Secret raise, bonus show flaws of Md. higher ed
The award of a secret bonus and raise to University of Maryland Chancellor Robert Claret of $105,000 above his current $600,000 salary (plus housing, car and driver) is symbolic of how higher education has gone off the rails (“University System of Maryland chancellor awarded bonus and raise in secret meeting,” June 15).
The key quote attempting to justify the action came from Board of Regents vice chair Barry Gossett:
“The board’s approval of Chancellor Claret’s 2017 salary and performance bonus acknowledges his excellent leadership of a dynamic and complex organization that encompasses 12 institutions and drives economic development in our state,” Mr. Gossett said.
Get it? Economic development, not education. It’s all about the money these days.
How many non-teaching administrators in this “dynamic complex organization” make $200,000 or more? Meanwhile tuition is going up another 2 percent, and students are either dropping out for lack of money or heavily mortgaging their futures with burdensome student loans.
The Board of Regents obviously knew they were doing the wrong thing because they did it in secret and, more importantly, kept it a secret until a reporter found out and questioned their actions.
They were rightly ashamed of what they had done; it’s too bad they weren’t ashamed enough not to do it. Larry Carson, Columbia
End the silence over gun violence
Another day, another young black man shot dead in Baltimore City (“Former high school basketball state champ, young father shot fatally in Northeast Baltimore,” June 15).
I was struck by the words of this man’s high school coach: “If you’re a young black male in Baltimore City, your clock is ticking.”
That’s why the coach encouraged his star player to join the military. How sad that young men have a better chance of surviving military service than of staying in their community.
We have almost 90 gun deaths every day in this country. That’s almost two Orlandotype shootings every single day. And many of the victims live in inner cities.
It is way beyond time to do something about this. We are not talking about taking away anybody’s right to have a gun. But when young men have to join the army (where semi-automatic rifles and handguns belong) just to get away from the streets (where such guns do not belong), there is a massive problem.
No more silence, no more prayers. It is way beyond time for action — from Congress, at the state level and from all of us. Edo Banach
Treat bikers as gang members
Prior to the latest two incidents resulting in personal injuries and assault, Baltimore’s dirt bikers were more of an intrusive nuisance than a legitimate safety and injury threat (“Dirt bikers ‘getting out of hand,’ Baltimore City Council president says,” June 14). But given their blatant disregard for traffic laws and any show of civility on our city streets, it was inevitable that their actions would result in terrible harm to innocent victims.
This will happen again. I can understand the city’s “no-pursue” policy, but I contend there are other options, especially given the level of danger on our streets and the overall negative impact on the city’s image. These dirt biker gangs (an appropriate term for any organized group of persistent lawbreakers) are not entirely random individuals. They are organized and identifiable, and they have crossed the line — inflicting serious hit-and-run (potentially lifelong) injury to an 18-year-old and physically assaulting and hospitalizing an innocent citizen.
Surely our police officers know these individuals, especially their leaders. We need to treat them the same as any other organized crime group — drug gangs, theft rings, etc. — and use the same police tactics to put pressure on their leadership, obtain information from informants and other gang-related police actions.
Absent any legitimate threat of this sort, we will only see this activity continue and result in further injuries, assaults and most likely deaths to innocent citizens and visitors. Jerry Cothran, Baltimore