Two Rivers Park -- Save the date!

We have big plans for the afternoon of Saturday, September 16th as we look to have the "Grand Opening" of the new (and improved) Two Rivers Park.

However, we need YOU to make the day complete. So, come on out, share a cup of coffee or two, bring your camera, and let's have some fun!

Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse (SBER), as part of their James W. Rouse Community Service Day (scoll down to look at the project description) will be providing materials, labor, and the finishing touches required to "finish the park." Between now and the 16th, you'll see trees, benches, new greening, and other suprise touches to the park.

Here's the outline of events:

8am -- Coffee & Donuts (Come early since the good donuts go first!)
8:00 am - 11:30 am -- Plant trees & flower beds along with the installation of the benches and the trash can.
11:30 am -- Lunch (Lunch will be provided by SBER!)
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm -- Finish planting and site cleanup.

[Note: The park derives its name from its location...near the corner of S. Potomac and Hudson Streets.]

New CCA Public Meeting Location!

[Click on the photo (at right) for more information about the United Evangelical Church.]

The Canton Community Association is proud to announce that beginning in September our new public meeting location will be the United Evangelical Church, located at the corner of Dillon Street and S. East Avenue. CCA expresses its gratitude to the Reverend Cathy Oatman for her generosity, and for continuing United Evangelical's long history of supporting the community. (For the blog entry on our previous meeting location, please click here.)

The first public meeting in our new location will take place on Tuesday, September 26th (doors open at 6:30 pm, meeting starts at 7:00 pm). The focus of the meeting will be on the 21224 Rezoning initiative that is currently underway and Councilman Kraft and representatives from the Department of Planning will be present to answer your questions and go over what the new changes mean to you. For a complete listing of our upcoming events, click here.

To see a map and get detailed directions to our new meeting location, please click here.

2418 Fleet Street

The City Paper has another article highlighting the suspect building practices and code violations that are seemingly all too common in Canton. This article, along with a previous two-part City Paper story that we featured here, are "must" reading.

Read the latest article on 2418 Fleet Street here.

Canton Dog Park News

Recently, the Canton Dog Park, a subcommittee of the CCA, elected a new slate of leaders. Due to an impending move, Cathi Webster stepped down from her position as President and the following individuals were nominated and duly elected:

Officers:
President - Gina Schwind
Vice President - Anthony Perillo
Secretary - Ann Christman
Financial Manager - Aileen Flynn

Committee Chairs:
Fundraising - Pauline Houliaras
Maintenance - Beth Christman
Rules - Anthony Perillo

Immediate Past President - Cathi Webster

Our thanks to one and all. Be sure and say "hi" when you see them at the park!

CCA E-mail Lists

Sign up for one (or all!) of our e-mail lists to stay "in the know" with what's going on in Canton. We have one list for CCA General Announcements, a second list specifically for the Canton Dog Park, and a third (and our newest) for all of the latest news and information specifically about Two Rivers Park, the neighborhood's latest public park project.

Complete subscription information along with our privacy statement can be found here.

Sign up today and get involved!

Patterson Park Flea Market

Date: September 16 Saturday (9 am - 3 pm).

Details: If you want to sell your wares at the event, you need to reserve a space. Spaces are $20.00 each. If you want to browse & potentially buy, admission is $1.00.

Music by the Paul Synder Trio

Hot Food & Cold Drinks

More than 50 vendors are expected

Get your spot today!

Contact Information: For more information, please contact our friends in Butcher's Hill at 410-675-0148 or visit their web site.

Baltimore City, League of Women Voters

The Baltimore City League of Women Voters would like to remind you of the following 2006 State Legislative Candidate Forums. For a complete list of forums please visit their web site.

All forums 7 to 9 p.m.
• Come • Ask Questions!

There's no excuse to be an uninformed voter!

46th District
Thursday, September 7-sponsored by the Baltimore City League of Women Voters
Locust Point Recreation Center, 1647 Fort Avenue

Other forums include:

3rd Congressional Candidate Forum
Wednesday, August 30--sponsored by HARBEL
Good Samaritan Hospital, 5601 Loch Raven Blvd

U.S. Senate Candidates Televised Forum
Thursday, August 31-sponsored by LWVMD
Watch it at 7:00 p.m.on Maryland Public Television

U.S. Senate Candidates
Tuesday, September 5 - sponsored by LWVMD
Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, 7401 Park Heights Avenue

Maryland's Most Wanted!

OK, now that we have your attention, we'd like to direct you to the Enoch Pratt's web site:

Calling all good citizens! The Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library / State Library Resource Center has a number of unidentified photographs in one of its collections and we are asking your help in identifying them. All the photographs were taken in the state of Maryland in the 20th century, but in many cases that's all we know.

If you can help identify some neat, old photos from the Baltimore of yesterday, please click here.

Good luck!

Faith Community of St. Casimir special memorial service Mass

For the past several years the Faith Community of St. Casimir has celebrated a special memorial service Mass. The events of September 11, 2001 are recalled along with the many victims of that terrible attack and all those who have since then, given their lives at home and abroad, protecting us and guarding our freedoms. In addition to those who have died, those who continue to put their lives on the line; members of the Fire Department and Police Department and those who serve in the military are also honored.

Those members of the Fire Department, Police Department and the military who are able to come to this special Mass are asked to come in their uniforms and to walk in procession at the beginning of the ceremony. After the Mass folks are invited to stay for refreshments in the Kolbe Center (which is the parish hall).

This year the celebration will take place on Sunday, September 10 at 5:00 pm. St. Casimir Church is located at 2736 O’Donnell Street at Kenwood Avenue. If you are able to attend, please contact the parish office at (410) 276-1981 so that we will be able to make the proper preparations. If you have any questions, please speak with Mrs. Bernadette Vece, the Pastoral Assistant, at the parish office.

Dypski Tot Lot follow-up meeting

As a follow-up to an earlier post, if anyone is interested in participating with a group of citizens and local officials in discussing what improvements can and should be made to the Dypski Tot Lot should come to a meeting on Wednesday, August 30, starting at 6pm at the FutureCare building (Boston Street & S. Ellwood Avenue).

How to stop home delivery of The Examiner

The Examiner, Baltimore's newest daily newspaper, is delivered free of charge. While most folks probably love receiving a free newspaper, it's not necessarily for everyone.

If you would no longer like to receive The Examiner, please call Mr. Ray Hamilton toll-free at (800) 387-6090.

Irish Festival @ Canton Waterfront Park

The City has authorized an Irish Festival at the Canton Waterfront Park for September 15th (6 pm - 9 pm) & 16th (Noon - 9 pm). Click here to check out the web site for more information.

21224 Zoning Task Force Update!

As many of you know, Councilman Kraft has been facilitating a rezoning effort in the 1st District since last year. (Last year the focus was on the western part of the district, this year it is the eastern part of the district.)

You are invited to come hear about and voice your comments on the zoning, land use and conservation district guideline recommendations made by the 21224 Zoning Task Force.

Wednesday, September 13 at Hampstead Hill Academy (500 S. Linwood) from 7 pm - 8:30 pm.

Monday, September 18 at Salem Methodist Church (3403 Gough Street) from 7 pm - 8:30 pm.

Check out the CCA Calendar for complete information.

For a comprehensive overview of what has happened thus far and what is to come, please check out Councilman Kraft's website. (Scroll down on the page and look for the yellow box.)

Sign O' The Times.

Here's a positive sign for you (pun intended) along Aliceanna Street. How creative and innovative to get BP to partner with the City on these attractive, useful signs? The CCA has long advocated for a targeted educational campaign in our schools that would address the larger issue that any trash thrown out in the City (and north up through Towson) all ends in the Harbor. The new signs are a good first step. Our friends at the Baltimore Harbor Watershed Association can give you more information. They've been working diligently on the new trash netting system here in Canton and on other water/harbor related issues.

Views + Height = Fight.

Jill Rosen, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, had a great article in Friday's paper highlighting the contentious development issues taking place right now over in Federal Hill and a follow-up article in Saturday's paper, summarizing the hearing that took place all day on Friday. (The results of the hearing should be known within two weeks or as quickly as possible given the interest in the case.)

Federal Hill's issues are our issues. All of us work with the same Department of Planning, the same Planning Commissioners, and the same City Government. The City has a good problem on its hands, namely, how to effectively and competently manage growth. What happens in Federal Hill certainly won't stay in Federal Hill.

Dypski Tot Lot Meeting!

For years, Cornell Dypski represented the 46th District of Baltimore (Canton & Southeast Baltimore) with distinction. In fact, the "tot lot" located in the 1200 block of S. Ellwood Avenue is named after Delegate Dypski.

Unfortunately, the "tot lot" has seen its share of problems lately. Join your neighbors, elected officials, and many others as we meet to discuss this important issue.

--

Wednesday, August 9, 2006
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
At Du Burns Arena, Harbor Hall
1300 South Ellwood Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21224

The original announcement reads:

"Join Councilman Jim Kraft, Representatives from Baltimore Homeless Services, Southeast Police, the Department of Public Works, Canton Community Association, the Mayor's Office, the Department of Recreation and Parks, and your fellow concerned neighbors to deal with community concerns regarding Dypski Park."

Collapse!

Just in case you missed it, the City Paper has run two very important and timely features on an engineer who works a great deal in Southeast Baltimore, John Elder. In the four plus years I have been involved with the CCA, Mr. Elder has never, ever been asked to come to the community to discuss his projects in the hopes of gaining our support which is absolutely amazing since the sheer volume of his work alone should make him a very familiar face in Canton, Fells Point, and elsewhere. But that is not the case. Perhaps now that will change.

Part 1 can be found here.
Part 2 can be found here.

Water Bills are now on the Web!

Public Works Director George L. Winfield today announced that citizens will now be able to look up water bill account information from the city’s website. This customer service improvement will not only benefit property owners, but also mortgage and title companies who often need to acquire detailed water bill data quickly for multiple properties for transactions involving title transfers. To make it easy to pay your bill, the site also provides a clickable link to the City’s payment processing service provider.

Through this new web feature, Baltimore water customers can view such account information as the current and previous water bill balance, previous meter reading dates, amount and date of last payment and penalties, if applicable.

Baltimore City receives some 20,000 calls per month related to water bill questions. This new service should greatly reduce this number. To access this data from the web, customers will need to know either the account number or the exact address of the water service about which they are inquiring. The names of account holders are not provided through this system.

This new and improved feature is available online now -- click here to go to the web site!

For additional information, citizens should call 311 or contact water customer service at 410-396-5398.

Get involved - CCA's Economic Development Committee

If you're concerned about building and development issues in the neighborhood (what we like to call the "White Marshing of Canton"), then the CCA's Economic Development Committee (EDC) is for you. The EDC meets approximately once a month to discuss development plans with homeowners, developers, and the City. Come on out & find out what's going on in the neighborhood. More info can be found on the EDC's web site.

Our next meeting is Monday, August 7th at 3500 Boston Street (the Broom Factory building), room 235. The meeting starts at 6:30 pm. No reservations are required -- just show up and tell us what you think.

Bookmark the docket of the Baltimore City's Board of Municipal & Zoning Appeals. A new docket is published approximately every two weeks. The City's BMZA web site is the place to go to find out what projects are going before the Board, looking for approval.

Gracias, Amigos!

The "Three Amigos" event held on July 16th was a big success. THANK YOU for supporting the Canton Dog Park, Two Rivers Park, and yes, the CCA.

Go here for more info (pictures of the event will be forthcoming shortly and they'll be posted on the page when we have them).