Trump and fracking, held at arm’s length

Nobody asked me, but Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to keep his distance from Donald J. Trump is the correct one for a Republican governor enjoying sustained popularity in a blue state or, for that matter, any GOP leader who thinks the party has gone off the tracks by nominating the boorish billionaire for president.

Hogan owes no apology to the state’s Republican establishment for refusing to endorse Trump. He’s no fool. He’s a businessman aware that a Trump victory could, among other things, destabilize the economy, even set off a recession. And that would force Hogan, while seeking re-election in 2018, to make the kind of hard fiscal choices his Democratic predecessor, Martin O’Malley, had to make. Not a good situation.

One more thing about this: Party insiders who resent that Hogan’s position on Trump has been reported in the press over the last several weeks wouldn’t know a news story if it crawled up their legs.

Sorry, one more: Hogan might say he has no interest in presidential politics, but I’ll give two reasons why he should: Federal funds for the highway work at Port Covington and for the expansion of the Howard Street Tunnel. Plus, if the 2016 election turns out to be a catastrophe for the GOP, Hogan could be the kind of Republican who helps the party rebuild and return to reason.

Nobody asked me, but we should give a standing ovation to the Town Council of Friendsville, on the banks of the mighty Youghiogheny River in Garrett County, for being a mouse that roared on the subject of hydraulic fracking in Western Maryland. Hogan has called fracking “an economic gold mine,” but apparently Friendsville doesn’t see it that way. The council voted to ban fracking for natural gas within the town, all 0.91 square miles of it. The vote was 5-1. That’s just about one vote for the ban for every 100 residents.

“We are doing all we can to protect our citizens and our resources,” council member Jess Whittemore told the Chesapeake Bay Journal. “But the only way to fully protect Friendsville and the rest of Maryland is to ban fracking statewide.”

Nobody asked me, but despite the every-day violence across the city, and despite rumors of a “blue flu” among cops in post-Freddie Gray Baltimore, some progress is being made by police and federal authorities. For one thing, Operation Ceasefire appears to finally be gaining some traction. Anthony McCarthy, spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, says the two police districts where Ceasefire is active, the Western and Eastern, have seen reductions in homicides. In addition, Ceasefire reported a significant reduction in arrests among the ex-offenders, including gang members, whom the program targeted for intervention and support. Several of them have sought Ceasefire’s help in turning away from violent crime through job programs and mentoring.

Also, one year after he established a “war room” to coordinate the targeting of violent offenders with federal agencies, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis reported that 566 suspects on a list of “trigger pullers” had been taken off the streets. Most were arrested at some point during the last year; some already have made bail. The key test for long-term results — that is, a sustained reduction in homicides across the city over the coming years — will be in the prosecution of these cases, many of them involving firearms offenses, by the office of the Baltimore state’s attorney. More of the office’s veteran prosecutors should soon be free to focus on these cases.

One more thing: Several of the people identified by the “war room” as suspects in gun violence turned up as victims of it. Of those who were arrested and made bail within the last year, two were shot but survived their wounds, only to be shot a second time, fatally. Eleven in all were wounded by gunfire. Seven were killed outright, according to Davis. In addition, more than 50 suspects who were on the “triggerpuller list,” but not arrested during the last year, were shot — 32 fatally and 20 nonfatally, according to Davis. More grim evidence of the risks guys run when they remain in Baltimore’s gangs and street life.

Nobody asked me, but people who dump on the idea of an off-road park for the dirt bikers of Baltimore — and there are many of you — need to come up with some alternatives, or just watch quietly from a distance while we figure this out. Law enforcement (arrest and confiscation) alone will not solve the problem. Dismissing a bike park as a dumb idea or a “reward” for bad behavior won’t do it, either. Calling all the dirt bikers “thugs” isn’t helping.

Something I mentioned in last Sunday’s column got some appreciative buzz: Shutting down the Highway to Nowhere, the stretch of Interstate 70 in the Franklin-Mulberry corridor on the west side, for three hours once a week and forcing the bikers to ride only there. Other suggestions welcome.