Javier Bustamante,
Editor

Editoriales

The Baltimore City Social Club Task Force
In the last couple of months, several city agencies have pooled their inspector resources to show up en masse, unannounced, in a number of drinking establishments and close them at the sight of a minimal infraction. Even in those establishments that were not closed, the commotion and intimidation created by the presence of so many city officials at the same time was enough to scare the customers away, emptying the places.

The idea seems to have emanated from Police Commissioner Kevin Clark whose school of police tactics closely follows New York's, where he learnt it under the administration of Rudolph Giuliani. By going after the small infractions -loitering, drinking outside the premises, underage drinking, selling drug paraphernalia, carrying concealed weapons- the police hopes to deter larger infractions. The tactics seem to work everywhere they have been used and they will probably work in Baltimore too. We elected Mayor O'Malley to get rid of the crime in Baltimore and he is doing his best. He has our support.

Yet, these tactics need to be applied with a scalpel rather than a bulldozer. At a meeting at City Hall with enraged liquor establishment owners victimized by these tactics, the Police Commissioner and the Mayor had to explain the Task Force and were only half way successful. Some of the establishments were closed for lacking towels in the hand receptacles at the bathrooms. Others were "filthy", said a Health Department representative, who then proceeded to tell everyone present that there is no book of health guidelines for liquor establishments. The Mayor, to his credit, asked that these booklets be produced and distributed immediately. He also acknowledged that better communications should have been present from the beginning between the Task Force and the establishment owners.

The Mayor is right on both counts and the tactics are probably right as well. Yet, lack of hand towels do not warrant thousands of dollars lost on a weekend after being closed by the health department. Bad publicity for all the establishments raided will take time to be erased. Other, unpredictable consequences, may come out of these rough tactics. The good side is that the message is out that the police means business.

Nevertheless, the Task Force, having made its point forcefully, needs to tread carefully to protect the businessmen of this city that needs them so badly.

Go after the bad guys, by all means, but be careful not to violate the rights and destroy the businesses of innocent people.

Politics, politics
The last couple of months have seen an outburst of activity by the Hispanic community in the politics of the state of Maryland.

First, the elections accomplished three new victories for Hispanics and one reelection. Ana Sol Gutierez, Victor Ramirez and Tom Perez, all in Montgomery County and all Democrats were elected for the first time. Senator Alex Mooney, an old hand in the Republican party became reelected.

Governor Ehrlich was elected in the same election; the first Republican since Spiro Agnew, 36 years ago to be elected governor of Maryland. With him, a new slew of Hispanic Republicans came out of the woodwork and formed the Maryland Hispanic Republican Caucus which promptly began to make a ruckus (no pun intended). Jorge Ribas was named president and, in less than two months has begun to make noises accusing the new Republican establishment of ignoring the Hispanic community in the political appointment area (surprise, surprise, welcome to real politics!)

After all the work the members of the Caucus have done for the Republican party, not one Hispanic has been named to any of the 125 top political appointments in the state. This is a dismal statistic, one that needs pondering. Yet, we could say that given the paucity of Hispanic talent available in the pipeline for government work, this is not surprising. Most of our talent has traditionally been medical doctors and other science professionals. None has ever shown any interest in politics or government work.

A new generation of Hispanics, either born or educated in this country are now arriving in the political scene. They are businessmen, lawyers, social workers and teachers. They do not speak Spanish or do so haltingly. They consider themselves Hispanic and they know our -their- community. They are beginning to involve themselves in politics, in both parties, and we will soon hear from them. Already Angelo Solera and Antonio Salazar, both Spaniards, one a democrat and the other a Republican, are already running in the hopes of joining those mentioned above. All are counting on the social and political consequences inherent in about 40 million Hispanics already in this country.

Socially, the number of Hispanics is making a big difference in this country. Politically, however we still don't have the number of voters necessary to attract the serious attention of the politicians. Politicians pay lip service to us and, in some increasing instances, they do so even in Spanish. Yet, when the time comes they realize the Hispanic vote is not proportional to its numbers and they don't need to fear retaliation from us at the polls. This is what is happening in Maryland now.

What to do? Well, we can use confrontational tactics or we can try gentle persuasion, particularly when we are on the inside. Maryland Hispanic Republicans appear to be trying the first approach -much as the democrats have done for years. We are afraid such tactics may yield the same results now as they did to the Democrats before. Nothing.

Or we could try gentle persuasion. After all Ehrlich and Steele have been around only since January. They deserve a break. And, Luis Borunda and Charlie Ramos have been appointed to prestigious boards and commissions. And Héctor Torres and Miguel Boluda have been made Executive Director and Outreach Coordinator, respectively, of the Governor's Commission on Hispanic Affairs. Others will follow.

Or so we fervently hope. Democrats have kept us at an arm's length for many years. The Republicans need to understand that our political numbers are growing and so is our political awareness. We may now retaliate against those who ignore us.