lieu of taxes or tax increment financing include a community benefits agreement Mr. Mckesson, by contrast, wants to encourage such agreements, not require them, while "rigorously" evaluating TIFs and PILOTs to ensure they are necessary and that their costs and benefits are clearly spelled out He notes the limitations presented by the city-state co-appointment of city school board members, but unlike businessman David Warnock, he doesn't call a hybrid electedappointed board, nor full mayoral control of the schools, as state Sen Catherine Pugh suggests. Mr. Mckesson wants a $15 minimum wage but on the state level, not just in the city. As might be expected based on his activism since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mr.

Mckesson goes farther than other candidates in some of his ideas for police accountability. For example, he advocates eliminating the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights altogether a goal that is unnecessary and probably counter-productive, in that it could foreclose the possibility of meaningful reforms. But in other respects, he doesn't Like several other candidates, Mr. Mckesson advocates for beefing up Baltimore's Civilian Police Review Board, but he does not go so far as Councilman Nick Mosby to propose making seats on it elected KIMBERLY WHITEGETTY IMAGES FOR GLAAD DeRay Mckesson is a newcomer to Baltimore politics, but his policy proposals are notably detailed. positions.

Mr. Mckesson wants to decriminalize certain nuisance crimes like spitting and open-container violations, and to shift the war on drugs to one centered on public health principles rather than criminal justice. But he doesn't suggest ending arrests for simple possession of marijuana, as attorney Elizabeth Emory does. Mr. Mckesson's plans reveal a grasp of the minutiae of city government His ideas for using city contracting to generate more jobs for city residents rest on detailed knowledge of how City Council President Bernard C.

"Jack" Young's local hiring ordinance works. He is clearly versed on the latest problems that have cropped up for Baltimore for example, the unexpected impact of tax incentives for development on state school funding formulas and on innovative strategies from other cities, such as an effort in San Francisco to seed college savings accounts for children By no means are we saying that Mr. Mckesson is necessarily the best candidate ranning for mayor this year. There are still plenty of questions about whether he has the experience necessary to manage an enterprise as sprawling as the Baltimore City government or whether someone who has risen to prominence as a protester can effectively build support for change from inside the political system Unlike most of the other major candidates in the race, his experience and record have not been thoroughly vetted, and we don't know whether he will be able to run an effective campaign. Nor is the fact that he's issuing policy proposals exceptional.

Mr. Mosby also has a wide-ranging platform, and other candidates are issuing proposals issue-by-issue most recently, Ms. Pugh on public safety and Ms. Dixon on economic development His plans will demand close analysis just like those of the other candidates. But that's just the point His platform is good enough, thoughtful enough and well enough grounded in the realities of Baltimore to warrant consideration next to those of much more experienced and better known candidates.

It may be too soon to say whether DeRay Mckesson is for real, but his ideas certainly are. UMMS is listening to concerns We live in a period of unprecedented, rapid change in the way acute hospital health care services are delivered across our nation, our state and our communities. This has brought issues right to the fore surrounding how our most remote communities, from Oakland to Chestertown to Crisfield, fare in this new era. How do we meet the needs of the most vulnerable in these communities? Our affiliate, Shore Regional Health System, has been working diligently to forge a new regional path for delivering care to the residents of the five Eastern Shore counties residents fighting hospital closure get support of state officials," Feb. 19).

This is tough but exciting business. In the process, many in Chestertown raised their voices and shared their concerns effectively. We stopped. We listened. Recently, we brought our shared concerns to key legislative leaders, Sen.

Thomas M. "Mac" Middleton and Del. Pete Hammen, along with Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Secretary Van Mitchell. The process works. We have a pledge to engage in a process which will evaluate the special challenges facing our most isolated communities.

These gentlemen deserve our praise. Let us hope that a new strategy emerges to which all parties can commit. Our rural counties will be the better for it. Robert Chrencik, Baltimore The writer is president and chief executive officer of the University of Maryland Medical System. Keep politics out of Maryland education Your editorial, "Education politics" (Feb.

18) justifiably expresses alarm that the General Assembly is considering legislation that would place appointment of the State Superintendent of Schools in the political arena. Companion bills, House Bill 570 and Senate Bill 404 (which was due for a floor vote but which has been sent back to committee), would subject the superintendent's appointment of the superintendent to Senate approval. It is ironic that the General Assembly of 1914 was concerned that public schools suffered from political influence and requested an outside study of the governance of the system. The result was the Flexner Commission, named after Abraham Flexner, a noted educator from New York. He concluded that the Maryland system "was infested with the vicissitudes of partisan politics." His recommendations were adopted by the General Assembly in 1916.

The new law established many requirements that still exist a century later, e.g., the 180-day school year and free textbooks. Arguably, the most important reform of the legislation took the appointment of the state superintendent of schools out of the hands of the governor and placed it within the powers of the State Board of Education, the system that exists today. This led to long tenure of state superintendents, including Nancy Grasmick, who was the instructional leader when Maryland schools were rated best or near best in the nation. Why would the General Assembly wish to regress a century? Robert Y.Dubel, Glen Arm The writer is the former superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools. Easy on the tax breaks After reading the article regarding manufacturing incentives, I find myself wondering just who lost their minds down there in Annapolis call bills to lure industry to state unfair," Feb.

23). It is a fact that Maryland has lost a tremendous amount of manufacturing positions and needs to do something to attract them back to our state. However, providing incentives of no property or income taxes for 10 years to new manufactures appears to be a little excessive. And worse is to have a provision in the proposed bill that would allow employees of a relocating company that earn less than $65,000 ayear to also go income tax-free for 10 years. That is absurd.

Not only can this harm companies already here in Maryland, it is a slap in the face for those of us who have worked here our entire careers. Even now in retirement I pay income taxes; maybe I should have moved to Delaware. Bob Eberwein, Middle River Political boobs I had to reread the commentary, "Mencken's 'Boob Dictionary'" (Feb. 19), after I stopped laughing. The "Sage of Baltimore" has, once again, struck from his grave.

The "Boob Dictionary" has hit the proverbial nail on the head with a resounding clang echoing across time and page. The verbal images leap into the mind's view with an extraordinarily brilliance that only HL. Mencken could produce. This op-ed will be saved and savored and its applications put onto future political candidates based on the timbre of their rhetoric, regardless of political stature. The author's closing comment by Mr.

Mencken is similar to a quote made by Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party candidate in the presidential election of 1912: "The American voter knows what he wants. He is just too lazy to go out and vote for it." for one, will carry the "Boob-isms" of Mr. Mencken into the polling booth when I go to cast my vote and may Baltimore's sage have mercy on our collective souls. W. Brooks Riley, Parkville Obamas unfinished business Our view: President should use executive power to close Guantanamo Guantanamo's fate.

But there's little to suggest the Republican-controlled Congress is interested in lifting the ban on bringing detainees to domestic prisons, especially during an election year. There's certainly an irrational element of reflexive fear of allowing detainees into the country, but there's also a fierce partisan unwillingness to do anything that might burnish the president's legacy. Given the political calendar, the chances of Congress lifting the ban on transferring Guantanamo detainees are nil. That is why we urge Mr. Obama to unilaterally use his executive powers as commander-in-chief to close Guantanamo and transfer the remaining detainees to detention facilities in the U.S.

The president recently submitted a plan to move the 40 or so men who can't be tried in U.S. courts or resettled in other countries to secure facilities in the U.S. Possible sites include prisons or military bases in Kansas, South Carolina and Colorado. There is good reason to believe that determining how prisoners of war should be held is within his powers as commander in chief and that it is Congress' effort to prevent him from moving the prisoners, not the exercise of executive authority, that is unconstitutional. The president's only other alternative would be to allow Guantanamo to remain open until his term ends and let the next president figure out what to do with it.

If his successor is Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, the likelihood is that either of them would continue to gradually cull the detainee population at Guantanamo until it no longer made sense to maintain a facility that costs taxpayers $450 million a year to operate. But given that Sen. Ted Cruz favors waterboarding and Donald Trump brags that he would "bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding," the odds of that happening under a Republican president are slim. Mr. Obama should do what's right and take his chances with the courts.

his final year in office, President Barack Obama is once again calling for the closure of the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the government has held enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Mr. Obama vowed during the 2008 campaign to shut down the facility, which he called an embarrassment to our allies and a powerful recruiting tool for our adversaries. Yet he's repeatedly been thwarted by a Congress unwilling to allow the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to prisons in the U.S. With time running out before he leaves office next January, Mr.

Obama should use his power as commander-in-chief to close Guantanamo by executive order and move the detainees to American soil if Congress refuses to act this year. The prisoner population at Guantanamo has steadily fallen since its peak of more than 600 during the Bush era In 2009, when Mr. Obama took office, there were 242 detainees there. Since then the numbers have continued to drop as the administration transferred prisoners to other countries that agreed to hold them or supervise their release. Today there 91 detainees at Guantanamo, of whom the government expects to resettle 35 in other countries this year.

Of the remaining 56 prisoners, 10 have been convicted on terrorism charges or have pending cases, while the rest are considered too dangerous to release but can't be tried in U.S. courts because the evidence against them is weak or because they confessed under torture. Mr. Obama essentially has three alternatives for dealing with the latter group. He could try to persuade Congress to lift the ban on closing Guantanamo and moving the remaining detainees to prisons in the U.S.

He could use his executive power to shut the facility and transfer the prisoners to U.S. soil in hopes that the courts will support him. Finally, he could simply do nothing and allow the next president to determine Talk to us THE BALTIMORE SUN The Baltimore Sun welcomes comments from RICHARD J. DANIELS Publisher CEO readers on subjects of local and national relevance by email, by Twitter or on our Web site, baltimoresun.com. The Sun reserves the right to edit and publish them in the newspaper or on the Web site.

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